This went well. A class average of 80% among those who showed.

Altogether, 18 students got an A, including 8 with 100% (on my ask-28-questions-grade-out-of-25 algorithm – again, no one got everything right). The remaining students: A-, 37; B+, 24; B, 16; B-, 17; C+, 12; C, 7; D, 33; Fails, 10; no shows (imagine not even trying!), 12.

The only disappointing question was one revealing that half the class were asleep (or absent) when I talked about cancer rates in elephants and blue whales. They have less cancer than humans even though they have more cells, more cell replication and so more mutation potential. It stands to reason, then, that elephants and whales must have methods for controlling cancer we don’t. If we could work out what they are, we might be able to use them to control cancer in humans.

I also slightly worry that I went on about the dangers of generalizing from an anecdote so much during the semester that the entire class completely dismisses anecdotes as evidence of anything. That’s an over reaction. Anecdotes can mean something: the first person to get cancer from smoking was an anecdote. The second was another anecdote, the third another….  You just have to be super cautious about drawing conclusions from them. But don’t dismiss them altogether. If someone keeps a cell phone in their bra and gets breast cancer, that could mean something…

Both those questions were suggested by students (I give extra credit for suggesting exam questions I use). There was also a question in a previous test suggested by a student which most of the class got wrong. I wonder if the students are better at testing each other’s deep understanding than I am. They might be. Perhaps students learn to get on my wave length rather than to deeply understand the material. Multiple wave length’s might stretch them better. Interesting thought.

Class Test 3 ran yesterday. The class average among those who took the test was 83%, up 5% (half a grade) on the second test, and almost an entire grade on the first test. But as always, the average hardly captures the picture. Most gratifying was the number of great performances. No one got everything right, but five students got 26 out of 28 questions, and 16 got 100% on my ask-28-questions-grade-out-of-25 algorithm. Altogether, 33 students got an A, and another 33 got an A-. So 66 students got some sort of A, a third of the class. So much better than any of the previous tests — and maybe a record for any of the 19 class tests I have run so far (must check).

The rest of the grades broke out thus: 16 B+, 13 B, 25 B-, 18 C+, 24 C, 20 D, with 5 fails. Seven students failed to take the test despite reminder emails.

So this is all going in the right direction. As always, what to do about the students who are not doing well? Unless anyone suggests something else (and I am always, always open to better ideas), the best I can do is repeat what I said here and beg and implore students unhappy with their scores to come to the revision sessions I run. For those who came to a revision session last time and still did poorly, the recipe hasn’t changed. Keep at it. Revise, question, ask. Learning requires action. If it’s not yet working, keep going. I can help. But only if asked. If I could figure out how students could learn without effort, I would be very rich.

Improvement is rewarded on this course. I set the grading algorithm up so that poor performance early on has no impact on the final grade. 

It always amazes me how much better students do on the final exam than they do on the four class tests I run during the semester. Obviously I like to think it is that because my teaching eventually makes an impact. More likely, it is the fact that 20% of the final grade rests on the exam….