There's a big push at my institution to convert traditional 16-week courses into 8-week courses. The super-simplified idea is that a student could be more focused on two double-speed classes at a time, rather than four normal-speed classes.
I'm curious to hear from others (a) whether you are having a similar push and (b) if you think it is a good idea.
I'm reading this while preparing to teach Spring[1] Intersession course (3-week suicidal pace, 1 day = 1 week of regular semester). If you don't hear back from me, it was my pleasure to know you.
But in all seriousness, your blog and your open source materials are immensely helpful. I was considering, but hesitant, to do something similar to #4 on your list of changes. Thanks for pushing me over the fence.
Do I understand it correctly, that you are assessing LTs as via "one and done" method? Is that a permanent change or compromise related to the compressed schedule?
If I do come back after this as a sane human, it will be thanks to the community and the vehicle that my middle schooler will inherit in 2 years will have this carved on the dashboard: "This gift was made possible by David Clark, Robert Talbert, Growth Grading Community, and the students like you"
[1]: Insert your Central California joke here. Roses are past their peak bloom and daily max temperatures in mid 90s.
It's "two-and-done" -- students need "two successful demonstrations of skill" to complete a Learning Target. Although, in my mind, for some of the later Learning Targets that will be appearing in the last two weeks of the course, I'm probably going to create some ways to do a more thorough assessment and make it just one demonstration.
Three weeks?! I've done a January term course before where it's four weeks, but those were for specialized one-off courses that were one credit only. Taking a regular three-credit course and crunching into 25% of its original space sounds like creating a black hole (a calendar so dense not even education can escape). Good luck! And thanks to you for all the good ideas.
This was great from both a summer term/abbreviated term standpoint, and as someone who implemented an alternative grading system on a quarter system. Our quarters are definitely not as abbreviated as your summer term, but I have found that our 10-week normal term quarters make some aspects of alternative grading (like multiple attempts/retries) really challenging. I taught writing and composition, so this was especially pronounced given the time needed to read a draft of a piece of writing. In my current role, part of my job is faculty pro dev, and so many faculty want to implement alternative grading systems, but run up against the time issue. I think they'll find a lot of the aspects here really helpful (even though doing a 6-week term is significantly more challenging than a 10-week one).
Also--the used car-buying market is brutal. Just purchased a vehicle for our 20-year old that was $2500 to get them around town just until September. In a previous time, that same car would have been about $800.
I need to move where you are! We ended up spending $20K on a late-model vehicle. Cars under $10K are older than the child we're buying it for!
Good point about the quarter system - just when I think nobody uses that calendar any more, a bunch of people pop up saying they use it. My first year of undergrad was on quarters and I liked the pace, but even a 1.3x speed 10-week term poses a lot of challenges for instructors, I'm learning.
I almost decided not to include them for those reasons. I have to confess the main reason is that my experience is that students don't do them if they aren't part of the grade -- that's a dumb reason and I don't like it, but it's consistently been the truth. And especially on this schedule, Daily Prep is so important that it really demands to have a significant weight attached. Given that it's grade on completeness and effort, there's no reason not to include it other than simplicity.
And anyway, I think these assignments do have some assessment value. For example the online practice is formative but also summative in the sense that it tells students and me what's happening on the basic concepts. I think it has demonstrable value for building up those basic skills and helps me triangulate students' evidence of learning on the Learning Targets.
Interesting brutally honest response. It seems to me, especially with college students, that if they don't do the daily prep or the online practice they should understand that the natural consequence of those choices for most students is that they won't learn and that they won't do well on summative assessments. We have to stop enabling students with carrots and sticks - create a learning culture, not a grading culture.
FWIW, I think a lot of "full-grown adults" also recognize that we need external structure to do things that we know are good for us. We choose to work with a trainer or a workout buddy or a recreational sports team in order to have accountability for exercise, or put all the phones in a different room during family dinner so nobody gets distracted by a notification. Students who are choosing to take a course (rather than just self-teach on Khan Academy or the MOOC of your choice) are similarly asking for this structure and accountability, no? I don't think it's unreasonable to provide that for them, especially when the proportion of practice and prep activities that's required is relatively low - there's lots of room for a student to need to skip some and still do well on the final grade.
There's a big push at my institution to convert traditional 16-week courses into 8-week courses. The super-simplified idea is that a student could be more focused on two double-speed classes at a time, rather than four normal-speed classes.
I'm curious to hear from others (a) whether you are having a similar push and (b) if you think it is a good idea.
I'm reading this while preparing to teach Spring[1] Intersession course (3-week suicidal pace, 1 day = 1 week of regular semester). If you don't hear back from me, it was my pleasure to know you.
But in all seriousness, your blog and your open source materials are immensely helpful. I was considering, but hesitant, to do something similar to #4 on your list of changes. Thanks for pushing me over the fence.
Do I understand it correctly, that you are assessing LTs as via "one and done" method? Is that a permanent change or compromise related to the compressed schedule?
If I do come back after this as a sane human, it will be thanks to the community and the vehicle that my middle schooler will inherit in 2 years will have this carved on the dashboard: "This gift was made possible by David Clark, Robert Talbert, Growth Grading Community, and the students like you"
[1]: Insert your Central California joke here. Roses are past their peak bloom and daily max temperatures in mid 90s.
It's "two-and-done" -- students need "two successful demonstrations of skill" to complete a Learning Target. Although, in my mind, for some of the later Learning Targets that will be appearing in the last two weeks of the course, I'm probably going to create some ways to do a more thorough assessment and make it just one demonstration.
Three weeks?! I've done a January term course before where it's four weeks, but those were for specialized one-off courses that were one credit only. Taking a regular three-credit course and crunching into 25% of its original space sounds like creating a black hole (a calendar so dense not even education can escape). Good luck! And thanks to you for all the good ideas.
This was great from both a summer term/abbreviated term standpoint, and as someone who implemented an alternative grading system on a quarter system. Our quarters are definitely not as abbreviated as your summer term, but I have found that our 10-week normal term quarters make some aspects of alternative grading (like multiple attempts/retries) really challenging. I taught writing and composition, so this was especially pronounced given the time needed to read a draft of a piece of writing. In my current role, part of my job is faculty pro dev, and so many faculty want to implement alternative grading systems, but run up against the time issue. I think they'll find a lot of the aspects here really helpful (even though doing a 6-week term is significantly more challenging than a 10-week one).
Also--the used car-buying market is brutal. Just purchased a vehicle for our 20-year old that was $2500 to get them around town just until September. In a previous time, that same car would have been about $800.
I need to move where you are! We ended up spending $20K on a late-model vehicle. Cars under $10K are older than the child we're buying it for!
Good point about the quarter system - just when I think nobody uses that calendar any more, a bunch of people pop up saying they use it. My first year of undergrad was on quarters and I liked the pace, but even a 1.3x speed 10-week term poses a lot of challenges for instructors, I'm learning.
A very interesting post but why are online practice and daily prep included in grades? They are learning activities, not assessment activities.
I almost decided not to include them for those reasons. I have to confess the main reason is that my experience is that students don't do them if they aren't part of the grade -- that's a dumb reason and I don't like it, but it's consistently been the truth. And especially on this schedule, Daily Prep is so important that it really demands to have a significant weight attached. Given that it's grade on completeness and effort, there's no reason not to include it other than simplicity.
And anyway, I think these assignments do have some assessment value. For example the online practice is formative but also summative in the sense that it tells students and me what's happening on the basic concepts. I think it has demonstrable value for building up those basic skills and helps me triangulate students' evidence of learning on the Learning Targets.
Yeah, this is all weak but I'm going with it.
Interesting brutally honest response. It seems to me, especially with college students, that if they don't do the daily prep or the online practice they should understand that the natural consequence of those choices for most students is that they won't learn and that they won't do well on summative assessments. We have to stop enabling students with carrots and sticks - create a learning culture, not a grading culture.
FWIW, I think a lot of "full-grown adults" also recognize that we need external structure to do things that we know are good for us. We choose to work with a trainer or a workout buddy or a recreational sports team in order to have accountability for exercise, or put all the phones in a different room during family dinner so nobody gets distracted by a notification. Students who are choosing to take a course (rather than just self-teach on Khan Academy or the MOOC of your choice) are similarly asking for this structure and accountability, no? I don't think it's unreasonable to provide that for them, especially when the proportion of practice and prep activities that's required is relatively low - there's lots of room for a student to need to skip some and still do well on the final grade.