Pop quizes in school?

[ForTheLoveofDisney]

Hmmmm, sounds like one of my dd's classmates. They are juniors, in an honors English class that has a ton of reading. And I have to admit, some of the required reading isn't all 'that' interesting. But, that's park of being in an honors class. So, the other day, this classmate raises her hand, and asks the teacher why they aren't reading fun stuff, that's actually interesting. The teacher just looked at her and said...''Well, because this is honors English. That's why it's 'honors'..it's harder!'' Too funny.

Some of these kids are going to be at a loss when they leave their 'bubble' behind. College is going to be a rude awakening. As it is, we have parents in our high school that do literally everything for their junior and senior children. wonder if they are planning on going to college with them.

You would be surprised! I work in higher education and some of these parents are STILL trying to do everything for them!! We have had parents call professors over all sorts of things. We've had parents show UP when their college age students were coming in to fill out paperwork for payroll!! It's just mind boggling how they hover. These kids ARE in University!!

 

[golfgal]

You would be surprised! I work in higher education and some of these parents are STILL trying to do everything for them!! We have had parents call professors over all sorts of things. We've had parents show UP when their college age students were coming in to fill out paperwork for payroll!! It's just mind boggling how they hover. These kids ARE in University!!

DH gets calls from Mommy when he hasn't hired their snowflake-for jobs that REQUIRE a college degree .

 

[castleview]

Hmmmm, sounds like one of my dd's classmates. They are juniors, in an honors English class that has a ton of reading. And I have to admit, some of the required reading isn't all 'that' interesting. But, that's park of being in an honors class. So, the other day, this classmate raises her hand, and asks the teacher why they aren't reading fun stuff, that's actually interesting. The teacher just looked at her and said...''Well, because this is honors English. That's why it's 'honors'..it's harder!'' Too funny.

Some of these kids are going to be at a loss when they leave their 'bubble' behind. College is going to be a rude awakening. As it is, we have parents in our high school that do literally everything for their junior and senior children. wonder if they are planning on going to college with them.

Good for that teacher. I read somewhere about the lack of interest in engineering among students (part of the whole anti-science thing we're experiencing now). When I asked DH who's an engineer turned science teacher his thoughts on why kids aren't going into math or science related stuff he said: "Because it's hard."

 

[TwinsinCA]

I remember them in high school but not much in college.

They bothered me then and they bother me even more now when my kids have them. I think if something is going to be weighted as a test/quiz the kids should have enough warning so they can study. My kids do what is assigned, when it is assigned. But that doesn't mean they are ready to take a test on any given material on any given day. I don't think that is reasonable.

 

[kamik86]

When I asked DH who's an engineer turned science teacher his thoughts on why kids aren't going into math or science related stuff he said: "Because it's hard."

Now maybe I'm just strange (I am a female engineer after all and we do seem to be rare) but I actually always found english classes so much harder... Why? There is no "right" answer. In math my problem was wrong or it was right, in science my experiment did what it was supposed to or it didn't and if it didn't I could find why. In English I had to try and figure out what some guy was supposively thinking about when he wrote a book that really sounds like it is about something else... The second one sounds much harder to me!!

Even now with grad school computer science stuff... either the software you made meets the requirements or it didn't. Yeah there are many ways you could have met the requirements but there are still "rules" you meet them or you don't...

Art and writing jobs? From what I can tell they are measured on how much people "like" something... I like my non-subjective easy subjects much better.

 

[ols386]

We had pop quizzes a lot when I was in school. I don't see a problem with having them. If the student did not do the assignement the night before, and does poorly on the quiz, then that's their own fault. Might be a good lesson learned....do the homework assigned.

 

[kamik86]

They bothered me then and they bother me even more now when my kids have them. I think if something is going to be weighted as a test/quiz the kids should have enough warning so they can study. My kids do what is assigned, when it is assigned. But that doesn't mean they are ready to take a test on any given material on any given day. I don't think that is reasonable.

Are they really weighted as high as other quizes? The assignments we always got like this weren't because they were really easy they were generally just asking you to recall the main topics in the reading to show that you did it nothing really in depth. Many kids passed these without reading by just making sure one person in a group of friends did it (either the one kid that always did the reading or by taking turns) and they would just give a quick summary of what happened.

 

[Coach K]

Isn't life a series of pop quizes? GET USED TO IT!!!

 

[TwinsinCA]

Are they really weighted as high as other quizes? .

In a few cases, yes. They were weighted as high as other tests.

 

[tiggger1]

As long as the teacher told them to read the book, then I dont see a problem.

When I was a freshman in college I had a sociology professor who gave us a final on a book that was in the suggested reading part of the syllabus. The only problem was there was 15 books in the required reading list and over 100 on the suggested reading list. The suggested reading list were supposed to be used for the papers that we needed to do. Every person in the class failed the final and we all got together and went to the dean and they dropped the final and gave us all a pass/fail...pass if you showed up to the final, fail to the 1 that skipped.

that was the same semester we had a visiting professor come teach our chem lab and failed most of the class because most of the students didnt know how to do the crazy labs he gave us correctly. Well it turned out he taught AP BIO Chem at Harvard and was used to working with geniuses not incoming freshman...thankfully I was one of the 4 who actually passed because I had taken 2 years of chem in high school and my lab partner what a chem nerd!

 

[gillep]

It is called life: Get used to it!!!

Most of the concepts that I was tested on while getting my degree in Biology were never discussed in class, some were not even part of the assigned reading per se. A lot of times a concept would be introduced in the reading along with associated techniques/theories that were listed but never fully covered it was up to us to look into these techniques/theories further and then usually we would be asked about them on tests, those that didn't go beyond the exact text pages outlined were out of luck. Getting my masters degree was no different we usually did case studies in class then were tested on the nitty gritty of diseases including diagnosis/epidemiologic trends etc.

 

[Jalva22]

I used to coordinate freshman orientation at a major East Coast university. One of the first 'factoids' we told new students was: "In high school, you spend 80-85% of your time in class with your teacher in front of you and 15 -20% of your time out of class working on your own. In college, it all gets reversed. Your in-class, teacher-directed time will amount to about 15 -20%, the other 80-85% is your independent work and study time."
The kids who were ready to take an assignment, complete it on time and be responsible for its content were the ones who were ready for college. I actually feel strongly that this teacher is helping them!

Completely agree!

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

This is pretty much what I told her-it's and AP class, it is supposed to be like a college class and by junior year in high school, this shouldn't be an issue. She also had problems because not everything on another test was on the study guide-well welcome to higher learning .

AP level courses don't have time to cover everything during class. You get a syllabus with supplemental reading and you should have the maturity to follow it.

If little Johnnie didn't do the reading, it's his own fault for bombing the quiz.

Maybe he should transfer into regular courses where they will hold his hand and tell him what to study...

 

[castleview]

Now maybe I'm just strange (I am a female engineer after all and we do seem to be rare) but I actually always found english classes so much harder... Why? There is no "right" answer. In math my problem was wrong or it was right, in science my experiment did what it was supposed to or it didn't and if it didn't I could find why. In English I had to try and figure out what some guy was supposively thinking about when he wrote a book that really sounds like it is about something else... The second one sounds much harder to me!!

Even now with grad school computer science stuff... either the software you made meets the requirements or it didn't. Yeah there are many ways you could have met the requirements but there are still "rules" you meet them or you don't...

Art and writing jobs? From what I can tell they are measured on how much people "like" something... I like my non-subjective easy subjects much better.

I think he meant that a lot of kids just aren't into working hard these days and their parents cater to that…unfortunately, some of the guidance counselors at his school do to.

DH married an English major who does find math/science hard…but his writing skills are atrocious as he definitely finds math/science easier and more interesting!

 

[BELLE1109]

I received college credits for AP classes and was therefore able to graduate early. If you are getting college credit for a free class, you can deal with a pop quiz, IMHO. This girl is in for a rude awakening in college if she expects only materials reviewed in class to be on the exams

 

[minkydog]

Are they really weighted as high as other quizes? The assignments we always got like this weren't because they were really easy they were generally just asking you to recall the main topics in the reading to show that you did it nothing really in depth. .

In DDs classes, the pop quizzs don't count for a huge part of the grade, but a student who keeps up with the assignments can easily earn a few more points toward a higher grade. Those slackers who don't study aren't penalized. They just don't get as many extra points. Their choice.

 

[onelilspark]

This is an AP class and they're upset over a pop quiz

Honestly...I had pop quizzes all through school. I never had a problem with them as long as they were low-point, basic questions. I always had a terrible time in literature classes because I'm a very literal person and never grasped the underlying ideas in a book. So without the class discussion, I struggled with questions like that if they were in a pop quiz, but I could tell you what happened in the story.

Multiple times in college I needed to teach myself from the book rather than what the professor was "teaching" in order to pass a class. The Mom needs to realize this will help her son more in the long term.

ETA: In HS I took AP US History. I had such a hard time with the course because on tests there was more than one right answer, it came down to which one was more correct. I used to think my teacher for that course was the biggest witch (ummm, or at least rhymed with it!) because she forced us to figure those things out on our own. I got a C in the course, and I think it might have been my first C ever (*gasp*) But I think that course prepared me more for college & the real world than anything else in HS. I've always considered writing her a letter/email and letting her know that.

 

[HSMndLKfan92]

I hate pop quizzes. I didn't have any my junior year, and that made life easier. (I think it was because we were all getting adjusted to IB...) But I've had 2 pop quizzes so far in math this year. Those quizzes were bad. It was hard for me to pick up on the teaching style that my teacher uses, and it really didn't help when one quiz said "Limits quiz" and didn't say what to do with them....

 

[Holly]

My son has pop quizes in his AP classes all the time.

He said he had one in Calc today.

 

[bumbershoot]

...her junior in high school in an AP literature class had a quiz on a book that was assigned to be read over the weekend. He didn't do well on it and she thinks that they should not be tested on material that wasn't taught in class.

If it was assigned, and if he's expecting to pass the AP test with high enough scores, he should have been read for that quiz.

Our History classes were combined, honors and AP students together. The difference was at the end, where the project was different for the intended-AP students, and of course the AP students took those courses. I'm quite sure we all were given pop quizes, b/c we were expected to stay on top of the reading. LOL, I just found one of the books we read as a free Kindle download, and plan to read it again...I look forward to actually *understanding* what they were saying this time!

Some of these kids are going to be at a loss when they leave their 'bubble' behind. College is going to be a rude awakening. As it is, we have parents in our high school that do literally everything for their junior and senior children. wonder if they are planning on going to college with them.

Honestly, college was easier than HS for me. My frosh English class had us reading Stephen King (don't recall which novel), listening to Bruce Springsteen (that was actually awful for me, I dislike most of his music), that sort of thing. It was mostly very interesting, I learned a lot, and it was vastly different from having to read Heart of Darkness twice (the whole class did, after we ALL failed the essay on it, and this was an honors class) or trying to figure out Chaucer's odd choices in spelling, or wondering why they were having 15 year olds reading about Romeo and Juliet (why give us more dramatic ideas, ya know?).

When I asked DH who's an engineer turned science teacher his thoughts on why kids aren't going into math or science related stuff he said: "Because it's hard."

At my university, I knew people who were going the English and History route, instead of the sciences, because...wait for it...English/History/PolySci classes started around noon, but the science classes started at 8am....

As long as the teacher told them to read the book, then I dont see a problem.

When I was a freshman in college I had a sociology professor who gave us a final on a book that was in the suggested reading part of the syllabus. The only problem was there was 15 books in the required reading list and over 100 on the suggested reading list. The suggested reading list were supposed to be used for the papers that we needed to do.

Oh that's AWFUL. I'm glad the dean was on your side!

I had a tenured prof, the head of the Math department, give extra credit questions on The Beatles. I was struggling to learn Linear Algebra from a teacher who was completely checked out of teaching; I didn't have the time to study up on who wrote Abbey Road and so on...and I didn't know it already b/c having a hippie mom meant that I rebelled against her interests, and actively disliked most of their music...

I failed, thanks to my inability to understand his style of teaching and not being able to get a few extra points from the classwork...took it the next semester from a prof who liked TEACHING, and passed it. Whew.