Recently Inside Higher Ed had an article about a study (PDF here) coming out of the University of California on the predictive power of the SAT with respect to grades in college courses. The study, by Saul Geiser and Maria Veronica Santelices at the UC-Berkeley Center for Studies in Higher Education, followed the performance (which is to say, grades) of students at all UC campuses for four years and found that “high school grades are consistently the strongest predictor of any factor of success through four years in college”. Indeed, the study found high school grades a stronger predictor of grades past the first year.
The SAT turned out to be not such a great predictor of college grades, but a dandy predictor of socioeconomic status of the kids taking the SAT.
What interests me about this story is not the perennial debate about whether the SAT tells admissions officers anything useful about applicants, but the larger question of what admissions officers — and folks in society at large — imagine should be the guiding principle in deciding who ought to win the competition for scarce spaces in a college class.
Category Archives: Teaching and learning
Homework, exams, grades: are any of them connected to learning?
The comments on post about final exams seem to be bringing out related questions about all the stuff that happens (or doesn’t) in a course before the final exam. They’re important questions that deserve their own post.
Summertime thoughts on final exams.
While our exams were weeks ago, I know that some folks (especially high school students) are just finishing up. So these observations sent to me by a reader may be timely:
I believe that if students are passing their classes with a B and above they should not have to take final exams.
Most students drop letter grades when taking an exam that is an accumulation of material that they have to dig out of the crevices of their brain from 5 to 6 months ago. I cannot remember what I had for breakfast last week; how can we expect our students to try and remember what they learned in January by the time May or June comes?
Students have to take final exams in all classes and spend hours trying to study, just to stress themselves out and end up not doing well.
Yes, this is good opportunity for the student that has slacked off all year to try and bring their grade up, but let’s not punish the students that put in the effort all through the school year, let’s reward them with not having to take finals, in any grade.
I know some schools do this for Seniors, but to me it just makes sense to do it for all grades. In addition, it would be easier on teacher, less stressful on families. (My house was nuts for one month before finals and my Senior took them two week before my Freshman, and I have how many more years of this to look forward to?)
As an example my Freshman had a “B” average in Science before the exam, received a “D” on the exam and wound up with a “C” for the class, and in the midst of all this we had a death in the family. Talk about stress………
Why are final exams given, what is the purpose and what does it really tell you about the student? It should be about what they do all school year, and not one moment in time.
My response after the jump.
DVD review: Ethics in Biomedical Research
On this blog I occasionally note a major motion picture that is (tangentially) related to ethics in science, not to mention seeking your advice on my movie-viewing decisions (the votes are running 2 to 1 in favor of my watching Flash Gordon; if I do, I may have to live-blog it).
Today, I’m going to give you an actual review* of a DVD whose subject is ethical scientific research.
Because you ought to have options when planning your weekend!
A question for those of you who talk to kids.
Although this question is somewhat connected to issues from the previous post, it’s a question I’ve been meaning to put out there for some time:
Resisting scientific ideas.
In the May 18th issue of Science, there’s a nice review by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg [1] of the literature from developmental psychology that bears on the question of why adults in the U.S. are stubbornly resistant to certain scientific ideas.
Regular readers will guess that part of my interest in this research is connected to my habit of trying to engage my kids in conversations about science. Understanding what will make those conversations productive, in both the short-term and the long-term, would be really useful. Also, I should disclose that I’m pals with Deena (and with her spouse). When a friend coauthors an interesting paper (published in Science), why wouldn’t I blog about it?
I’ll run through the main points from developmental psychology research that the review identifies as important here, and then I’ll weigh in with some thoughts of my own.
Commencement address bullet-points.
Having finished grading (yea, having submitted the final grades themselves), I attempt to resurface from my cave.
It’s really rather bright out here!
Anyway, as you will have deduced from my last post, there was a commencement-sized break in my grading activities on Saturday. The commencement speaker, Google senior vice president of global sales and business development Omid Kordestani, gave a nice address to the grads and their guests, so I’m reporting on his big points here.
Where do you want scientists to learn ethics?
Because I am engaged in a struggle with mass quantities of grading, I’m reviving a post from the vault to tide you over. I have added some new details in square brackets, and as always, I welcome your insight here.
Why reading novels in school isn’t a waste of time.
Ann Althouse asks why schools should bother having kids read fiction:
And why does reading even need to be a separate subject from history in school? Give them history texts and teach reading from them. Science books too. Leave the storybooks for pleasure reading outside of school. They will be easier reading, and with well-developed reading skills, kids should feel pleasure curling up with a novel at home. But even if they don’t, why should any kind of a premium be placed on an interest in reading novels? It’s not tied to economic success in life and needn’t be inculcated any more than an interest in watching movies or listening to popular music. Leave kids alone to find out out what recreational activities enrich and satisfy them. Some may want to dance or play music or paint. Just because teachers tend to be the kind of people who love novels does not mean that this choice ought to be imposed on young people via compulsory education. Teach them about history, science, law, logic — something academic and substantive — and leave the fictional material for after hours.
Now, I have someplace to be in an hour (actually two places I’m supposed to be, but set that problem aside). However, seeing as how I taught “Philosophy and Literature” this term and I seem to have some pre-existing views on the stuff a good education can and should deliver, I’m going to shoot from the hip and see how many reasons I can enumerate for getting kids to read fiction in school:
Science fairs rock!
I hope you’ve noticed that Seed has sent a team to blog the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair currently raging in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
I love science fairs. I’ve judged them (and recruited others to judge them). At our county fair, I’m always sucked right into the science-fair-type exhibits entered by kids in the Young California exhibit hall.
And of course, as a kid, I did projects for our school science fair.