Sick...

I know it's been forever since I posted here but it's been that kind of semester.

Currently I am sick. Not awful but not great either. Here is the thing that people don't realize about us professor types. When we get sick, we still have to work. Yes we get loads of "vacation" time and our schedules are really flexible but at the same time, when the donuts have to get made, they have to get made. This is ever more true when you have 1000 students. If I skip a class because I have the sniffles then 1000 students miss out on what I am supposed to be teaching them (which, of course, is the most important thing in the world!). It's possible to get a "sub" if another prof is willing to step in. But finding people who are available and are OK in front of 500 people and know what to teach is not that easy. There are basically 2 other people I'd trust with that and they both teach the same time I do.

So we have to tough it out. And believe me, I know other people have much harder jobs that they have to show up to sick as well. Still, it ain't fun talking for 2 straight hours with "the bubons" as John Stewart would say. My voice barely made it through classes today.

All my students have been sick too. Since I measure attendance/class participation with an iClicker, their sickness is my headache. I have a standard "three free absences" policy but that does not dissuade students from trying to get the absences excused so that they don't count toward those three (so that those three can be used when they go away from the weekend or feel like sleeping in). What this means for me is an avalanche of e-mail from the students as well as the deans (who send out excused absence e-mails) as well as notes from Student Health. I know I don't have to but I keep these in case a student ends up being within, say 4/100ths of a point from the next higher grade and the one class they missed will make the difference. Just another case where I need to learn to be more of a hardass.

I'm gonna take a little nap now. Yeah, I know most people can't take a nap on the job. Hey, there is a reason I spent like 18,000 years in school.

End of Semester Shenanigans.

OK so the semester is done. The last two weeks of the semester are the busiest (one reason I haven't blogged in a while). Instead of boring you with the details of all the crap that has to be done during that time, I'd like to talk about the e-mails I get after final grades are posted. To put things in context, my grade distribution looks like this: 15% A, 38% B, 32% C, 11%D, 4% F

While this semester was surprisingly complaint-free, I did still get many e-mails. They take a variety of forms:

1. The borderliners, "I'll do anything for just 1 more point!"
I can usually guess who is going to e-mail me based on the grades. Since many students need a C- in the class for it to count, pretty much everyone with a D+ sends me an e-mail like this. Students often offer to do extra credit assignments but as I tell them, I would have to offer extra credit to the whole class if I did that. And no, no one has ever offered me "personal favors" of any sort.

I usually choose 3-5 students to help out (bump to a C-). There are two scenarios. First, if a student does well all semester but bombs the final, I may have mercy (see below). Second, if a student is close to a C- and has an outstanding homework and attendance record, I may bump them (but only a few tenths of a point max - no one below a 69 ever gets a C-).

2. The incredulous, "I can't believe I did so badly on the final! Can I see my exam sometime in the next 4 hours before I leave for break to make sure there isn't some sort of mistake?" My stock response: "I'm sorry you did not do as well as you hoped, if you still want to look over your exam after break, feel free to come by my office during office hours next semester." I never see them.

I should say that I often do feel bad for people who truly do bomb the final after doing decently all semester. I had one student this semester who went in with an 85 and got a 33 on the final. Of course my immediate reaction was, "Was he cheating all semester?". But I really think he just had a freak-out during the final and choked. The 33 brought his average down to a high D+ (see #1). I decided to "reweight" things to bump him up to a C- so he would not have to repeat the class. See, I do have a heart.

3. The ridiculous, "I have a 62, is there anyway I can get 8 more points so I don't have to take this class again despite the fact that I did half of my homework and never came to class?"

No.

4. The greedy, "I have an A- but really want an A, can you give me one?"

No.

5. The procrastinators, "I was sick in October and never gave you a note, can I get some iClicker points back now?" (iClickers are handheld answering thingies used to take attendance and quiz students during class).

No.

6. The refreshing, "I did not do as well as I had hoped but I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed your class and think you are a good teacher - I guess I'm just not good at econ. Have a good break."

Thank you! Unlike some other classes, econ is not 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration. While hard work does help, I have lots of students who work their asses off and pull a C+. Some people just don't get it. It took me a while to realize that it's not my fault.

And finally, the one e-mail that I sent out this semester:

Hi _____,
I just wanted to congratulate you on a job well done in your principles of economics course. I've taught over 5000 students are you are only the second to get over 100% in the class. Have a good break.

The only grade that can be more than 100% is the iClicker grade that is worth 4% of the overall score. So this student got 100 on all the exams (well, I drop the low exam which was a 99.5), a 99.82 on the homeworks and a 106 on the iClicker. See, my class is not hard!

Mistakes were made...

Just a quick note (hopefully a longer one later).

One thing about large classes is that you can't make mistakes. Well, you can but the blowback will be enormous. I learned this pretty early on but sometimes sh*t happens.

For example, after the last midterm I uploaded all the grades to Sakai - our online class management system and THOUGHT I had checked all the right boxes to release the grades to the students. After this I sent an e-mail out letting the students know that grades were posted.

So it turned out that due to the stupid set-up of the Sakai gradebook, the grades were not, in fact, posted. No big deal right? Wrong.

I sent the initial e-mail out a midnight and by 7am I had received over 200 e-mails from freaked-out students who had no grades. Not a nice way to greet the morning. Luckily I fixed it before most of them woke up and avoided another 600 e-mails!

Dates, grades, admin stuff, all this has to be error-free or the masses will rise up against you. And if they think you are an idiot who can't stay organized and get things right then you may lose them.

Making sausage - how a scantron exam is "written" and prepared for a large class.

Sorry about the long break. I guess there was nothing fun to write about. There still isn't but I thought I'd follow through with my promise (threat?) to write about the exam-creation process.

Today was the second midterm exam (only one student vomited!). Let's go back to the beginning to see how exams are made, shall we?

3 weeks ago: I start "writing" the exam. Basically this means opening up my exam writing program and picking questions. You see, we don't actually "write" questions (well, sometimes we do) so much as choose them from a "test bank" that has hundreds of questions for each chapter. Basically I first open up the test bank software thingy and start choosing questions that look decent. While doing this however, I have to make sure that the questions (or not too many of them) are not also on previous midterm exams. Old exams are now posted online by students on a site called "Koofers". Even without Koofers, I would not want to repeat myself too much.

Since my test writing software sucks (thanks Cengage!), it does not keep track of which questions I have used in the past (others do). So I have to do this in a big spreadsheet. In the event that the test bank gets updated or amended, all this goes to shit since the question numbers that I so carefully recorded may change. Luckily I am getting to the point where I have given so many exams that it really doesn't matter if I repeat. Oh no, my students remembered the answers to hundreds of questions about economics in order to do well on the 40 that my test! How awful!!

Anyway, back to choosing questions. I don't want too many repeats and I also don't want questions that suck or are poorly written. This eliminates a large percentage of the possible questions. I try to pick a bunch (usually about twice what I need) that are a good representation of what we talked about in class. This process takes a really long time and is incredibly boring.

After I do this for each chapter on the exam, I start winnowing. On the first pass I look for questions that get at the same concept and get rid of one of them. After this I just try to choose the best 40 questions (I usually start with 80-100). I also try to keep balance among the chapters and try to weight according to how much time was spent on the topic in class. I always tell students that if they want to know what is on the test, they should think about what we spent the most time on in class. I credit my principles prof for this. He had a full quarter of the (non-scantron) test on a goddamn footnote that we never talked about in class. I vowed never to do that.

This whole process is boring and sucky. So why not write my own questions? Well, first off, I do write a few for each exam. But on multiple choice tests, writing the questions is the easy part. It's coming up with good "wrong" answers that is hard (we call these "distractors"). Often I will start with the pre-written question and tweak it a lot. Also, econ exams rely a lot on graphs and it is much easier to use theirs than to draw my own.

So after several passes (usually over a few days). I get the number of questions down to 40. I read over for mistakes and clarity and make final edits and give a copy to my one TA who has a command of English (from Bolivia of course) to look over again. After that I use the "scramble" feature on my test writing program to create 3 or 4 different versions of the test. I make cover sheets and give the exams to my TAs and tell them to make copies then alternate the versions in a big pile (I used to do this myself but am getting less shy about making them do stupid stuff like this). Some profs will put each "version" of the test on different colored paper. I don't think we have enough colored paper for me to do this.

The TAs return the exams to me in two printer paper boxes at latest two days before the exam. The day before the exam I borrow the departmental dolly and take the boxes (along with enough scantrons) to my car.

Now we are ready to go!!

Tired and bored

So I know teaching any college class is tiring. And I honestly have no idea how high school teachers teach all day. But there is something utterly exhausting about standing up in front of hundreds of students for 2 hours straight (2 classes) and lecturing. Part of it is the fact that you never stop talking and have to organize and communicate you thoughts on the fly for the whole lecture, all while trying not to be boring (and trying hard to ignore the guy sleeping in the 8th row). Which brings me to another topic....the entertainment factor.

Today was a boring day. I was bored, they were bored. There was boredom. If I were a different kind of teacher, I may have tried to incorporate a Young Jeezy song into the lecture somehow. I may have played the song or shown the video. I may have brought out backup dancers (well, maybe not). The point is, there are a lot of very good teachers out there who do these sorts of things. An entertained audience is an attentive audience is the idea. I cannot disagree with that but I do sometimes wonder whether the shtick gets in the way of teaching. While it may get one point across in a fun and stimulating way, it is always at the cost of something else. What topic did you have to drop in order to spend time discussing Travie McCoy's "I Want to be a Billionaire" and showing the video?

Now don't get me wrong, I am not above showing videos in class. I'll bust out a clip from Colbert or the Daily Show every couple of weeks. But it's always sold a simply a fun thing that happens to correspond to what we were talking about. It is not the whole lesson. And yes, I have dreamed about a class based on these little clips. But in the end I've always decided that my time is better spent actually explaining topics myself and allowing time to talk about what I want the students to know. After all, I am a teacher and should be able to teach these things better than TV or the internet, right? Having said that, I have gradually "dumbed down" my class since taking over these behemoth sections. I've dropped topics that I deem both hard and optional and have pared down things I don't think the students need to know. I've also tried to give more fun examples and show more videos (still only a handful over the semester).

There are several econ profs out there who have become famous by bringing pop culture and "fun" heavily into the classroom. I visited one class that played music and film clips before class and had little blurbs on the screen relating lyrics and scenes to econ concepts. I actually thought this was great - especially since it was before class. I've also seen students in class have a Twinkie eating contest to illustrate diminishing marginal utility. Yes this may have been fun for the class but the whole thing took half a lecture to illustrate a point that is pretty easy to grasp (for the uninitiated, as you consume more of one good, holding all else constant, you get less and less additional happiness from each additional unit consumed - the first Twinkies makes you happier than the second makes you happier than the third makes you happier than the fourth etc. Does that make sense or do you have to see someone eat 12 Twinkies to get it?)

So I guess my point is, if you can pull it off, go for it, make the class entertaining, but think about the cost of doing so. Does it really help your students learn econ?

In the end, it's not that I am totally against entertaining my students with music, videos, fun games, audience participation and the like. I just think it's more important that they learn a lot. And I still think that the best way to do that is to explain things to them as clearly as possible and provide understandable (if not always "cool") examples for illustration. Part of this may be sour grapes since I honestly don't think I can pull off the "fun" stuff. I'm not a game show host or a motivational speaker. I'm an econ teacher. Hopefully that can still be enough.

Stupid E-mail of the Day!!

And now...the first in what promises to be a long series of "Stupid e-mails of the day!!!!" (cue echo effect).

The first two lines of my e-mail to the class:

The scores are now up on Scholar. If you have a line through your score, I have no idea why. I'll look into it on Thursday. It still counts. (NOTE - another wonderful feature of the new online gradebook)

Student's e-mail in response (which also contains my original e-mail):

I have a little question about the test score.
Scores that appear in scholar are crossed out with red lines for the test1 scores.

Is it supposed to look like that or there is a problem?

Thank you.


Sigh........

Exam day!!

When you teach 700+ students, exam days are the most exhausting days of the year. Here I will try to give you some idea of why. I will not even get into all the prep that happens over the days and weeks prior to exam day - I'll save that for another entry.

9:15am - arrive at parking lot closest to where class is held. Class does not start until 10:10 but I need to get a spot. And sometimes I have to wait and circle for a while. Today I was lucky at found a spot right away. I hope to find a place to sit outside of the classroom but when I go in, all available flat surfaces are in use by my students who are waiting for the previous class to finish. So I go back to my car and listen to music for 15 mins.

9:45am - Carry one box full of exams from car to building and stash it somewhere safe. This is why I needed a parking spot. 700 exams*6-8 pages+scantrons=heavy.

9:50am - Carry 2nd box of exams (and scantrons) from car to building (it is now raining).

9:55am - previous class clears out and my TAs arrive. We take the exams into the classroom (after pushing our way through all of my students trying to get in).

Side note - since I teach in a room that is clearly not meant to be a classroom, the students need to grab "lapboards" on which to take the exam. The seats do not have desks of any sort. This is why it takes quite a while for the students to file in and find seats.

10-10:05am - yell several times that they students are to grab a lapboard and find a seat and that we will hand out the scantrons and the exams. Physically stop several students from taking exams from the pile on stage that I am standing immediately in front of. Tell students to be sure to put their ID numbers and form letters on scantron.

10:07am - my TAs (I got lucky and have 5 this semester) and I hand out the scantron sheets. The room is divided into 6 sections so this goes pretty well although the TAs need to be faster.

10:09am - hand out exam sheets. This never goes as well and several chunks of students end up waiting a while to get their exams. They get frustrated. I run around a lot.

10:12am - everyone finally has everything and the exam starts.

10:12-10:55am - 2 TAs and I mill about the room and randomly stare at people to discourage cheating. Last year I did this solo and there was cheating. Now I have help. I am sure cheating still happens but hopefully less.

10:55-11:00am - warn students about time being almost up. Remind them to put their ID numbers and form letters on the scantron and to keep their exam sheet. Glare at students who attempt to hand in their exam sheets that I just told them to keep (I also told them this at the beginning of class, and during the last class, and it's written on the exam, and it's written in huge letters on the screen at the front of the room. Sigh).

11:01am - really yell at students who have not turned in their scantron and threaten to dock 5 points if I don't have it NOW! TAs and I make a neat pile from the mass of scantrons arbitrarily dumped in the hand-in boxes.

11:02am-12:10pm - All the TAs return and we repeat the entire process for my second class.

12:10-12:25pm - drop the scantrons back at the car and grab some lunch.

12:25-12:45pm - drive and walk scantrons back to my office and pick up answer keys (there are normally 3-4 different versions of the exam to minimize flat-out copying). Pick up any scantrons for exams that were taken in the "Services for Students with Disabilities" office - SSD kids get a quiet space and double time for exams.

12:45pm - take scantrons and answer keys to the test scoring services office and fill out required paperwork. They know me well.

1pm - eat the lunch I grabbed earlier- mmmm burrito.

1:30pm - get score files from scoring services. Upload raw scores to Scholar (our online class organizational thingy). Download scores into Excel so I can analyze and determine curve and create final scores.

2:00-3:00pm - attempt upload final scores back into Scholar. Fail because the new gradebook is awful for anyone with more than 25 students. Freeze computer twice. Call Scholar help. Useless. Finally get it to work on my own. Play some Scramble on Facebook. Answer an e-mail from a student complaining about how they really knew the material but that there were too many questions and not enough time "thank you for your input".

So now I have the final scores on Scholar. I will release it to students tonight (mainly because I do not want to deal with the fallout e-mails until tomorrow.) I am impressed this semester because there are only 3 students who did not put their correct ID# on the scantron (the grading robot uses these to make the scoresheet). They will have zeros until they figure out the problem. I could figure out who they are but I am not going to. All I have in my file is the incorrect IDs and no names.

So one exam down (aside from the e-mails) and 3 to go. As teaching itself becomes easier, exams become a bigger and bigger part of the job. While today was busy, it follows weeks of exam preparation that I will talk about somewhere else.

So I know this was boring but for those who wonder how different teaching big classes can be, exam days are a perfect example. Everything is more complicated and requires more planning and more sheer physical effort. I am usually sore the next day from carrying boxes of exams. Now that's something you small-classers can't say!