>it seems like most students actually know shockingly little
I think that having students take 5-6 classes together in 16 weeks doesn’t promote mastery in any of those classes. Tying the performance in those classes to scholarship eligibility and job placement incentives grades, not necessarily understanding. Grades and mastery can be separated because 2-3 exams in a class, which determines the majority of the grade, rewards students the most, on a time investment vs. performance basis, for understanding technicalities in the grading system and for hyper focusing on the types of problems that can be on an exam. This doesn’t promote mastery, this is a game academia and students play for the satisfaction of government, finance and corporations. Definitely, a problem, solutions could include more frequent sampling of understanding, more diverse ways of measuring knowledge, decoupling performance from financing and longer periods to learn topics.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why understanding and mastery is not rewarded in education to the extent some/I believe it should be. My current thinking is that it’s simply not how most people learn, and few systems can withstand pressure from the great majority.
There are interesting exceptions though: take the Putnam math test for instance. It’s taken mostly by math and theoretical physics majors who want to go to grad school in those subjects. The maximum score is 125, and the top scores are typically 115+. The median score however is usually... [wait for it]... zero.
I suspect a lot of grades would have that kind of distribution if they really tested for deep understanding and mastery of the subject.
I think that having students take 5-6 classes together in 16 weeks doesn’t promote mastery in any of those classes. Tying the performance in those classes to scholarship eligibility and job placement incentives grades, not necessarily understanding. Grades and mastery can be separated because 2-3 exams in a class, which determines the majority of the grade, rewards students the most, on a time investment vs. performance basis, for understanding technicalities in the grading system and for hyper focusing on the types of problems that can be on an exam. This doesn’t promote mastery, this is a game academia and students play for the satisfaction of government, finance and corporations. Definitely, a problem, solutions could include more frequent sampling of understanding, more diverse ways of measuring knowledge, decoupling performance from financing and longer periods to learn topics.