gkbill wrote: ↑01 Apr 2020, 1:49pm
I went back and forth with the attendance/interest issue when I went to undergrad from grad students. With undergrads, if you don't want to be there and/or don't have an interest, fine - don't show up. Take the penalty for attendance, have a good day! If you do show up, stay engaged. Everything in my classes is optional. Don't study for a test - fine! Get the grade you deserve and don't whine about it. Don't feel like going to class?
Fine - don't go. You won't get credit for that class (and you probably won't do well on an exam as discussion content really helps understanding).
That has been my attitude—very libertarian, we're all adults here. But I've begun rethinking that after talking with colleagues. We've all noticed a significant decline in attendance in the last few years. Whether it's generational character or feeding the social media habit, way too many are treating lectures as optional. And given how much they pay in tuition now, I don't feel right that they're going deep in the hole and not emerging with a proper education. So if they need someone to kick their butt, I'm willing to change and do that. A bit, anyway. I don't like it, but I don't like the alternative either.
My review powerpoints are usually around 80-90 slides. I don't ask questions about every slide - perhaps 33-66%. If you don't feel like studying a topic, you can gamble I don't ask any questions about that topic. "‘You've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?’
I'm a humanities nerd so I'm not about facts and that stuff.
I've only offered two mid-terms and both were in strange situations not of my choosing. I'm all about the take-home final, plus some in-term writing, maybe discussion. And I always tell them the one essay question on the first day: What's the theme of this course. Go to town on that, munchkins. Then they get a choice of a second essay question that's still interpretive, but more constrained. It does mean, tho, that if you don't come to lectures, you don't have the material to answer either question.
"I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back in Whittier, they're not much bigger than two meters.'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft