Some Universities Lowering Expectations, Redesigning Courses Due to Effects the Pandemic had on Students
“One statistics professor said that he has to teach basic math skills to his students”
If this is happening in higher education, you know it’s happening in lower grades too.
Campus Reform reports:
Universities are lowering expectations for pandemic-era students
Recent interviews with students and instructors in the Pittsburgh area reveal that some colleges and universities responded to the pandemic by lowering expectations.
A PublicSource article described a “hangover from virtual high school” at Point Park University, the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), and other Pittsburgh universities.
Students experienced learning losses from virtual classes and, as Campus Reform has reported, declining mental health. To meet their needs, instructors are continuing the practices that students became accustomed to during high school–the same practices that make college classes such a struggle.
The interviewed professors reported that their students request flexibility in their assignments and have difficulty meeting deadlines and “stay[ing] on top of coursework” because teachers “actively helped” them in high school. One statistics professor said that he has to teach basic math skills to his students, according to PublicSource.
While some Pittsburgh professors have responded with extra tutoring sessions and supplemental modules, others are redesigning their courses.
“In the math department at Pitt, professor Jeffrey Wheeler has seen an ‘unsettling’ lack of engagement among students since the pandemic,” PublicSource reported. “Wheeler, who has taught math classes since the fall of 1990, said professors have shortened exams in the university’s freshman calculus classes as a result.”
Chatham University has yet to reinstate attendance and deadline policies that it dropped during the pandemic, with an associate dean citing mental health concerns such as “performance anxiety” to PublicSource.
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Comments
Are they lowering expectations due to the pandemic? Or, are they lowering them because so few students received a proper primary education?
Yes.
The answer is d. all of the above.
You forgot to include c. because if they don’t, enrollment will bottom out
55 years ago, it was almost impossible to matriculate into a college that didn’t require a mandatory course in “Freshman Composition.”
This was before the stilted term “K-12” was current, and we were still (ironically) calling them “grammar schools.”
The rot is at least that old. Up the Down Staircase.
James J. McCabe is turning over in his grave.
They are using Covid as an excuse. They are providing cover for the K-12 deficiencies and for the inadequacy of the “remote” coursework that replaced actual face-to-face instruction. The professors will face all varieties of cancellation should they hold students to an actual standard.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. Faculty I know have been complaining for a long time that undergraduate education has turned into 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th grades. And that students are even less prepared every passing year..
One of my firiends was a professor of math for many years-far too many of courses were remedial in nature