It’s final exam time, and my office is packed with a few of the 520 students in my bigger class. Although I’m pleased by their interest, I ask why they’re spending so much time on my course. The answer is that it’s the only final exam they have.
In their sociology, government and some other introductory courses, the instructor either gives no final exam or gives an hour exam the last day of class. Apparently this is fairly common in some departments, but I am outraged – what a pathetically lazy bunch of faculty! Worse still, their malfeasance imposes a negative externality on me. Because mine is the last (only) final exam for some of my students, even though my exam is early in exam week I’ve gotten numerous requests for an early exam from students who want to go home early. I say no, but why should I have to be the “bad guy” because other faculty are shirking?
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Another question: does this throw off the grades for your final? I always hated when other students seemed to have no final exams but I had two or three — this meant they could spend 3x as much time studying for their final. If we are in the same course, this puts me at a major disadvantage.
I think universities are broken for the very reason you give — professors are paid to do research most of the time, not to teach. This makes them ‘lazy’ with regard to teaching, and students suffer.
I feel your pain Dan, but I think you are missing the bigger issue. You have 520 students in your class! Large lecture courses are incredibly ineffective ways to teach students, and are only created to maximize the student FTE in departments to lower the average teaching load. In most of these classes, attendance is usually about 50% and there are no assignments. Often, there are no recitation or labs associated with the courses in any meaningful way. They are only used for non-major courses, and generally leave the freshman population wondering what happened to their money.
I know that not all of these large courses are created equal, but the huge courses are often ignored by departments and left to the adjunct workforce to teach. Large lectures are the cash cows of the academic world. Sadly, the milk from cash cows often taste bad.
Faculty are generally not lazy, but they don’t view teaching as something that deserves their focus or attention. Promotion is almost entirely base don research performance, not teaching. Without metrics, reward, or penalties, why would they spend time on such frivolous activities.
My college required an exam for all classes, but as an English major I often just had papers that would be turned in on exam week, and only one or two proper finals.
Asking for early exams is the wrong way to go. The best parties I ever went to were during finals week because so many other students were done early, or just had one exam they were waiting on at the end of the week.
As a current college student (with only one final this semester) I can say that the student population wholeheartedly supports the idea of there not being a comprehensive final for a class – but I speculate most don’t think about any ramifications other than how it affects when their break begins and when they get to go home. I think Steven made a god point in post #3 that some research into the idea could better inform the decision to or not to administer an exam, as statistical data is probably more valuable than opinions in a matter such as this.
I attend a large state university and all 5 of my classes have a final exam. The students still ask to take the exam early and the professors still complain loudly about it.
blame the administrators who follow the corporate money; you see the shorter the more studentsts can work to equal the extra $$$$$$$$$$$$$ to pay the exorbitant fees and tutiions imposed on them and the shoddy wages given to part time instructors makes them give back due labor for due work assigned (ala standard union practice.)
ps: can any one remember when a highplaced administrator took a significant pay cut in the midst oft this sshamful coporatization of higher education?,
it realy immoral.
What makes you think the other faculty are lazy? Perhaps they’ve found better, more relevant ways to assess their students’ progress, instead of falling back on the old stand-bye of a final exam. Maybe you give a final exam because you don’t want (or, rather, your TAs don’t want) to read 520 papers?
I agree with #3. In any engineering-type course especially, learning is far better measured by a project, or series of projects, that require the course knowledge to be used, rather than simply be regurgitated on demand. Especially these days, when the range of knowledge needed is so broad, and the references so numerous that I’ve sometimes remarked that I never learned anything useful in school, I just learned where to look things up.