Ungrading: Early Final Grades

I stumbled into something that I like to pair with Ungrading: giving them their final exam grades early. Here is the process.

• I have them to their final grade reflection in the penultimate week of class after all assignments have been collected, and I get them feedback the same week. There are a lot of questions that help them reflect on their learning, but the two that are relevant here are (1) “According to the grading guidelines for this course, what grade do you think you currently have?” and (2) “What grade do you expect to have by the end of the semester? (and indicate which of the class assignments you intend to improve upon to get there)”.
• I can then give them feedback on how they can attain the grade from (2) (in case they were mistaken about anything). This forms a contract of sorts.
• I like how it focuses the students at the end of the semester. They know exactly what they need to work on.
• I imagine that it reduces stress for the students—they (mostly) know their grade for the semester before they leave for the semester.
• This definitely reduces stress for me. I don’t like the be the bad guy by giving an unexpectedly low grade. This way, I (mostly) don’t have to do that—I can simply tell them what they need to do to get the grade they want and help them work to that.

I say “mostly” above a couple of times because this is not perfect. My students have deadlines tomorrow, and some of them are scrambling to get their work done. If they don’t get their work all done, I am going to give them the most honest grade I can according to the grading guidelines, and this will be a surprise for the students. In some cases, I can tell them “If you do task A, you get grade X; if you additionally do task B, you get grade Y,” but there are some cases where this isn’t feasible.

The biggest advantage, though, is learning. This really leverages the motivational power of grades. Students know that if they want to get grade Y, they need to learn how to do tasks A and B in the next two weeks. They have mostly been successful at this now, which is good because they need to do the work now because they hadn’t done it earlier in the semester.

CUREs Update and Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day

Tomorrow is my school’s Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day (CSC Day), which is one of my favorite days of the year. We don’t have classes, but rather spend the day on presentations of undergraduate research. It is a lot of fun, and it is a great way to end the year.

I am doing a CURE in two of my classes, and they are doing poster sessions tomorrow. Here is a summary of what I think about both of them.

• My elementary education students are studying a game played on graphs. This has been a sensational success. We have spent about one-third of the semester on it (every Friday for a Monday-Wednesday-Friday class), and they have produced good results. We have five teams presenting posters tomorrow, each with four students. The students enjoyed the experience, I enjoyed the experience, and I think that this created an excitement for math in some of the students that will carry over when they are teachers. Moreover, one of the five teams presented their work at an undergraduate research conference, and they were likely the first elementary education majors every to present at the 45-year old conference.
• My linear algebra students are working on the NIEP. There are two teams presenting tomorrow. I am less certain that this was a success. The students did really well—each team came up with something interesting and developed a skill they wouldn’t have learned otherwise. However, I did not devote as much time to it as I had hoped, since there is a lot to learn in linear algebra. As planned, we spent about one-quarter of the semester’s time on this problem. Still, it didn’t seem to be that much. One issue is that we worked on it for a full class period every other week; perhaps we should have worked on it for half a class period every week.

I am teaching both of these classes next semester again, and I am definitely going to do a variation of what I did for my elementary education students. I am going to ask my linear algebra students what they thought of the CURE next week, although I am leaning toward continuing to do something like it again next year. They really did seem to gain something that they wouldn’t have gotten in class.

One-on-One Meetings: Update

I have been continuing doing one-on-one student meetings, and I have some new thoughts.

First, Lew Ludwig spoke at my school last weekend about AI. We are going to have to shift to more stuff like one-on-one student meetings if we want to be confident that we know what students can do. He handwrote a calculus limit on a Post-It, uploaded it to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT solved it from the scanned photograph.

Second, I rebranded these “Teaching Quizzes” this semester for my elementary education class. I instruct them to plan for the quizzes as if they were teaching the material as a teacher. This has improved their preparation since last semester. I still give them a lot of grace to think through the problems (it isn’t as polished as it should be if they were actually teaching).

Finally, the meetings still take a lot of time. Because of this, I started adding days in class where the students practice for the Teaching Quizzes. This allows me to intentionally look for students who already understand it, and I can give them credit for having done it in class. This frees up my day, since then I don’t have to meet with them outside of class.

Giving them credit in class is not perfect—I am certain that I miss some great explanations and pass some iffy ones, but it is an improvement. Also, the iffy ones that I pass are probably “good enough”—the standard should be “Would the student learn a significant amount by having a one-on-one meeting with me?” I think that I am holding to this standard well—I might pass a student who is just missing a detail or two that I could help with during a Teaching Quiz, but it is usually not worth the time.

I still miss some good explanations, although I have another improvement for that: use my awesome course assistant to help with this. He is sharp and responsible, and I trust him.

To help more students pass, I started (1) telling them that they might pass out of their Teaching Quiz in class on the practice day prior and (2) publishing a video prior to the practice day on exactly what to do. Some of the students are clearly studying to take advantage of this, which is increasing the number of students who are passing during these practice days.

Finally, there is an additional benefit to passing more students during practice days: it allows me to better us my out-of-class time. I am only giving students 15 minutes for a Teaching Quiz, since that amount leads to roughly six hours of Teaching Quizzes per class (I typically have about 25 students). Instead of working with a solid student for 15 minutes to bring them from a 9.1 to a 9.3 (on some scale out of 10), I can use that 15 minutes to help a different student for 30 minutes to bring them from a 4.7 to a 8.3 (Note: I don’t actually have a 10-point scale. I am making up the numbers as I type them). I can do more good for those who need more help, and I think it is better to give 15 additional minutes to a struggling student than to give 15 minutes to a student who mostly gets it.

Systemic Improvements: Teaching Practice Inventories (Mostly) Replace Student Surveys

I am starting to think about systemic improvements that schools can make to improve a professor’s job. I will write about this from time to time.

Getting tenure requires some amount of evidence that you are an effective teacher. My school’s main tool for doing this is to use student surveys (aka end-of-semester student evaluations). This is problematic for a lot of reasons, but it persists because it is both (1) habit and (2) cheap.

Moreover, it is unclear that student surveys incentivize professors to teach well. My personal experience says that students still enjoy being lectured to, although my personal experience says that this is diminishing quickly (students are starting to like active classrooms much more than ten years ago).

A second issue: I teach a school that prides itself on teaching. I have done two observations where I walk by all classrooms on my campus that are in use during a certain teaching period and observe what I see. In my first observation, 11 of 12 observed classes had a teacher standing in front of the class lecturing. In my second, it was 8 of 9. I only observed five seconds of each class at best, but this does seem to be a very tiny bit of evidence that professors, even at a teaching school, still lecture at a high rate.

I have a two-pronged solution:

1. We still need a venue for students to let us know if there are severe problems, so I think that we should have some sort of a student survey. There should be at most three options. The default option would be something like “This class was fine,” with no explanation required. The two other options would require an explanation, and they would be called something like “This class was absolutely exception” and “There are serious red flags with this class.” We need better language, but the former is intended for classes that are going to be, say, one of the top three experiences a student has in their college career, whereas the latter is to catch cases of verbal abuses, neglecting job duties, etc. This could be done by something akin to Google Forms.
2. A cheap solution to both measure and incentivize good teaching is teaching practice inventories. Here, teachers just reflect on how closely their teaching aligns with the literature on existing best practices for teaching. Moreover, they can plan their classes so that they get better scores—which means that they will be using better teaching methods.

We will still need class observations and such, but that is being held constant. This will help catch cases where people blatantly lie on their teaching, although that is always a risk (as there is always a risk that people will inflate their student surveys by bringing in cookies at the end of the semester).

One other drawback is that I don’t know of any teaching practice inventories for the humanities, arts, and the social sciences. I think that that is a solvable problem, though.

Feedback is welcome!

Next Step for Productivity

This week is a bit of a crazy week for me. Registration is happening, which means that I am meeting with advisees a lot. Thesis defenses are next week, so I am meeting with my thesis students. There are also math conferences this weekend and next.

This is how it is for me every April, since these are all annual events. Each year, it takes me a bit by surprise. This will change, since I am going to start reminding myself next year of the busy times. During these times, I will make sure that I am not expecting too much of myself for research/committees/etc.

Updated Time Blocking Technique

I have updated my time blocking this year. First, a brief summary of what I have been doing.

• My to-do list is a text file that I edit with Vim. I love Vim because I can quickly edit my schedule with just a few keystrokes.
• I have a time blocking template that I update every semester. This template has all of my class times, recurring meetings, and tasks that I want to do at a certain time every week. I use a simple python script and a cron job to automatically append it to my to-do list at 2 am-ish every Thursday morning.
• On Thursday or Friday (it is scheduled for Friday, but I often can’t wait) I time block my entire schedule for the next week.
• For items that will not happen in the next week, I have python scripts for each month. I also have a script called “MonthlyToDo.py” for tasks I do every month that gets run by a Cron job (and includes a line that reminds me to run, say, the python script for April). For instance, if I have a talk that I am giving in May, I will edit the python script for the month of May, and then it will remind me when I run the script.

All of the python that I do is ridiculously simple.

Here are the changes:

• I used to have a python script for every day. For instance, if I want to remind myself to grade a particular assignment on April 6th, I might put it in “Daily6ToDo.py” rather than “AprilToDo.py.” I have done away with this, though, in favor of having a list called FUTURE DATES at the end of my To-Do list. This list contains all of the reminders for the next two months or so. This is just easier than having to open up another file (daily or monthly) or record thoughts.
• Related: I now run my monthly python scripts two months in advance. It is the end of March, and I just ran the python script for May (I ran April’s last month). Basically, I want more access to the near future in my main file.
• Related: in the part of the weekly template (on Fridays) where I set aside time to time block the next week, there is space for “NEXT MONDAY,” “NEXT TUESDAY,” etc. This allows me to easily copy down things for next week exactly where I will need them.

These bullet points all have a theme of “store more information in the main To-Do list.” This has been helpful, since it is less switching between files, and I can more easily figure out what I should be thinking about in the future.

The last change is that I am starting to keep track of projects I need to do in my To-Do list. I am starting to use Trello more to keep track of projects that take more than 30 minutes to do. I simply added daily reminders that I need to check Trello in my weekly template.

Goal-less Questions

Kelly O’Shea, a long time ago, blogged about goal-less questions. I have used them before, and then I forgot about them during my sabbatical.

I am using them in linear algebra on take-home quizzes and exams. Such a quiz might consistent entirely of . A student’s task is then to write questions and answer it to show off that they know the learning outcome (there is a list of all of the 15 course learning outcomes for the semester). For instance, they might ask “Is this linear transformation an isomorphism?” (a learning goal) and then answer it. They might then ask, “What is the determinant of this linear transformation?”, write this function as a matrix, and find its determinant. Students might answer multiple learning outcomes with one question, and they might demonstrate the same learning outcome multiple times on the same quiz (they end up row reducing a lot, although I only give them small matrices for the quizzes).

There are advantages and disadvantages to this. The main reason why I am doing this for linear algebra, and I think that it is an advantage, is that I think it helps students to see the relationships among different ideas (I can find the matrix of a linear transformation, row reduce it to determine its kernel, and then determine whether the function is one-to-one based on the kernel).

One main disadvantage is that I don’t have the same control over what they do. In particular, I have noticed that students seem to avoid systems of equations that have an infinite number of solutions. However, I have two solutions to this:

1. I could create separate learning goals next semester that address this (three learning goals: I can solve systems equations with no solutions, with one solution, and with infinite solutions).
2. I could not care that they don’t have these details down.

I am opting for the latter for this semester, since I don’t want to add learning outcomes. I will probably do the same for next semester, too, though, since I think that this has been successful. The students are getting a good idea of the big picture, and I don’t want to ruin it by having next semester’s students focus too much on the details.

AI and the Humanities

To generalize, it seems like my STEM colleagues are more curious about how AI will affect education and my colleagues from the humanities are more concerned. I have a theory as to why.

Let’s assume, simplistically, that our job as educators is to teach students to think. There is a saying that “Writing is thinking.” If both of these things are true, it makes sense that, say, English professors should be scared. Tools like ChatGPT can do a lot of the writing for students, and it gives (some of) the students the idea that they don’t need to learn how to write well. After all, ChatGPT will do it for them if they ever need to write.

This is problematic if “writing is thinking,” since students may no longer see the value in writing. This removes the main tool some professors have in getting students to think.

Fortunately, I think that this problem has been solved before. Allow me to re-write the previous two paragraphs with some slight tweaks.

There is a idea “calculating is thinking.” If both of these things are true, it makes sense that, say, Math professors should be scared. Tools like calculators can do a lot of the calculating for students, and it gives (some of) the students the idea that they don’t need to learn how to do arithmetic well. After all, a calculator will do it for them if they ever need to do arithmetic.This is problematic if “calculating is thinking,” since students may no longer see the value in calculating. This removes the main tool some professors have in getting students to think.

Math teachers and professors have been facing this for 50 years, and we have had to transform our curriculum to that it is still useful to students in the age of calculators. We are still working on it, but calculators and computers can be leveraged so that students have to think more, rather than less.

I think that humanities professors face a similar opportunity. They might be able to focus less on the details of how to write adequately in order to spend more of their effort shaping students’ ideas. I don’t know how to do this, but I trust that they will find a way.

While we are on the topic, I have one last opinion. I think there is too much focus on “how can I incorporate ChatGPT into my math classroom?” I am generally wary of “I have a tool, and now I need to find a problem that the tool will fix”-way of thinking. I am optimistic that ChatGPT will be helpful in some situations, but I think that one should start with a problem to solve, and then realize that ChatGPT is the answer.

What is NOT Relationship-Rich Education

I went to some training recently on relationship-rich education. Roughly, the idea is that it is mentorship is extremely important to student satisfaction and success. Note that this is an expensive proposition, since there seems to be a cap on the number of meaningful relationships a human can experience. Like a lot of other useful ideas, I am not optimistic that mentorship scales well.

One of the big ideas that came out of this session was that it might be helpful to create a place on Canvas (our LMS) where students can share interesting things about themselves. This is very easy to do, and the students might enjoy it. However, I will be shocked if a student ever says, “I decided not to transfer because I had a place on Canvas to express myself,” or “Looking back on my college experience, I really appreciated that I got to post pictures of my three favorite places on campus to my LMS.”

Here is what I can imagine: “I decided not to transfer because a professor took me out for coffee when he sensed that I wasn’t doing well,” or “Looking back on my college experience, I appreciate that a professor gave me $50 to apply to my dream graduate program.”

You can only take so many students out to coffee, and you can only give so many students $50. However, these are genuinely meaningful to students. I don’t think that you can do these sorts of things on the cheap via an LMS.

This is another area where I hope to improve. The student meetings worked wonders, and I am doing them (to a lesser extent—they are expensive) again this semester. This is a start, but I need to keep finding ways to make a difference in students’ lives. This basically needs to be done student-by-student—it doesn’t scale.

Why aren’t I more proactive about struggling students?

My wife (Christy) started teaching at my school after a long break from teaching. Quick aside: we met because she taught at a different college in the same city as me, lived near the school where I was teaching, and asked an administrative assistant at my school if she could observe a calculus class. The assistant directed Christy to a professor who was walking by, and that professor sent an email to the department asking if Christy could observe a class. I was the only one who responded. This is how we met. Lesson learned: it pays to be open to people visiting your classroom.

But she is teaching at the college level again after homeschooling our kids (which she still does) for many years. For a variety of reasons that don’t immediately relate to her, she has a class of students who are struggling. Christy has started proactively reaching out to struggling students (including ones who struggle to even submit assignments) to meet with them so that they can stay on track.

This is something that I wish that I did, but I don’t do. I should be nagging struggling students to get them to come talk to me.

I have been thinking about why I don’t do this, and I don’t have a great answer. Here are some possibilities, though.

• As chair and a non-adjunct, maybe I have more responsibilities. This means that I have less time, energy, and attention to do this.
• Maybe I have become a bit jaded, and I have developed an attitude of “if they don’t do the work, then I shouldn’t spend as much time on them.”
• Maybe she has a critical mass of them in her class, and she needs to do it so that the class can progress as a whole. I have a small handful of students I should be doing this for in one class, but most of the students are doing well in that class.
• Maybe I am just lazy.
• Maybe I am afraid of failing them. It is sometimes easier to just not try.

I don’t think that any of these are completely correct, but perhaps all of them are a little correct. Really, I think that a lack of “energy and attention” is probably most of it.

To be fair to myself, I think that I do a good job of helping such students—I just don’t do a great job. I don’t want to make it seem like I am down on myself—I am not. However, a school like mine (small-ish liberal arts) should professors who do a great job. Still, I am not acting.

Are there options that I am missing?