Thursdays at Three
If the saying “a month of Sundays” is to refer to time that goes interminably slow, then “a month of Thursdays” would mean the opposite! Since February 5, a small group of faculty have been meeting in 321 Turley Center to discuss matters related to improving student learning. “These ‘Thursday at Three’ sessions have been lightly attended, but that’s okay,” says Nancy Parks, who hosts the discussions. “The time is being spent in the kinds of discussions that are worthwhile whether there are three people there or thirty.” Take a peek into the discussions of various "hot topics" through the synopsis sections below this introduction. Faculty who want to chime in may do so at any time—but especially Thursdays at Three. Reminder: You are invited to drop by 321 Turley each Thursday at 3pm to discuss any questions/concerns you may have about your students' abilities to meet the learning outcomes for your course. There’ll be a full pot of coffee, something sweet to nibble on, and a big table with plenty of room to spread out, so bring along any “stuff” you’d like to discuss.
During the first week of Thursdays at Three, participants talked about the confusion there often is between actual “grading” and assigning end-of-course grades and overall course and program assessment efforts. Says Parks, “A lot of the time, there will be a significant degree of overlap, but there are many times you’ll review student work only for purposes of assessment: you’ll look at an end-of-course writing sample, for instance, or results from an end-of-program major field test, which in no way affects a grade. The process of “grading” stops once a score has been entered in the gradebook and averaged, but the process of “assessment’ is ongoing and keeps asking the question, ‘How can I help students learn even more?’ or ‘How can I help students learn what I thought for sure they should have learned but their tests tell me they didn’t?!”
The third week of discussion focused on the physical appearance of an actual test. That week, faculty dropped in with copies of an actual test they were about to give and offered it up to the group for feedback. Folks suggested to one faculty member that she add a fourth option to her multiple-choice questions to ratchet up the difficulty. It was also suggested to perhaps subdivide test questions into what was covered in lecture, what was primarily text material, what was covered in supplemental readings, or other class activities, etc.
One faculty participant took advantage of the time and opportunity and did just that: he wrote his test at the session, taking time to make sure that the expectations he’d shared with his students were reflected proportionately throughout the test. He also referenced the supplemental readings as test section headings. The finished copy of the test made it apparent to students where the questions came from and will make it easier for the faculty later on to see what class materials his students may have found more difficult than others.
Parks noted, “We also discussed how it would be neat to actually label test questions that were based in homework assignments as “Homework” and material learned in labs as “Lab,” just to reinforce to students that if you skip a class activity or don’t do homework, it will be painfully obvious. And it will reinforce the notion that these activities do tie in directly with what faculty expect students to learn from the course. And, of course, it will make it easier to scan a test for any general assessment information you might want to glean from it as opposed to looking up isolated questions throughout the test.”
Thursdays at Three faculty also shared their concerns about having so much content to cover in their courses, especially in the introductory courses. Of course, that’s where the concept of student learning outcomes came back in. There might be a thousand pieces of terminology in the course, but are all one thousand equally important? Can they be “chunked” together in some sorts of associations? Are you sure they won’t be addressed in great detail in a subsequent course? These are all questions faculty can ask themselves when trying to whittle down mountains of content into student learning outcomes.
And, finally, faculty discussed the unique nature of 1000-level courses in that they are full of “introductory” concepts and terminology but, as a result, shouldn’t be considered “cake” courses; it’s important to keep 1000-level courses rigorous, too. To illustrate this point, Parks points out, “Students shouldn’t be able to do well on a test if they haven’t been in class or studied.
Faculty who wonder if their test is too easy might want to try it out on someone who’s not enrolled in the course, such as a friend or neighbor.” Faculty seemed to agree that if someone not enrolled in the class could make an A or B on the test, then the test is too easy, and the course itself may not have high enough expectations for students or may be addressing the content in too general of terms. “Students should know more after they leave your class about the subject than the person who hasn’t had the course,” says Parks.
If you believe a lot of the information in your course is common knowledge, then you need to find the “uncommon” and expand upon it, really delve in to the “hows” and “whys” beyond the obvious. She adds, “Pretend as if you’ve been asked to create a special Jeopardy category based on your course. Think about what you’d include, and make sure only the students who’ve taken your course would be able to answer the $1000 question. And then pretend it’s a Daily Double. Make it really worth their while.”
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