<p>It sounds like the pass/fail math class was a remedial class. It’s unfortunately becoming quite common for incoming college students to not test high enough to go right into their general ed classes, thus they are placed into remedial classes. There are several requirements for these remedial classes, some set by the US Department of Education. I work at a higher ed institution as an adjunct faculty member and just received a briefing this week regarding remedial classes. Anything below a B- is a failing grade in remedial classes.</p>
<p>If a student has to earn a B- to PASS then they ought to get a B- on their transcript and not a P. If a C+ is failing, then a student would be better off taking the class for a grade and receiving actual grade earned rather than a F.</p>
<p>Just like my daughter- she should recieve a C+ for getting a 79% overall (final grade). But because it wasn’t an 80%- she received an F and it took her GPA down to where she is now on academic probation. </p>
<p>Again, this was NOT a forced remedial class- she CHOSE to take it because her counselor said it was low pressure and pass/fail. It ended up being a high pressure must get a B or you get an F class.</p>
<p>Completely ridiculous. DD will not be taking anymore Pass/Fail classes at her institution.</p>
<p>Sigh, I hate these situations. I hate getting involved with my kids school things, and in theory agree that it should be the kid’s business. But…my kids got into some issues, and when I took a look, it made no sense to me, so I looked further asked questions, and lo, and behold, it was a nasty, lazy professor or administrator who blew off the students when anything was questioned. But mean old me being an experienced trouble shooter, old and tired as I am now, was not so easily blown away, and some things did get resolved, because they were not right. Yes, I wish my kids had been able to take care of the stuff themselves as I had to haul my sorry carcass to the school in dead winter, and go through a lot of nastiness. Didn’t want to do it, but it did make a difference. I worked with my kids who did not in any of the cases want me involved, but at least now know what paces one has to undergo to resolve things like this. I wish they were more activist, more adament, some of them are getting better as they get older, but they don’t tend to want to fight the authority figures, and don’t feel a lot of these things were worthwhile. </p>
<p>So YOU have to decide how much you want to get involved. Make sure you check your facts before charging in there with accusations as kids do get things wrong sometimes in what they tell you or fudge the facts. When I sniffed around the few times, I smelled something wrong, the odor intensified, and yep, there was a smelly mess in the form of a rotton university employee.</p>
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<p>You keep saying that she has to earn a B to pass. But you haven’t provided any evidence for this. You have said that she had to get 80% to pass. But who is to say that 80% is a B?</p>
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Well surely you are contesting this gross injustice!</p>
<p>Remedial classes often have different rules because what constitutes “passing” in other classes would leave a student grossly underprepared for the math or writing class that fulfills the graduation or major requirement. What good does it do anyone to barely pass a remedial class if he or she cannot then pass the college level class? As for not getting grades? Well, lots of places don’t give grades for remedial (some don’t even give credit that counts toward graduation). </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter that your d took this by choice. Typically, classes don’t have two sets of standards (one for majors, another for no majors; one for required students, another for choice students). </p>
<p>The advisor was wrong. This wasn’t the low stress math refresher it was supposed to be. But then why, since this wasn’t a requirement for your d, didn’t she drop it and take the required class in the spring?</p>
<p>In no college anywhere is a 80% an F on ANY syllabus that I’ve ever seen. It might be a C- but I’ve never seen it below that. In all of her other class syllabuses it shows that an 80% would have either been a B- or a C+. That is consistent with what I saw while completing my own college degree in 2010 as well.</p>
<p>Sylvan, you are incredibly condensing and not at all helpful- I sincerely hope that you treat your students differently.</p>
<p>As for what to do, I am leaving that totally up to my daughter. It is her GPA, her choices. I just wanted information for my own understanding and if she asks for advice, I can give her what I’ve found out. If she doesn’t ask then that is totally up to her as well.</p>
<p>D didn’t drop the class because other students who took it kept telling her it was easy and incredibly hard to fail. Obviously, she shouldn’t have listened to them. Lesson learned for her in the future. She will be paying the consequences for this for at least one semester and possibly two. Perhaps the only good thing that will come out of this, is that she will pay more attention and fight for herself when necessary.</p>
<p>Thank you to all who’ve offered support or just a listening ear- that is what this forum is supposed to be all about and it’s nice to have a sounding board.</p>
<p>OP- Was your DD able to pass the other class that you were concerned about her failing?
Also you asked what you should do in your original post. Is she going to stay at the same college or transfer closer to home?</p>
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<p>Congratulations: you’ve now seen one.</p>
<p>I could see 80% being an F if the questions are very basic. And I could see 80% being an A if the questions are very difficult. The percentage alone is meaningless.</p>
<p>Michigan: All of her grades aren’t out yet but she was able to do well enough on her final project (not the final exam) to pull a C- out of the class that she thought she was going to fail. Her highest grade was a B- in one of her language classes.</p>
<p>She didn’t take very many hours this semester since it was her first one, so that F really pulled down her GPA- making her fall into the academic probation range.</p>
<p>She is going back to the same school next semester- she isn’t taking Math and says that she feels much more prepared for what to expect, how she needs to study, etc. We have told her she has one more semester to get her GPA up and she will have to make the schools requirements for academic probation anyway. Hopefully, she has a better second semester and this will be a one time issue.</p>
<p>OP–this is tough on you and tough on your daughter, but maybe it will end up for the best.</p>
<p>I am wondering if maybe remedial classes require the students to indicate a higher level of mastery than just “passing” an ordinary-level class because there is an expectation that the student will then be taking a full level college class, and the school wants the student fully prepared to do well. I am not sure if that is still the case at our state flagship, but several years ago, students who took remedial classes were indeed expected to get at least an 80 to pass, and the remedial class did not count toward any university requirements (I think that at most they counted as general electives).</p>
<p>The theory behind the policy was that without thorough mastery of the remedial material, the student would not be able to do well in even the lowest level class required for gen ed requirements, or major requirements. For example, a student who cannot do a certain level of algebra may not be able to perform adequately in even the lowest level statistics class that meets the quantitative class requirement for a gen ed. The school may have determined that students demonstrating mastery of algebra at less than 80% tend not to to pass that statistics course that is a graduation requirement.</p>
<p>Could your daughter obtain copies of her exams, and then go to the math tutoring office to determine if there is a consistent pattern to her errors? For example, does she lose track of positives/negatives? is it a consistent math error? or is there one topic that she tanks, while she has fairly good understanding of other areas?</p>
<p>OP- Glad to hear your DD was able to pull the other grade up. Lots of kids have trouble getting used to the difference in high school vs college classes. Now that she knows what to expect her grades should go up.</p>
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I taught remedial math classes for 7 years. After that I swore I would never do it again. Why? Because it’s a pointless waste of time IMHO. The reason it’s a pointless waste of time is because many if not most of the students have this attitude:
It doesn’t matter if she actually LEARNS anything AT ALL, just has to meet the minimum requirement, which by your definition should be the bare minimum required to actually pass. If that means she adds x+x and gets 6 then fine, who cares? She doesn’t need to know that. If your D was in my class I could not teach her a single thing. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Zed. Pointless waste of time for her and me both. Do you have ANY idea how frustrating that is for an instructor? No, you can’t begin to comprehend that.</p>
<p>If people had the attitude towards reading that they have towards math, most of the society would be illiterate. But hey, who cares. Really, you’re right. Your D doesn’t need any of this crap. Hopefully, she can spend the summer avoiding learning any of it as well.</p>
<p>^^wait, wait! Sylvan, I’ve taught college reading and run into the same attitude a lot. Why should anyone read when the teacher will go over everything that will be on the test in lecture? Failing is anything below 70, and I’ve still had classes where half the students fail. Why? They refuse to do the assigned work (reading and annotating the text).</p>
<p>WOW! Wait to paint my daughter with the “lazy” student brush. She busted her butt and tried very hard to pass the class. Visited the professor during office hours, used the school’s tutoring center, did all the homework, etc.</p>
<p>She just doesn’t understand Math. Glad to know that her teachers probably think she is lazy because she needs extra help.</p>
<p>And for the record, I teach classes everyday and yes I have students that don’t comprehend the material so I do understand how that can be frustrating.</p>
<p>Tell me what exactly it is about x+x=2x that she doesn’t understand? </p>
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There’s a difference between not comprehending the material and not giving a carp to learn it. THAT’S what you don’t understand, IMHO.</p>
<p>ETA:
I don’t buy this at all.</p>
<p>So glad so many people on the internet seem to think they know whether my daughter actually tried to learn. </p>
<p>Thanks for those of you who have given thoughtful suggestions/advice. It will be interesting to see what daughter chooses to do about this situation.</p>
<p>Sometimes students think they are trying, but in reality they are just spinning their wheels a little bit. You think your daughter did the best she could but isn’t capable of doing any better. I know better than that, I’ve taught for 17 years. What does that say about you?</p>
<p>It says that I am the one that sat up with my daughter all through High School til 3 or 4 am helping her study for Math tests and finals. I’m the one who paid thousands of dollars for tutors to watch her get C-'s. I’m the one who watched her take PreAlgebra twice and watched her lose her confidence in Math when she just couldn’t get it. I’m the one who she showed all the emails to where she went to her professor during office hours. She got all the possible points for homework assignments and she took all the tests twice. She also visited the tutoring center several times because we received notifications when she did so.</p>
<p>Perhaps she could have tried even harder, but she did try and that tells me as a parent that she needs more help in Math and that is exactly what she is going to get this summer.</p>
<p>Having 17 years of experience as a teacher does not make you a perfect judge of every student in every situation. I’ve been a parent for 19 years and I know when my kid is lying to me and when she isn’t. And believe me she has lied to me several times over the years. I know that she doesn’t always do what she should I’m not naive enough to believe that she is perfect and I’m not one of those parents who thinks their kid is always right. But in this case I think she has a right to be disappointed and a little frustrated with how things turned out. And if a little information gathering on my part might be useful to her should she ask then I’m doing what I’ve always done as a parent- support my kid. She has learned not to take anymore Pass/Fail classes in Math and will take the Math requirements at the local community college where she can receive the help she needs because the classes are smaller.</p>
<p>Her language and writing skills are very strong and she just needs a little confidence in Math to help her feel the same way about that subject as she does her English and language classes. I hope that she figures out what that looks like for her.</p>
<p>The problem is that she hasn’t learned HOW to learn the material. It’s not the material that’s the problem but the learning process itself. Tutors and even her instructors keep trying to address the material rather than the process, which is not going to help her. They’re treating the symptoms rather than the cause. You have to address the root cause. Unfortunately, that’s more like a root canal, so students just limp through and meet the minimum requirement somehow.</p>