How frequently can/should I update grades in on-line, student accessible gradebook? On should they even be available?
This semester I am going to make an effort to update homework grades on a more frequent basis. I am doing this with the plan that seeing deficiencies earlier will induce corrective behavior on the part of the students so that they don’t end up creating a hole too big to extricate themselves from. But will doing so also create more student consternation and question/concern because the intermediate grades and grade totals can often be misleading as they have not yet been normalized and balanced. They are still homework heavy, lab light, and do not yet reflect any exams.
The first exam is often where the real wake-up call comes and by that time we are already finished with more than 25% of the semester. What can be done earlier to generate a sense of urgency among those who really need it and would benefit from it?
Wondering about sequences of topics and what does it take to require one to go “All-In” to draw a term from elsewhere. Topics covered during the initial chapter of almost any chemistry text book include the nature of science and chemistry, scientific method, scientific notation, unit conversions between english and metric systems, dimensional analysis, significant figures, and reasoning/problem solving skills.
What do they really need to go forward? What can I expect them to know coming in if the course has a prerequisite of previous chemistry experience? Are there topics or parts of topics that can be cut from the above list selectively without disrupting or making the remainder incoherent and useless?
I want my students to get a good handle on reasonable quantities, how to determine if the answer on the calculator is rational and realistic, and to accurately report what they know (14 is not the same as 14.0). It seems, however, that discussing how to convert from miles to centimeters leaves the vast majority bored. Then I get a student in lab that asks if they need to remember all three density formulas (D=m/V, m=D*V, V=m/D) and I really want to scream that density is not a formula, it is a conversion factor used to convert between mass and volume.
After spending the “better?” part of a week and a half on this material, I find myself wondering, once again as I have in the past, if I can shorten the coverage and skip some of it so that we can move on to topics that should be a greater struggle. Then I stop to wonder about what unintended consequences a change like that would precipitate.
For the first semester in a very long time, my chemistry class does not have any lab sections scheduled on Monday. While I am uncertain if this was intentional or not, it has had some significant impact with both intended and unintended consequences.
I have long advocated for eliminating Monday labs in both fall and spring semesters. Both Labor Day and MLK Day create problems in developing a multi section lab schedule where all the sections remain uniform and consistent. It requires having lab the first day of the semester, often even before lecture meets and before anyone is well adjusted to the schedule. It also requires either a day off for all the other sections (bad precedent for maintaining student engagement when they are excited about the material) or a mix/mash schedule for the rest of the semester where Monday’s labs are doing the experiment everyone else did last week.
The other difficulty with the first week has been late additions to class after the first lab covering safety has already been completed. Students are allowed to change their schedule pretty freely up through the close of business Thursday afternoon. The result is that several students are able to add the class after their lab has met. They are often unable to attend a different lab section due to schedule conflicts and therefore miss drawer/equipment assignments and safety discussions, both of which are essential to a productive and successful semester.
This semester, with no Monday labs scheduled and with the uncertainty of a job action looming, I decided to not schedule lab for the first week of the semester and start with inventory, safety, and an experiment the second week. This still left enough time to accomplish everything needed for the outcomes and content in the course.
Positive consequences – Only two students missed their first lab period, both due to unavoidable medical or family necessity. Time was available to plan for these absences and make suitable arrangements. Lab topics are also going to fit better with lecture topics to create a more integrated course.
Potentially negative and unintended consequences – During the first week of class, students seemed slightly less engaged in class during lecture. In a large lecture hall, the 80+ students appear to be more spread out and less interested in engaging and asking and/or answering questions during lecture. Questions – Is this because there were no lab sessions to breakdown interpersonal communication barriers? Is it because of the stress on campus because of the aforementioned job action? Is it because I wore a tie three of the first for days of lecture and brought excessive formality to the situation? Are my recollections of previous first weeks faded enough that I am perceiving a difference when none really exists? Who on earth could I ever test any of these questions?
30 years into a life-long journey of teaching and learning and repeating the annual trek through another school year. At the end of the first week of a new semester, I am stopping to reflect on process and improvement and sharing the product with you, wherever you may be.
This will be a brief, nearly daily review of my course in General Chemistry. What I have tried this time around? Did it work well and achieve what I expected? What are the areas that should be addressed next time?
If I document it here, it might help you but will certainly help me next time around the loop when my memory starts to fail and I forget what I have tried before.
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
