I don't know how many of you read the NY Times, but today there was an article posted on an education site that I visit. (Here is the article)
Anyway, the gist of the article is that many college professors are seeing students who believe they are entitled to good grades due to effort rather than meeting the standards. I see this in my K12 classes too. I have a girl in one of my geometry classes that came to me last week and asked why she was failing. I pointed to the 30 she made on a test and suggested that may be part of it. Her response was "But I've done all the work!". I agree, she has done all of the work, not a missing paper in sight - however, the quality of the work is not at a passing level.
I don't know how to fix this, but I do foresee it getting worse before it gets better.
1 comment:
I have experienced this too, many times. The most pointed example was when I was teaching college algebra as a grad student. A girl came to me in tears after the final and said that she had taken the class 3 times and didn't know what to do because she had tried so hard and had done everything she could think of. She said it wasn't fair because other people didn't work nearly as hard as she did and they have A's.
She hadn't passed a single test! I said, "Yes, you have done everything except learn algebra, which is actually the only thing you MUST do to pass this course." Sometimes they just don't get it.
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