Class Test 1: 60 students with unacceptably low scores (D or worse)
Monthly Archives: October 2013
Being there
Last Thursday, attendance was 60%. That looks like this. Every seat should be taken.
Class Test 2, 2013
Well… things are going in the right direction. Average score was 77%, or 79% excluding the no shows. That’s up a whole grade from Class Test 1…
Fall 2014…and impact
This is the time of year when room bookings for next year have to be made. That’s what determines the size of the class. The original vision of the course was to go big (400+). Each year I have agonized about that and pulled back (2012, 2011). Two things are different this year. It is the first time I have done things just as I did them last year; much to my surprise, I am missing the challenge of something new. And second, I am one of eight CIDD Faculty putting on a MOOC. It launches Tuesday, and we have no idea what will happen. But about 30,000 people, including my Dad, are signed up. Which makes you think. So does getting older. Tick, tick, tick.
Homecoming
One of my jobs is to give students’ new experiences. Tonight, they gave me one. A student from SC200 2012 nominated me for Homecoming Court, a bunch of others voted for me, and before I knew it, I was on the field during the big Penn State-Michigan Homecoming game in front of 107,000 people. I even made the big screen for a nanosecond.
Blog period 1, 2013
The biggest dilemma in Higher Education is to know how hard to stretch students. Students, their past and future families and society as a whole pay for College so students get extended. But how far should we academics stretch them? Increasingly, I think we need to set a bar high enough to make a real difference but not so high that the students get disillusioned by failure. And to do that, we need to ensure that the students know our high expectations and have the resources and help to surpass them. We cheat everyone otherwise.