Teachers/Professors: Do you teach to the top, bottom, or middle of your class?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Whenever I’ve taught courses deciding which level of students to teach to is the single hardest thing I have to contend with. I’ve always taught at colleges that have somewhat lenient admission standards. Currently I teach a lot of non-trads. I currently don’t teach a for-credit class per se but I do teach about 50 sessions per year in research methods, some of which are several class periods in length and require a test.

In my larger classes (20+) especially the students are usually wildly and widely varied in their abilities. The percentages change but there are usually the following quartiles:

1- Top Quartile, or The Best and Brightest: pay attention, do the work, will ask questions

2- Second Quartile, or Mid Level Managers in Training: will pay attention, get most of what you’re saying, may or may not ask questions, will do the work required though some of the wrong answers will drive you nuts (“HOW COULD YOU MISS THAT I THOUGHT IT WAS A GIMME QUESTION!”)

3- Third Quartile, or Future Cubicle Farmers of America: not as good as the 2nd quartile, better than the Calvinist quartile [see below] more apt to miss a class or two (and then expect to be brought up to speed in a one on one session), turn the work in late or get a question wrong when you explicitly stated “THIS WILL BE ON THE TEST”, **but **they do at least make some effort.

4- The Fourth Quartile, or the Calvinist Brigade: they’re damned from birth, in college because their parents insisted or because it for some reason seemed a good idea at the time, come to class when they feel like it, always have the Max Klinger “half of family pregnant, other half dying” excuses for being late if and when they turn in their work, and you could make them write out in longhand A+B=C one hundred times and then when you ask on the test “What does A+B=?” they’re going to answer ‘porcupine’.

Well I learned early that- it’s sad but true- the Calvinist Quartile there’s just really not a lot you can do with. Some may be worthy of salvation but forget the movies like Dangerous Minds and Stand and Deliver and The Ron White Story and the like, some simply are not or else have no interest in it. So for that reason, I know you don’t teach to the Calvinist Quartile.

The Third Quartile is the most frustrating: they can be reached, they do have a pulse, but if you teach to them- slowly and surely and reiterating the important points and making sure they have the basics- you alienate the First Quartile and start in on the Second.

At the same point, if you teach to the Best and Brightest the 2nd and 3rd will be the “Children Left Behind”. And if you teach to the Second Quartile then 1st will be bored and 3rd are apt to be left behind.

I know these are vague terms but I think other teachers and profs will recognize who I’m talking about. Also, ‘quartile’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘even 25% of the class’ as any specific class may have a ratio of 10%/40%/40%/10% and the next may be 20%/10%/50%/20%. And I can only imagine that a high school class, especially a public high school, must have even more subdivisions and some probably have an appalling percentage of Calvinists. (Now that I work in academia myself I understand why some of my high school teachers were ripping their hair out with me- I was [pardon the immodesty] clearly bright but a 2nd and 3rd quartile with occasional lapses into the Calvinists [math and science particularly] and I understand why one said I made her feel “like it’s a personal failing on [her] part”, because you see so many students who aren’t bright or don’t care but will apply effort, and others who aren’t bright or don’t care and don’t apply effort, that it’s incredibly frustrating to see someone who is bright and won’t apply effort.)

Anyway, do any educators out there have this problem with intellectually mixed classes who can’t all be taught at the same pace or level? If so how do you deal with it? Who do you make your lesson plans for? Do you ever get frustrated at the “A+B=C” scenario where you all but tell them “write this down and remember it on the test” that they still screw up on?)

This is part IMHO and part venting, but I think mostly IMHO so I’ll put it there. (And yes, I have been grading papers, why do you ask?:wink:

2

I’ve only done two years of teaching, and while I’ve thought about this issue a lot, I haven’t come up with a really good answer. NCLB puts tremendous pressure on us to teach to the bottom: it’s even in the law’s name (a better law would be All Children At Their Best, but nooooo). But I can’t stand to see the kids who really enjoy academics languish in neglect, so I spend a lot of time working with them.

I guess I try to mix it up: present some lessons that I know are going to bore the smarties, and give them some latitude when they finish the work, while other lessons will baffle the lower kids but delight the smarties. My ideal lesson is structured such that the smarties can dig deeper into underlying concepts, while the rest of the class can still do some basic work.

Very longwinded example:
When I was teaching my second-graders about odd and even numbers, we made a chart with six cells. Columns were labeled “Odd plus odd,” “Even plus Even,” and “Odd plus Even.” Rows were labeled, “Sum is even” and “Sum is odd.” Students were to choose an addition problem that they could solve, solve it, and write the equation in the appropriate cell.

Everyone could do that work (well, everyone except one). Once the chart was reasonably filled in, I asked students to look at the results and comment on them. This was where the smarties came in. One of them proposed a rule of addition: “If you add two odd numbers or two even numbers, the sum will be even. If you add an odd and an even number, the sum will be odd.” It took a bit of work to refine her suggestion to its core, and it was the high-achievers who mostly participated in that conversation.

We ended the lesson with a challenge: try to find an equation that disproved the rule. Everyone participated in this effort to disprove the smarty (failing, naturally), and the class concluded that the rule was probably right, and that they could use it to double-check their answer to an addition problem.

3

Interesting question. I teach in a university, and I teach to the middle, but I also try to challenge those who can handle it, and offer extra help to those who need it. It’s tricky!

One of our program directors pointed out that we spend 90 percent of our time with the 10 percent of our class that is needy–and that is true.

As for grading papers, dumbing down, lowering standards–don’t even get me started. I suppose that’s another thread.

4

Upper-level classes for majors: Top-ish, although I do give them exhaustively detailed handouts about how to write an English paper, which most of the best students don’t need (and the worst ones won’t read, so I suppose this is a tactic aimed at the middle two quartiles). I figure a) it’s much worse to waste the time of a student with real talent and potential than to lose one who was never going to be very good anyway; and b) most people want to do what they think is normal and expected, so if I teach like I expect all the students to have read the text carefully and have thoughtful and sophisticated things to say about it, more of them will.

And, mostly, even the mid-level students do fine, although there are always a few who complain on the student evals because I didn’t give them a bunch of linearly organized PowerPoint slides with neat little bullet points to memorize (but not too many bullet points, 'cos that’s just mean), and besides, Shakespeare is haaaard so we should only read three plays all semester, maybe four at most, and I should give them a plot summary first. (I think these are almost always ed majors, which makes me worry for the future.)

Gen ed: This is a much more difficult balancing act. I used to pitch these classes way too high and ended up with a roomful of students gazing at me with utterly blank, bovine expressions, as well as papers with titles like “Is it possible to sell your soul to the devil yes or no?”* So I’m trying to dial it back without dumbing the course down too much – less reading, more explicit instruction about how to read, think, and write about literature, and two rounds of individual conferences on paper drafts. Generally, I think one-on-one meetings are the key; that way, I can teach individual students exactly at their level. (We will, however, see how I feel about this in November, after I’ve had to read sixty drafts and meet with every last one of the authors in the space of a week. Oh dear, what am I getting myself into?)

  • The answer, in case you’re wondering, was “Yes it is possible because Dr. Faustus sold his soul to Satan in exchange for his body and soul.” Who knew Satan threw in a free body?
5

Oh, but quartile does mean 25% of the class. If you are going to have an academic rant, I am going to have to insist you use more precise terminology.

6

I usually pitch lectures quite high, even throw in a couple aimed at the top 5% now and again. That’s the teaching mechanism I use to keep the very bright students interested. It all gets dialled down in tutorials, where you have the opportunity to tailor the material to each student.

I also only teach advanced courses, where the students know the ropes and all of the real time-wasters are long gone. This allows me to stretch things a bit - there’s no point focussing on the bottom 25% at this stage - if a student is really struggling with the material in their final year it’s too late to really do anything about it.

Come crunch time, all of our examination papers are heavily scrutinised and regulated to hit the magic 60 odd percent average. No one, across the entire degree, gets away with setting wildly erratic questions. So it’s a pretty fair from that POV.

7

It seems to me that the aforementioned 10% (or from my experience, more like 50 or 60%) really should not be at a university to begin with. Yeah, I know, their mommy and daddy went to Freshlake U 20 years ago and they were active in the Greek system where the parties are SO much fun, so the kiddies are “legacy”.

But what ever happened to it being about higher learning?–that only the best and brightest could make it there? University simply isn’t for those dumbfucks that routinely get accepted to American universities currently— it is for academic types–not frat-drunks. If you can’t hack it, don’t drag the smart people down. Leave! Go learn to run a drill press or answer phones and leave the kids who want to actually be educated (in something more sophisticated than vocation training) alone.

8

I use grades to be able to teach to both. I teach all AP classes in an urban high school that is about 70% free lunch (and 15% old money wealthy. It’s weird). Anyway, even though I teach AP classes, many of my kids are not top students–they are struggling with language issues or complicated home situations or what have you. There is a tremendous range of ability in my classes–kids on an 8th grade reading level and kids who got a perfect score on the SAT.

What I do is put a lot of thought into my grading. An A and a C in my class represent totally different levels of learning, and I can describe to you, in more detail than is really interesting, exactly what each represents and why. By in large, the kids who make Cs make 2s on the AP exam, which means they don’t get credit but they are reasonably competent and will be fine in a 4-year state school or community college: kids who make A’s get 4s or 5s on the AP exam and are what I would consider technically competent writers, readers, and thinkers. This is fairly easy to do in English because the bulk of their grades are essays. There are, of course, exceptions–kids who make Cs as part of their eternal parental power struggle, then ace the exam, or who freak out on test day despite stellar skills–but generally they correlate.

As far as teaching how to write goes, I teach how to write a top quality essay and I think this is really important: if you teach to the top, the students who can’t manage it will at least learn what good writing attempts to accomplish, and even when they fail will produce something that is okay. If you teach them to write “adequate” papers, they don’t do any better than when they failed to write effective ones and they’ve permanently set their sights too low. I do spend a tremendous amount of time in individual writing tutoring, and so can calibrate as needed on that level.

This is more difficult in Macroeconomics. Econ is much more multiple-choice test oriented, and I’ve found it difficult to write tests that the bottom quartile can pass and that the top quartile can’t ace. I’m pretty much resigned to just having quite a few 100s in Econ, but since those kids do seem to make 5s on the AP exam, I don’t think I’m selling them too short by keeping the course calibrated below their challenge level. For the really eager ones, I offer Micro economics tutoring after school and they can take that exam as well.

9

If you lop off the bottom 10% of the class, that gives instructors the freedom to teach more challenging material, which in turn takes a disproportionate amount of time to explain to the *new *bottom 10%. And if you *keep *lopping off the bottom 10%, then eventually you’re in it, and your classmates are wondering why it is you even go to college if you’re just going to be dragging down the smart people.

10

It’s all about what’s known as ‘differentiating the curriculum’. Lots has been written about it. I present at conferences and run workshops here in Australia and in the US on the topic.

I have taught senior high school math, science and IT, specializing in creating curriculum to enable teachers to extend the top kids while handling the realities of the variation left in the rest of the class. I now work with years 3 to 12 - age 9 to end of high school here in Australia.

Like an earlier poster, I throw the highest level out and then let the kids who have grasped it get on with it and do whatever they need to meet the requirements of the assessment. Then I reteach to the majority, and reassure those who are struggling. Praise can work wonders. I have a great deal of material prepared in wide range of topics which extends/enriches the curriculum. The type of material acts as a reward and motivator as well - and is available to everyone. I don’t select. Anyone who shows mastery of the required material can move onto it. You will be amazed how often one of your ‘strugglers’ ceases to struggle when there is something they want to do!

The material is in web pages so I don’t have to remember to have it photocopied - I need it ready any time so it is on the school server and local computers, or even a laptop. They can print whatever they need. I now have over 500 tasks, in 50 units including humanities, but that took 30 years to develop and covers a huge range of topics and skill levels. You don’t need many at all to start with.

The extension students work with me via email or hand written letters - even if they are in the same room. Lots of valid pedagogical reasons, including the need to verbalize their thinking and convey it. They also answer many of their own questions when they try to explain to me in writing what they are stuck on. Very valuable lessons! They can oscillate in and out of the classroom activities as they need and suits the practicality of the class activities. It’s known as a ‘compaction/extension model’.

These methods, and the sort of material I use, takes me hours to present in workshops or at conferences, so sorry if this is vague!

I only know about upper primary and high school. I taught a bit of tertiary and didn’t really like it. I am now a PhD student in creative non-fiction writing, and an author. But I still take some extension classes in schools and work with teachers because I love teaching as much as I ever did.

11

I have the advantage of teaching in corporate settings, so anybody missing a class is out sick, but a trick that we’ve used when possible is to set people in pairs. Many of my teachers did something similar late in the school year: set the best students to tutor those who just can’t.

The idea is to do it not late in the year but as soon as possible and in such a way that people who’ve never touched a computer before because they’re afraid it’ll electrocute them are paired with the dudes who can discuss the relative merits of three gaming consoles and which characteristics are more important in a gaming PC; and it’s not as “tutoring” but as “you’ll be working in pairs”. Of course, this means the students do not get to choose who to play with, the teacher does. When someone has complained to me “c’mon, this guy is slower than a snail on pot!” I’ve pointed out “that’s why I’m setting you to help him, you’re fast enough to find time to help him along” - since this is sort of a compliment, they suddenly don’t mind.

12

I teach graduate students. I only know one way to teach - full on, exploring an issue from varied perspectives, with an ultimate synthesis that says “where does this fit in the broader scheme of the field?” I don’t differentiate. I take the same approach in classes with doctoral students, masters students, and students from the varied programs in my department.

Largely, I’ve found students meet me wherever I set the bar. I always have some outliers that never cotton on to concepts, or how I teach. But I often have students that struggle in other courses do quite well in mine.

I try to provide a lot of connections between the course and their professional lives, and the learning should be as self-directed as possible. I give a lot of individual feedback, but the one thing I can’t do very well is help students that write poorly write better in a semester. The assignments are too infrequent and my time is really truncated in this regard. I do a lot of referrals to the campus writing center.

Luckily my students are very motivated and they use each other to get up to speed in areas that they’re lacking. I’ve taught elementary, secondary, and college level. Grad level teaching is the best!

13

I taught geology courses when I was in grad school. I tried teaching to the top, but quickly realized there was no top, so I retreated to the middle. I don’t think the people I taught were dumb or anything, but they were mostly carrying 15 hours a trimester, which was an absurd load.

14

This is my experience, too (large state college). I find I have Sampiro’s mix, but that some of it comes from ability and some from engagement. It’s nice, too, that there are widely-understood labels for the four groups: A, B, C, and D / F. I teach to the B’s, making sure the A’s know there is more out there they could be getting and making sure the C’s know where they stand. My grading system separates the D’s from the F’s nicely: I don’t accept late work, so people who try but aren’t prepared for college get D’s, and people who let it go get F’s.

My favorite are the B’s that write me after the fact, such as this one: “I was really hoping to get an A in the class since I throughly enjoyed it and also since I need the A for film school.” I was hoping you’d get an A in the class, too, but you didn’t, and it’s too late now!

15

When I taught college courses, I taught to the pack leaders. It was up to everyone else to catch up.

If you’re not challenged, you never grow and learn to succeed.

16

That seems like a pretty unnecessary, and unwarranted swipe at vocation training.

17

I taught undergrads at a medium-sized university and at a community college. I pretty much taught towards the top. I did take into consideration the expectation for the class. So, “teaching toward the top” of baby biology (for non-science majors) was quite a bit different from “teaching toward the top” of the Anatomy and Physiology for the nursing students.

The students are paying for the privilege/experience of a college education. Dumbing it down doesn’t serve the students well or challenge them appropriately for college. I did always grade on the curve or scale the scores if it appeared that maybe my expectations for the class were a bit high for that particular unit.

I do realize this approach would be inappropriate for high school or younger students. There I think teachers have more of a duty to try hard to reach everyone. But college? You’re paying to learn advanced material that you (or your dean) thinks is necessary for your educational advancement. Up to you to rise to the challenge; not for me to sink to the level of the students who by ability or motivation don’t really belong in the class.

18

This is a real problem for me. If I insisted on college-level reading and writing, not to mention thinking, the majority of the class would get a C or below. No problem, you say, but wait! I’m a part-timer, a lecturer, and my continued employment is strongly dependent upon student evaluations for the first six years. At the end of the semester, right before finals, students evaluate easy and / or fun classes much higher than challenging classes in which they will get a C or D. It doesn’t take a college education to see the dilemma here.

19

I’m not a teacher, but I’m the product of poor teaching and philosophy, at least for the ultimate three years of my public education. (Thank God I had come from a decent school system prior to that.)

You see, the school system had this stupid mission statement, “All kids can learn,” which was really the abbreviated version of the full mission statement that in effect led to the teaching of the bottom few percent of students. No college prep classes. No advanced classes. No going to the community college for credit. It meant going to the same class as the most stupid kids in school, and whiling away my time while the teacher slowed down to ensure that the moron could learn. Yeah, there were people that still failed, but that was just because they didn’t try. To make matters worse, they didn’t have the same curriculum as my feeder school; I was a year ahead of everyone in my class, and by time I was a senior, there was no math class and no science class left for me to take.

The final slap in the face was that I had all of the credits and pre-requisites met for a December graduation, but they still forced me to attend through June (that’s when I realized that as an 18 year old, I had the right to excuse my own absenses).

I’m not sure who I hate more: stupid people, or stupid people that cater to stupid people.

20

Damn straight.
(viva, another PT prof)

Have you read Charles’ Murray’s Real Education? He comments on this phenomenon too.