(ESSAY 339) I recently gave my first test of the semester. My primary course (Intermediate Accounting II) is extremely complex so every test is a challenge for my students. I have 71 students this semester so that was a lot of grading.
My goal for this first test is usually that 50-60 percent of my students make an A or a B. On this test, 70 percent made an A or a B so I was pleased. The group had worked hard and seemed to have made excellent progress.
However, 15 percent of the students made a D and another 5 percent made a low C. That’s a lot of poor work. I always tell my students, “I will always take half of the credit if you do well, but I assume I deserve half of the blame if you do poorly.”
Students who do poorly always seem to feel invisible. “No one really knows or cares if I am struggling.” I don’t want my students to feel that no one cares. They still have 80 percent of their grades to be determined. Nothing in my teaching is more pleasing than turning a D student into an A or B student. (I probably take way too much credit for turning A students into A students.)
So, I wrote emails to each of the students who did poorly just to give them some advice and make sure they knew that I cared and that they were not invisible. Each of the emails was somewhat different but below is one example of what I sent out.
The first two students I wrote, emailed me back almost immediately to thank me for touching base and for my recommendation. It was almost as if they had been waiting for some encouragement.
**
To: XX
From: JH
As you know, you made a D on our first test in Accounting 302. I do not know how you did in Accounting 301, and I do not know what your grade point average is so I'm not sure whether you just had a bad day or whether I should be worried about your grade in 302. It is important to remember that Test One was only 20 percent of your overall grade, but it was 20 percent and should not be ignored. You can do better, but we need to get started.
I'd really like to see improvement over that 69. I'm not sure but I don't think you've been to my office to ask any questions or seek any assistance this semester. Always remember that is why I have office hours. I'm more than happy to help. You don’t need an appointment, just show up during my office hours.
In addition, I want to recommend that you contact Roger Mancastroppa (he is copied here) who is the Associate Director of our Academic Skills Center. I suggest that you make an appointment with him to chat about ways that you can improve your learning skills and especially your testing skills. This is not a requirement. I just think it might be beneficial. You seem to work hard, but we need better test results and that needs to happen on Test Two.
I think one visit (or maybe more) might be a good investment as we look toward making a serious improvement in the remaining 80 percent of the course grade.
If you want to chat about my suggestion, come by and see me.
**
And as I have mentioned previously, in case you are interested, you can watch my 12 minute TEDxYouth@RVA talk about transformative education at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20tup61ZxI&t=1s
And, my book on
Transformative Education is available as a free download at:
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/
No comments:
Post a Comment