Four Recommendations for Faculty Colleagues
to Consider
FYE Faculty Task Force
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There are four issues that we
recognize are important for students’ success but on which we either cannot
or do not wish to recommend an institutional-level mandate. However, since
we believe these issues are very important for the success of students,
particularly first-year students, we wish to strongly encourage faculty
members to consider these items when planning their courses and to adopt
them as class policies/practices whenever possible. Finally, we are happily
aware that some faculty members already implement some of these items to
varying degrees.
- Requiring Class Attendance
There is a
strong association between class attendance and success in a course. This
point is well recognized. Students themselves identify poor class attendance
as the main reason they fail to succeed in courses. Even though students
make the connection between class attendance and success, the reality is
regular class attendance is not the highest priority for many students.
First-year students are also dealing with the added shock that their time is
basically theirs to manage, and that the life-managing role that their
parents played until recently has disappeared. Many students find it
difficult to adjust to the seemingly abrupt disappearance of structure. We
therefore strongly recommend that faculty members consider requiring class
attendance especially in courses comprised largely of first-year students.
We leave it up to the individual faculty to devise creative incentive
schemes that work best with their course and the student population they
serve. We recognize that this might be difficult to implement in some
courses, either because of class size, philosophical opposition or the very
nature of the course. However, some disciplines that teach large sections of
entry level courses have found creative ways of coping with class size. The
“clicker” technology, for example, can potentially solve the problem of
class size.
- Articulating the Purpose of
the Core
Almost
universally students view core courses as serving penance without having
sinned. This is clearly not what was intended when the core was conceived
and created. We therefore encourage each faculty member who teaches a core
course to present a clear case to students as to why that course is in the
core, as well as discuss the logic behind a set of core courses in general.
In essence we are asking faculty members who teach core courses to become
ambassadors for the core. Students might find core courses more appealing if
they understood why they are taking these courses, and how these courses fit
in with the University’s overall educational mission and objectives.
Students need to view core courses as existing within a unified whole,
rather than individual silos, completely isolated from one another.
- Early & Frequent Assessment,
Progress Reports
In some
courses the midterm grade is the first and only time a first-year student
gets substantial feedback on his or her progress in the course from the
professor. In some cases there is little possibility that the student’s
grade can recover and the student’s only option is to withdraw from the
course. In the interest of student success and progression we suggest that,
whenever possible, first-year students be given early and frequent feedback
on their progress in a course. Early assessment and feedback give students
the time to improve their grade, before a high percentage of the course
points have been completed. Frequent assessment ensures that a student’s
grade does not rest heavily on one single assignment or exam. It might also
be necessary for the instructor to help the student interpret progress
reports. For example, students sometimes apply the wrong denominator when
they calculate their grade at a particular point in the semester. The end
result is that some students fail to withdraw from a course that they have
no chance of passing. In other cases students withdraw from a course in
which they are making good progress. We ask that our colleagues keep in mind
that first-year students often have no experience at keeping track of their
own progress, let alone keeping track of the various points systems and
weighting schemes that different professors apply. This of course is the
students’ responsibility, but in this period of transition during the
students’ first year, we believe more invasiveness is appropriate. We
confess that this recommendation requires a significant time commitment.
- How to Succeed in this
Course
As
academics, the success of our students is our number one priority. The
student’s priority is to survive the course with a passing grade. First-year
students have the added challenge of succeeding in a new environment. It
should not be surprising that a first year student might devise simple rules
or systems for survival in their courses. It is not uncommon for students to
express frustration that the same system that is leading to a passing grade
in History, for example, is leading to failure in Economics. We therefore
strongly recommend that, if not at the individual professor level, at least
at a program level, “survival and success toolkits” be devised, distributed
to and discussed with students. Individual professors should be free to
customize those toolkits to match the needs of their particular course. Some
of the issues that might need to be addressed are (but not limited to) how
much out time needs to be spent out of class reading, studying or otherwise
preparing for class, how different material might appear on a test, the
level of analysis and synthesis necessary to be able to perform adequately
on exams, and why some strategies (like cramming the night before a test)
might fail to produce desired results.
Written for the Task Force by
Godfrey Gibbison, College of Business Administration
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