as you know, the deans invited us to provide the agenda:
1.thank you
2.can you help us understand the ‘why’ behind multi-course testing (midterm, final)?
3.how can students and instructors maximize the take-away from lecture?
4.scheduling CPR certification, power crisis in nagle
here’s what i took from it…
1.people like being thanked
2.curriculum design is very far beyond my experience. deans and faculty gave reasons for the frequency of combined quizzes, based on some findings in education research (as examples, they gave articles that i emailed to everybody). i have confidence in their interest in us and in their experience in education. rather than focus on un-doing the multi-course testing, i recommend we look for ways to make it more comfortable. suggestions?
3.nyucd invests heavily in teacher education. i hope we will see improvement in the quality of presentations from a few of our lecturers. additionally, if you have innovative suggestions for format (perhaps something that worked well at your undergrad school), they are interested in hearing about it.
4.next year the CPR scheduler will be respectful of exam schedule. as for nagle power, the reply was kinda harsh, albeit practical: get another battery.
16 comments:
A suggestion with regards to the powerpoints from the profs. Let us get a standardized format for all courses (ie. white background, no shadow/shade effect for fonts, proper titles/slides, proper named ppts posted on blackboard without arbitrary names and weird out of place tidbits here and there). I understand every prof has a different way of organizing and that should be respected, but when some profs (Dr. Guttenplan) literally just throw together information on a page, it is not taken very concisely and effectively.
I am not sure if it'd be the good opportunity to express that we should ask for information availability for biochem class. They were trying to keep the questions away from us so they could use the questions again in following years' exams, in the mean time we cannot access the information for preparing our boards. The school is not trying to help their students to succeed but keeping them away from it? This is just pretty bizarre to me
ok, i read the article addressing the "why" of the combined exams and it did NOT support the idea of having biochem and anatomy exams in one block.
what it DID support was creating exam questions that involve more than one subject matter PER QUESTION. For example, having a question where anatomy and biochemistry are being tested and applied in ONE question! That way, students can INTEGRATE the material. Having 75 anatomy questions followed by 75 biochem questions DOES NOT INTEGRATE THE MATERIAL!
What was the student councils' response to this article!? I'm extremely disappointed in our student council because this article does not even support the way that we are being tested! did you just accept their response because they gave you some random article!
I completely agree w/ the previous poster(and then some). I read both articles last night & neither concluded the taking of two completely separate exams on the same day/same time was a beneficial venture (at least for students). First of all, one article doesn't even talk to the issue of cumulative exams AT ALL. It merely addresses the notion that being tested on the same material multiple times help's to solidify information in the memory. This is obv. true & a good reason for why we have weekly quizzes, but has NOTHING to do w/ cumulative midterm's or final's. The second article does talk to the issue of cumulative exams, but has two significant problems relating to the faculties reliance/interpretations on its findings. First, the paper is based PURELY on anecdotal evidence gathered from PROFESSORS. This is stated almost immediately by the author's, and is indicative of their own hesitation in stating/proposing their following results & conclusions. Furthermore, we have all learned in Epi. (or not learned for some of us) that this type of data is completely biased and enables confounds to saturate the experiment making data nearly worthless. Secondly, the article (which I still contend is about as close to real science as creationism) defines their “cumulative exams” as those in which question’s integrate information from multiple disciplines. It explains that a specific question which requires a student to pull information from multiple subjects MAY be beneficial. It has to be obvious, that this is NOT the system that has been employed here at NYUCD. The faculty would like to contend that they are giving us A(that’s singular) “cumulative exam,” but in reality we are being given an ACCUMULATION(that’s plural) of two or more exams. Apparently, they do not think that we are bright enough to tell the difference, and call them out on the sham that they are propagating against us (as well as the rest of the dental education community). I urge everyone; in our class, in the other years, faculty, & administration to read the two articles given to us as the rationalization for our supposed “cumulative exams.” As investigators & analysts of the professional/scientific literature I trust that we will all draw the same obv. conclusions, but it is important that we do so on our own & do not merely accept the analysis of someone else(this is the whole reason why there teaching us PBL).
In conclusion I must express my extreme dissatisfaction in our elected class council. While I believe they all have good intentions, & do commend their undertaking of yet another time consuming task, we as a class cannot reward these actions at the expense of demanding effective leadership. I have remained supportive of their actions up until now b/c I truly believed in their competence & commitment to what was best for us as a class, but I can no longer convince my mind to undergo such drastic willing suspension of disbelief. While I regret having to make such a direct attack, I believe the direct quote from our president, “curriculum design is very far beyond my experience. deans and faculty gave reasons for the frequency of combined quizzes, based on some findings in education research (as examples, they gave articles that i emailed to everybody). i have confidence in their interest in us and in their experience in education. rather than focus on un-doing the multi-course testing, i recommend we look for ways to make it more comfortable. suggestions?” leaves me no other option. I have to wonder if he even read these articles given to him, or merely accepted the proposed rationalization from the administration. I know Garret is an intelligent person, which makes this question even harder, because while it would be pretty disgraceful for him to push these articles on us as a legitimate rationalization w/ out reading them, it is even more shameful that he did not come to the conclusions stated by myself & the previous poster (as well as most anyone else who actually read the articles for themselves). I don’t know what can be done, but like most of you I recognize that something needs to be done. These claims are completely my own and may not be accurate (I’ll let you decide based on future comments), but it seems as if our class council is afraid/unwilling to confront the administration in the way necessary to catalyze the changes desired by the majority & ultimately entitled to by the entirety. Obviously, they have a reason/rationalization for doing things the way they do, your job is to make them see that their rationalization is flawed and not congruent w/ the goals of the university & ultimately the study body which enables the university to exist. I don’t know if this will help, but I would like to propose the addition of an eligibility criteria for future election’s of class council member’s that states, “No person’s intending to/preparing to specialize or further their education after dental school be eligible for election to class office.” I don’t know if this is the cause of the systemic lack of action/fortitude by our class council we are currently witnessing, but I’m sure we can all see how this could cause a problem.
why would it matter if someone on class council, or anyone else in that matter, wanted to specialize? Why would you want to separate the two? that suggestion seems odd to me.
I agree with you comprehensive exams suck but then again all finals and midterm exams do. whether they're spread out one day apart of all happen to fall on the same day. But realistically do you think the administration is going to change things when people are doing well? We would probably have a better change to get things changed if we all started failing and cite that as our evidence for "combined test leads to poor outcome" but I definitely don't want to start that trend.
i wouldn't be surprised if the reasoning for combined exams is due to schedule conflicts. by having us take midterms and finals in two days total, the school saves the agony of booking up their main auditoriums for each separate exam and also doesn't have to ask proctors to come in each time.
BUT in regards in the student council, i completely agree that they have been letting us down. (not even to mention that our we have no idea if our cirriculum representatives are eve fighting for us. i mean we have two gds quizzes and a gds exam for the first 3 days next week... what happened to "looking ahead to see if future scheduling of mutliple quizzes/exams can be prevented?") if our student council president and other representatives don't have the authority to change the way our exams our administered JUST SAY IT! don't thrust a few random articles on us and tell us that he recommends "we look for ways to make it more comfortable. suggestions?" yes i have a way to make it more comfortable, how about we have a beak between the exams, and how about that break be 1-2 days long?
i don't quite see the link to specializing and being class president since people who specialize could also be the go-getting type, and thus be a driving force for change in the way things are done. (i don't even know if our class president is planning on specializing.) but i can see how some people in our class who want to specialize are also interested in maintaining an "edge" over other students, which includes making things harder for everyone else (i.e. multiple exams in the same day, or even giving wrong answers to other students (it has happened)) so they can get higher scores.
one more thing, i have seen cheating occurring on 3 different accounts. (i mean whispering during exams/quizzes about answers, looking at other people's papers or computers, ect..) i think that students should be watched more closely during closely during quizzes and exams and i DONT'T think that the faculty should rely on students telling on other students. who wants to be the student to go up to a professor and tell on them. plus it would be more credible if the professors caught it with their own eyes!
I want to open by commending the previous poster on their proposed eligibility criteria for elected officials. I can see how restricting the most driven, dedicated students from running for office will prove to be beneficial to our class. While we're making discriminatory policies, may I suggest that we also restrict all of us Canadians from running for office since we tend to have higher grade point averages than Americans and may not be as understanding of American educational needs?
One thing that seems to get lost in the discussion of comprehensive exams is the matter of time. I feel we can all agree that cramming in one night does not allow us to learn the material as thoroughly as if we were to spread our studying over a longer period of time. If we were to have separate exams, we would get stuck with 4 exams in 4 days simply because there is not enough time to spread them out any further. People would end up studying for each of the latter 3 exams the night before and would not learn the material as well as they would have if they simply spent a week preparing for everything and took all 4 tests at once. We had plenty of days where we took multiple exams in one day in undergrad. Why is this any different? Sure, we complained about it to our friends, but none of us ever tried to change school policy so we can’t be forced to take two exams in one day. The same goes for three quizzes in one week. They're only quizzes. I've taken three midterms in one day. You can't do three quizzes in one week? If anyone outside of our school heard about this, we’d honestly be laughed at.
We, as a class, need to accept that the comprehensive exams are not going away in our time at this school. There are plenty of other schools that are successful with similar exams. This policy was instated last year and the school simply will not abandon it without discovering whether or not it is going to work. We should definitely make out voices heard, but it is extremely naïve and short-sighted to believe that we are single-handedly going to eliminate these tests from our curriculum.
"Obviously, they have a reason/rationalization for doing things the way they do, your job is to make them see that their rationalization is flawed and not congruent w/ the goals of the university & ultimately the study body which enables the university to exist."
Where exactly do you get off saying something like that? While I respect you and your opinions, it appears that you feel you know what is best for students and which educational methods are better than others. I feel you need to remember that you are contending with a group of people who have dedicated their lives to curriculum design. This is their job and they know a hell of a lot more about educational philosophy than you do. In the absence of hard facts one way or another, I would put my faith in their ability and record long before I put it in yours. While it seems apparent that you dislike Garrett's assertion that he does not know much about curriculum design, I have the utmost respect for his honesty and understanding of that point. The worst thing we could have is a president who goes into a meeting feeling that he knows just as much about curriculum design as Dean Bertolami. When it comes down to it, we are students fighting against people who make a living off designing the curriculum. It is their job and they have a lifetime of experience that we simply lack. It may not be what we're used to and it may not be easy, but we knew that when we started here. The administration has our best interest at heart. It is not just our reputations that are one the line, but theirs as well. They want us to excel. Have a little faith.
To the anonymous person saying three quizzes (all in the same subject matter and one basically a review of the earlier quiz and test) a week is to hard.....how many quizzes per week would you like??? one? would you be caught up then? also where would you like to schedule the other quizzes? on the weekend...maybe the following week where, wouldn't you know it, we have even more quizzes??
that's maybe the dumbest thing I've ever heard please read your comment again. If your really being serious then I don't blame you about being pissed about the final given that that comprehensive is three exams all in one day and all in different subjects. My advice to you is to keep on protesting!
And if you're see cheating go tell someone!!! we're not in grade school anymore where if you tattle all the kids will throw rocks and stones at you. if I saw cheating I would anonymous tell someone. you can be anonymous too see we're already doing a good job practicing with the posts. I'm anonymous and so are you.
these are what i consider practical suggestions about the comprehensive or classes in general. maybe an option to do more practice problems or assignment for the harder sciences that way people can feel more prepared. No animations on the slides would also be nice. making sure professors proof read their quizzes/exams before the test.
you guys should go study. complain in front of class, not on the forums... so we could see your cowardice and incompetent face.
says the guy who posts anonymously
A couple of people have mentioned cheating in their posts. Let me ask you guys, how do you feel about cheating at NYUCD? Is it a big problem? How do you propose we prevent it? Are the policies against cheating strong and clear enough, or do they need to be amended? If so, how?
For the record, Thiki and I were not able to move any of the quizzes in GDS this week because there simply was not any place to move them. Aside from our lectures this week on Monday and Wednesday (both of which have the quizzes), we only have one lecture left for GDS. That lecture is on Monday and is taught by a guest lecturer--It cannot be moved.
I apologize for not updating everyone sooner. I did not want to send out an e-mail that did not contain any useful information. Once the class website is running, we will put in a page ("Curriculum Corner" maybe, or possibly something less clever) where we will have more frequent updates.
Is it me or is this forum a place for a whole bunch of venting and unrealistic requests?? (Keep the AP class out next year, have the faculty use a standard lecture slide format, etc etc.) Common be realistic.
The job of the class council as a whole is not to assert themselves as something more than a student and have the curriculum changed. It doesn't work that way. The job is to be a voice of the student body, relay our concerns and relay the information given to them back to us. We can raise our objections, we can explain our side of the situation, but in the end, we have NO say in it. The faculty and administration have the first, middle and last say in this matter. The sooner you get to understand that the quicker you'll just accept it, move on and prepare for what lies ahead. If you have a better way to convince the administration, I'm sure you can email our President directly and ask him to be included in the next meeting. Step up to the plate and take a hack at the administration.
If you have legitimate gripes with the ways things are running in the council I suggest you post a suggestion on how to fix the problem. It's not just about venting your dissatisfaction, make a suggestion that you see fit as to fix the problem. The Curriculum Reps are doing the job in your mind - post a suggestion you see will FIX the problem, and make the system better. Otherwise you're posts are just read and ignored - just as the administration will do when you give your feedback on the Biochem class.
wow...what is going on here? i couldn't even completely read one entire comment: attempting to do so made my head hurt or else simply made me feel less intelligent afterwards. why aren't you guys studying? who has time to rant via 8 paragraphs of blabbering nonsense? grow up people. we are supposed to be professionals here. not class-A whiners. seems like a lot of you know how to party hard on weekends, so why don't you instead put that extra energy where your mouth is with all this complaining. jesus.
oh, btw--PLEASE stop ragging on our class council (and no i'm not a member adding an anonymous comment) ...if anything, i feel like they've already done a lot for this class, especially seeing how all the effort is just EXTRA WORK FOR THEM TO SIMPLY HELP US OUT! Try to show some appreciation....after all, they're not here to be your MOMMIES through dental school!!
I just wanted to thank you Garrett for putting your time and meeting with the deans in tyring to make this experience more comfortable for all of us!
how exactly did he make our lives and the experience at school better? The only thing I can think of is the paper on the weekly quizzes. The second semester's testing schedule is just as crappy as the first semester. Also he blew things out of proportion with the CPS clicker "cheating" shenanigans (what specifically should be done by the administration... come on~!). He doesn't discuss other issues happening with the entire class just because it doesn't apply to him. I am seriously disappointed in him and I am sure there are people agreeing when they read this comment.
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