Some call me insane but I give students exams that have some multiple choice questions and four essays in a class with 70 students in my human resource management class. I give essays because they tell me whether or not students can process a thought from breaking down what an essay question is asking of them to ultimately providing a relevant, coherent, accurate answer in response. The first exam the students took this semester was horrific. Many felt they could just write anything and get credit. They were wrong. Many felt they could answer part of the question and get full credit. They were wrong. Many did not know what to do with an essay exam and basically did little of anything so their grade suffered, too. All this from students who knew that the essay questions would only come from the chapter worksheets we had covered to that point; which was four chapters with about 10 questions each.
I could have thrown in the towel after taking 7+ hours to grade the four in-class essay questions and given them all multiple choice and called it a day on the second of four exams they will take this semester. No, not me. Given it is an HR class I saw a real time training need. The training involved essay writing. I gave the class a lecture on essay writing. I posted information on how to write a proper essay with some great websites on essay writing you can check out for your own purposes below:
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/essay-exams.html
http://www.eicc.edu/students/help/tips/essayquestions.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_essay.html
I then gave the students a take home essay concerning traffic lights to see if they understood the basic mechnics of breaking down an essay and providing a relevant, coherent, accurate response. They brought their efforts to class. I asked them to read aloud those they thought would get a perfect score from me. Many were wrong. I finally got one student to read aloud an essay answer that would have earn a perfect score from me. They then exchanged papers and graded their neighbors efforts with the grade they thought I would give it based on our training session. I collected them and reviewed them for the next class. To my dismay, there were still students in the class judging essays with perfect scores that would not have even gotten half the points possible from me as indicated in the training. I read some aloud that were given perfect scores by students (that did not deserve it in my book) and asked for a show of hands by those who agreed. Far too many hands went up. I then read aloud those that I had selected that did indeed deserve full credit to clearly note the difference between what they thought and the reality of what I thought. I thought to myself that the students should now be in a position to do better on the next essay exam.
I just spent 7+ hours of my life on Tuesday reading four essay questions written by 70 students. How do you think they did? Better? Same? Worse? If you guessed the same you were slightly correct. Some got better and far too many others wrote the same low level incoherent, irrelevant, inaccurate answers to the essay questions which ranged from cognitive domain levels of knowledge, comprehension, application, synthesis and judgement. Worse still, the incentive for the class was that if they could raise the class exam score average from 65 to 85, which should have been easy if applied essay training to the second exam, they would all get 100 on the first exam. Alas, the essay training and incentive did nothing to raise the average exam more than a single point. Worse still, the HR course is a junior level course!
Part of me want to go Gordon Ramsay on Hell's Kitchen in class today and rant about their horrible performance on the essay questions while another part wanted to go Yoda and be quiet and contemplative. I did neither character, instead at the end of class when our work for the day had been done, I told them that I had graded the essay part of the exams and they should not expect 100's on the first exam and that we will discuss the reason for their poor performance on essays after spring break. I will hopefully calm down, get my strength back, and then be ready to take on the challenge of attempting once again to have them understand the finer points of writing a proper essay and why that skill will enable them to be a successful manager one day down the road. Part of me feels the lesson will be lost on the majority of them...for now.
Ultimately, what am I to make of this? Is it a failed K-12 education system that is teaching kids to pass multiple guess exams? Is it the fault of those who had them in class for two years before they got to me never mind the fact that they wrote short papers that had simple questions that asked them to reflect on what was learned by listening to those who who visit the class as part of our execs in the classroom series and graded with a rubric by my TA's. Is it those teachers who never asked them to write a single word during a 15 week semester in their course? Or, is it a generational, societal phenomemon with more and more kids living in a text message, download on demand, copy and paste, everything on the web is free, so I do not have to put in any work to get by in this world mentality? I know not.
But what I do know is that even though it may take a few weeks off my life expectancy when sitting for hours and grading them, you can bet your bottom dollar that the third exam will have an essay component to it and the stakes will be greater as to the impact it will have on their final grade because students have to be able to write a coherent, relevant, accurate response to essay questions to enable them to be successful in the fluid, rough and tumble world that is hospitality and tourism management. I will not give up on them! That was the responsibility I willingly accepted when I took on the job of "educator."
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1 comment:
I agree in part, I work in a competency based program not a semester lecture base. Which in my mind is the same as a essay writing class. Students often struggle for the first month or so being in a competency based open entry open exit program. But as soon as they start to understand the freedom they start learning more and diving into the problem much as a essay questions. When a student arrives the get everything up front to pass off. I am an andragogy facilitator versus a teacher/professor that is regimented by my own syllabus. I think that is what is the missing link students have been taught not to think how not to dive into a question and pull out multiple situations and answers. The look at stop light and see red stop! But never ask why how come what or the negative or positive consequences involved they have forgotten how to think and go through life in a have hypnotic state. When a student comes here same problem. I am busy with 40 H.S students 10 Adult student all in the same lab. Can I/ Do I have the time to answer the all famous question: What do you want me to do/learn know? My response is all the difficult for the student to answer is what to want to learn? Which competency would like to participate in. This process of adragogy learning/ essay is difficult for the student to master. But the philosopher John Dewey would be proud that the are engaged diving into the situations and problems that are faced in the small school. Those that can answer and react to have a facilator versus a teacher can dive into the difficulties of learning. For example I have student that has been here for about 9 mnths and has caught the vision all thought not directly a part of my program she want to start sugar artistry we started do complicated blown sugars. All though I am not skilled in this art I can provide the basic equipment and tools and knowledge and she can continue to understand how much she can do and learn because of the ability to not rely on my facicilating her learning but she has engaged herself and became proactive in her andragogy learning style.
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