My contribution to the Orientation 2002 program was largely the same. For
a published account of it, see Telling the Truth.
The changes in the script will be inserted in brackets.
Replacing Mark Robbins was a sophomore, Erin Trish, who read a statement
about her own experience as a freshman, something that fit in nicely with
the message of the program.
[For the 2002 program, I began with the first paragraph of
page 10 of the 2002
Freshman Academic
handbook of the School of Arts & Sciences (page 11 of the 2003
edition), which deals with the differences
between college and high school. It asserts:
The key differences between learning at Hopkins and your high school are:
1) learning does not take place primarily in the Hopkins classroom; and 2) you,
and not your Hopkins professor, are responsible for what you learn.
(I believe I'm correct when I say that most faculty view these statements
as the bottom line on education in college.)
In reference to the first item, I asked "Well, where does the learning
take place?" Answers like "the library," "your room" were offered. Given the
first item, the second one is largely obvious, as the instructor won't be
around most of the time.
The rest of the program becomes an elaboration on the foundation set
in the first minute or two.]
. . . . . 2. New peer group:
a) Most of you are no longer well above the majority of your classmates, but in a new environment with people much like yourself.
b) Just about everyone here can do well --- A or B --- in their math classes (statement of capability, or talent). However, talent alone cannot produce success.
c) Stats on unsatisfactory performance (D or F) in Fall Semester Calculus I or II courses (106-109)
. . . . . 1998: 11% . . . . . 1999: 12% . . . . . 2000: 16% . . . . . . . . . . . [2001: 8%] (There's no quota!)
With very few exceptions, these students didn't work up to their potential,
. . . and were barred from taking the next course. They had to repeat the
course (or change direction).
This is the norm: the statistics involved [more than] 10 different instructors.
(It is a misconception that college
students learn math better when they like the instructor.)
At this point, I inserted a handwritten transparency describing the
students who end up as in 2c, as those who badly:
. . . i) fall behind in their coursework
. . . ii) overestimate their effort
. . . iii) insist on highschoolish methods of learning; e.g., who feel, "The
teacher shows you how to do the problems, you do the week's homework in an
hour or two, then go out to play."
[This was inserted as 2d.]
. . . . . 3. New level of learning:
a) In any subject, the goal in college is to learn flexibly, so that you can judge what applies in new situations, and carry it out. This is furthest from high school experience (on the whole) in Math, then the Sciences. (Why? see d) below.) Thus, most students face a new challenge in their math courses. Students who decline to address this don't do well (see 2b,c above).
b) Flexibility is especially important in Mathematics because many other departments require mathematics, and their majors need to be ready to use what they have learned in conjunction with science, engineering, economics, whatever.
c) Role of the college instructor: to guide the students' learning.
It's not to
cover the material, for that's the textbook's job;
it's not to teach everything to the student: teaching in college becomes a
cooperative
effort shared by the instructor and the student.
d) Change in notion of reasonable effort:
. . . High school -- The attentive student should be able to pass
with modest exertion.
. . . . . . . College -- The great majority of students can do well
with
reasonable exertion.
What's reasonable? Old rule of thumb: 2 hours/week outside of class for each
credit. More to the point, putting in that much work is not excessive effort.
[That time included reading of the textbook for both concept and (additional)
examples.]
[Pace of course. The lectures will be moving a lot faster than you may be used to from high school, and there will be far less repetition.]
e) Fewer exams. They cover several weeks of material, maybe even the whole semester on the Final. This fits well with what Prof. Spruck once said: the student should view the learning of math as accumulating a body of knowledge, not just learning isolated facts and problem types.
I concluded by telling a true story from several years ago, one that summarizes much of the above rather well. The outcome of the story is that whenever the student saw me on campus in later semesters, she waved vigorously and smiled (you'll see why I'm telling you this!).
A student was in my office, taking a make-up exam at the blackboard. I started her with a fairly simple problem from the heart of the material. In working it out, she committed a standard blunder, and I pretty much told her that. She didn't get flustered; she thought a moment and pulled an example out of her head, carried out the analogous calculation, and saw what her mistake was. I was actually quite impressed. In terms of 2b above, I felt she was capable of earning a B+ or higher in the course. We'll see what actually happened.
Her performance on the two midterms was so-so. Her work declined at the end of semester. On the Final, worth 200 points (40% of the grade), she got a 20. That's right 10%, when the median score was over 120. What grade did she deserve? I asked the audience. I understood their reluctance to answer. I said, "well it can't be a C, for that's where she was before the Final." Some instructors would say F, for they saw what she was coming out of the course with. However, I just put her scores into the formula, and it came out . . . F.
Thus, I wrote F on the grade roster. In those days, we could post grades by student number, and this I did, outside my office. As expected, that student came by. She wasn't happy, and she asked to see her Final Exam. Routinely, I let her look at it. She pointed out a mistake in the arithmetic: there were three 10's not two on the grading grid. I looked to make sure that those 10's really represented credit earned, and I saw that they did. Upon changing her score to 30 (15%), I looked at her and said what I already knew, "Good, now you have a D in the course."
The action picked up. "I'm not a D-student!" "I know that, but you're still getting a D in this course. ... What was going on at the end of the semester?" After a brief pause, she said, "You know, I don't know where my time went." "I think you should figure that out, for you don't want this to happen again."
As I said before, when she saw me in subsequent semesters on campus, she would wave vigorously and smile.
----------
One student who attended the presentation offered his comments: letter from Adam Langer.