[Smt-talk] Course (anti)Hero

[Jeff Perry]

 Bob Kosovsky writes:
 >It does suggest that College 2.0 has to be different from what we've being
 >previously/currently doing.  Any kind of course where a student could
presumably
>pass by obtaining previous years' homework is no longer going to work.  The
 >teacher must really think up assignments where the work is unique and the
 >student won't benefit by copying previously written work.  Nowadays
students
>are much more collaborative - so why not create groups that are graded
>collectively (say a group of 4-5, and everyone has to accept the grade).

    I agree with Bob's remarks concerning "College 2.0." or as I like to
 call it, good course design.

    For most of the undergraduate core theory/aural skills courses I teach,
 my grading rubric looks something like this:

 10% Homework (1 to 3 per week)
 30% Quizzes (generally 4-5 per semester)
 15% Recitations/Hearings (4 or more per semester, one-on-one, covering
sight
 singing, rhythm, keyboard navigation, sing & play, etc.)
 25% Lab (taught by TA's, graded with instructor oversight)
 20% Final Exam

    I ASSUME That students will collaborate on homework; the more serious
 students will either do it by themselves, or work together the night before
 it's due, ideally at a keyboard; the rest will sit in the School of Music
 lobby ten minutes before class starts desperately trying to do the
 assignments by committee, one eye on the clock, no ears engaged. At the
very
 least, having a homework assignment due on a given day is a strong
incentive
 to show up to class on time.

    I explain to them that homework is like training for an athletic
 competition. Sure, go ahead and skip your training in the gym, or get a
 friend to do it for you; when the big event comes, you've squandered an
 opportunity to properly prepare, and will reap the consequences. Collecting
 the homework assignments at the very start of the ensuing lecture seems to
 work best, especially as I take the folder with the submitted assignments
 off the piano and put them away at precisely the stated starting time of
 class; latecomers must submit them at the end of class, and incur a grade
 penalty. (I use a variation of this with graduate theory courses of a
review
 or remedial nature, allowing students to go over the homework with me in
 class, correcting as they go. They theoretically will hand in a stack of
 perfect homework papers at the end of the hour.)

    I find that the psychological obligation created by regular homework
 assignments does a great deal of my work for me vis à vis getting students
 to attend lectures and to keep on top of what's coming on the next quiz or
 exam, even though the numerical value of any single assignment is
miniscule.
 I also never re-use a quiz or exam, although I may recycle components from
 them. Homework assignments are posted online, so I suppose that they could
 end up in the wrong hands (e.g. Coursehero.com)--for what that's worth.

    As to the homework assignments, I make sure that they follow Kaplan's
 Law (when assigning homework, remember who has to grade it).* If I can't
 grade the entire stack of assignments in half an hour, the assignment was
 poorly written. (I'm thinking in terms of classes of 50-70 students; for
 larger sections, I make the assignments shorter.)

    So this is my less structured way of creating, or facilitating, the
 collaborative component that Bob proposes--and of making sure that it
 doesn't replace the need for the individual student to master skills and
 concepts. I've experimented with allowing students to use the social
 networking features of our course management software to create study
 groups, but this seldom goes anywhere. Requiring students to form
 out-of-class study groups would not work for our overbooked B.M. and B.M.E.
 students. Hence the low-stakes homework option as an alternative.

 Best,
 jp
 Jeff Perry
 Professor of Music Theory
 275 Music and Dramatic Arts
 School of Music, College of Music & Dramatic Arts
 Louisiana State University
 jperry at lsu.edu / (225) 578-3556 (voice) / (225) 578-2562 (fax)

 * Kaplan's Law is the formulation of my retired colleague Richard Kaplan,
 Strauss and Mahler scholar, clarinetist and audiophile extrahordinaire.





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