My students are entering identical responses, down to formatting, and half of them are getting right answers marked wrong and the others are getting them marked right. I've tried having them log into their accounts on one another's devices - no luck. I tried entering the responses MYSELF in case there's some formatting inconsistency I'm not catching when I watch them do it.
I keep reporting it - and Wiley keeps "thanking" me and explaining how to manually fix the grade. I don't give a flying fuck about the grade! Fixing the grades is trivial - I'll do it.You don't buy an educational product for the purposes of generating grades - educational products are supposed to advance the learning! Any moron with Excel can figure out a fucking grade - You sold my students something you said would help them learn and you're making it fucking impossible to fucking do that!
What I fucking care about is my students getting demotivated and having their efficacy destroyed by unreliable feedback! They waste 45 minutes trying to figure out why 12 divided by 4 isn't 3, then run out of time to finish the rest of the assignment.
The product is trash - textbook publishers are trash - capitalism is destroying education and that's further good for capitalism.
If I look for tenure track positions elsewhere after I finish my PhD I'm telling everyone in my first interview "I'm using open source materials only" so they can make an informed decision before they make any offers. The only reason I'd ever leave my admin position here would be to get a faculty position so I can enjoy the full benefits of academic freedom. And the only one I really care about is the freedom to put my students before publishers.
--WotC
One could have so much fun with the recommendations their homepage displays:
ReplyDelete“91% of participating professors would recommend the WileyPLUS Student Partner program to another professor.” (because that's how much I hate my colleagues)
“It’s very important for me to craft a great learning experience for my students.” (but instead, I am forced to use this)
“I immediately realized the program would be a huge help.” (to the resumes of the adminicritters who foisted it on us)
lol - I love your reviews.
ReplyDeleteHowever - for the record - I am an administrator with heavy teaching responsibilities and it is actually the FACULTY that make me use this ******* thing. They study chemistry not education and chemistry just "clicked" for them, so they have zero understanding of cognitive development - they fell into something that worked for them right out of the gate and they think everyone has to fish-or-cut-bait. You can actually become a competent chemist from an average high school experience *if* you have a competent instructor who actually gives enough of a crap to put in more effort than "turn on - wait - download spreadsheet".
Tenure doesn't cause this - by the way - it's attainment of "full professor" that takes "mediocrity" in the classroom and turns it into "spectacular failure to perform basic job* function".
*we are far from an R1, so yes, the basic function of a professor is to ******* teach.
I think there are reasons to use randomized-instant-grading systems. At the very least, students have to work out how to use their own goddamn calculator. When they work of course. Copying solutions is a grave problem in my classes, and I know that I do not have the backing of administration to bring up plagiarism for anything but the most well-documented high-stakes cases.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course grading is time-consuming and soul-crushing.
But overall I agree - students do NOT do better with online homework. The biggest problem is that they don't get a pad of paper - they attempt to solve problems by numerology. Many never write anything down.