I'm giving a physics exam to the pre-meds at the university right now. I allow students to listen to headphones, if they let me hear what they are listening to. I cannot tell you how much Christian crap I've had to listen to as a result. One person has walked out, writing only that their time could be better spent elsewhere. If I took a picture of the class right now, you'd see one chick totally ready to burst into tears. Do I write a good exam or what?
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"Your god can't help you now, little ones. We are in the Land of Physics now!"
Do you find that the christian rockers do better or worse? If worse, it might explain why every dangerously overloaded pickup we've seen recently has some kind of Jesus sticker plastered on it. Apparently, Jesus told them it was fine to tie four sofas onto their truck with a bungee cord and drive ninety down the highway. I guess Jesus just sucks in the sciences. I'm sure his dad is disappointed.
I guess Jesus just sucks in the sciences. I'm sure his dad is disappointed.
It's unfair to make me laugh that hard when I'm trying to work.
By the way ... you let them listen to MUSIC? Man, you Arizona academics are accomodating. =)
What's the test on?
I haven't been able to draw a correlation yet between the Christian rockers and performance. However, all the "cool" iPod ads are obviously full of shit.
The exam was on kinematics and forces. It did not go well. Makes me sad. I want them to do better! Funny thing is, when I gave the same exam to my community college students previously, they did really well. Sigh.
Do you ever read 9 Chickweed Lane? Alas, they're no longer posting the one where the professor agrees to let the faculty member's son get an easy grade in her pre-med class as long as the faculty member agrees to be the first person his son performs surgery on.
However, I did manage to capture this and this .
Ha, Rachel! That brings back memories of my first summer as a TA in grad school. I had to fail a student in the pre-med physics, and I felt absolutely awful about it. Then the prof asked me if I'd want this kid to cut into my stomach, and I very easily failed him after that.
Unfortunately, sometimes they just do horribly on exams. Last year mine sucked on electrostatics, this year I broke it up into two pieces, spent more time on each piece and they STILL sucked at it. SIGH!!
And why is it that averages on Physics exams in college are 30%? Why is that OK? Are the exams designed that way or do we really only expect the students to get 30% of the material that we teach them. For me this manifests on the AP Physics exam where a 35% is passing.
Judy - I design my physics exams to have averages of 70%, which the students STILL think is too low. Some profs like the low averages because it allows a student to have a bad day and not be totally screwed for the semester. I just see students get discouraged by low averages.
I always hated the low averages at UCLA, mostly because I still scored below the average. I'm mostly over it now, though. ;)
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