One last post about teaching my redesigned course on development last semester:
Is the ability to follow directions what distinguishes the excellent from the average student?
Writing assignments in my courses require students to synthesize information from a variety of source material into a single, cohesive argument. Exams are no different. My instructions for the final exam included “refer to relevant course readings” and “see the rubric below for guidance on how your work will be evaluated.” The rubric contained the criterion “use of a variety of relevant course readings.”
I assumed that these statements would translate in students’ minds as “my exam grade will suffer tremendously if I don’t reference any of the course readings.” Yet nine of the fifteen students who took the exam did not use any readings, despite having written about them earlier in the semester. Four others only referred to a single reading. Only two students incorporated information from several different readings.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’m at fault here.