<p>mackinaw brings up something that’s bothered me about this case from the beginning: how many timed in class exams will this student take at Princeton? As a freshman she may have more of this kind of exam, but I think take home essays and other extended projects would be the norm - unless she’s majoring in math. </p>
<p>The other thing that doesn’t make sense to me is that the suit was filed before the midterms. I suppose she was working to get the accomodations she wanted up until that time. There was no reason for her to try to do well on midterms, as that would weaken her case. I feel very, very bad for her - and I’m not convinced, based on what’s publicly available, that she should have more accomodations than P has offered. She’s in the public realm now. No matter the outcome this will be attached to her name and any future employer or grad school will be aware of this.</p>
<p>I had exactly one timed in-class exam in my entire undergraduate career. It was a final exam in my senior year.</p>
<p>I had a number of timed at-home exams. I guess the philosophy was “why waste class time on exams?” But they also trusted us to do our exams when we were ready (often “closed-note, closed-book” but at home and with a time limit; sometimes open-book and open-note) and turn the results in during class. This covered both math, language, and some other subjects, including those requiring a more discursive approach. This allowed for longer and more comprehensive exams, by the way, since the length wasn’t limited to a 50-minute class period.</p>
<p>I doubt P’ton or many other colleges do anything like this on a regular basis. My college was unusual, though probably not unique, in this respect.</p>
<p>More generally, I don’t think it proves anything important that a student be able to solve a set of problems extremely quickly. You virtually never have such tasks in “real life.” You get to think through the issues, have a cup of cofee, smoke a cigarette, or whatever, even take a day or two on some seemingly ordinary problems.</p>
<p>No doubt something is revealed by tests like the SAT, showing perhaps which students are really really quick at solving fairly simple problems. But once they’re out of college they never have to work under such time constraints. Those tests are set up for the convenience of the test-industry, to standardize test conditions, dates, timing, and security-identity of the test-takers. But there’s nothing natural about them or closely related to work-life or life-life. And they are not fundamentally fair to every student, even those who are not LD. They set up an artificial measure of “intelligence” or “aptitude.” So why worry when students who are in fact certified LD take extra time to do an exam. What’s the big deal?</p>
<p>I couldn’t disagree more. I think there are plenty of real-life careers / situations / scenarios where the ability to think on one’s feet, process information quickly and respond / solve a problem are of critical importance. A day or two???</p>
<p>Good pizza girl, but of the ca. 2 million SAT/ACT test takers each year, how many are going into careers with such demands? Those who can think on their feet, etc., have plenty of other and probably better ways to prove that than sitting for a timed exam.</p>
<p>Further, there are different types of intelligence or mental skills that aren’t captured at all by such exams.</p>
<p>One good book that focuses on the difference between IQ (as meaured by exams, including SAT-type exams) and causal reasoning, for example, might be instructive to you. What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought ~ Keith E. Stanovich</p>
<p>I’ve got two really smart kids. One, the older one, aced all standardized exams, is brilliant at logic and math and reasoning causally, etc. Got good but not outstanding grades. He can’t draw, paint, or design things. He can’t manage to tie his shoes. For all intents and purposes he’s LD with certain aspects of his thinking.</p>
<p>The other is a terrific designer of things, though not bad at all at math – uses both sides of her brain. I don’t think #2 is any less intelligent than #1. She’s a polymath like her older brother. But timed tests? Not the way to discover her talents.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any position, quite frankly, where someone doesn’t have to think on his / her feet. Whether that’s working retail or performing brain surgery.</p>
<p>You’re attempting to deflect the point: Do timed tests tell you who can “think on their feet?” Do they tell you about who is going to be a good brain surgeon? Do timed tests sort out well the intellectual talents of the ca. 3 million high school graduates each year?</p>
<p>No doubt they do some sorting on who gets into selective colleges, but that’s not what I am asking. SAT’s are a self-fulfilling prophecy: they help to anoint those who may have a certain kind of talent, and they handicap the opportunities of many many more.</p>
<p>BTW/ Brett Favre can (or used to be able to) really “think well on his feet.” The best way to discover such talent isn’t the SAT.</p>
<p>I didn’t say it did, nor did I say that the SAT had godlike powers or was the great foreseer of life success. I was just making the comment that the ability to process situations quickly is a valuable life skill - that it’s not just an arbitrary skill with no relation to the real world. Peace :-)</p>
<p>As for the question of “thinking on one’s feet” and the value of that in the market place, I’d argue that in the more creative fields, speed is not as important as the originality and quality of the results. Higher quality creative products usually take a longer time to develop. Some of our greatest authors, artists, designers, architects, compososers and inventors were not prolific. In contrast, consider the definition of a “hack” artist or author–someone who rapidly cranks out mediocrity. This is why I think that the writing section of the SAT is ridiculous. The actual content or quality of thought reflected in the essay gets little to no attention in the scoring, which chiefly assesses writing mechanics.</p>
<p>And yes, some people with LDs can do brilliant work; who cares if it took time or time and a half or double time or quadruple time, if the results are of value?</p>
<p>It sounds like a lot of people disagree about how effective an SAT will be at determining what career a person should select. Perhaps it is one factor a person should consider when making their career selection, maybe not.</p>
<p>But to get back on topic, this thread is about one particular young woman and opinions about her based on only a little info that has come out about her so far. Is there more recent documentation than what we know about? Did she research P well enough? Was she swayed by athletic opportunities without looking at academic opportunities/expectations? Might accommodations P offered have helped? Should she have tried those offers before a lawsuit? How does a lawsuit in progress affect her incentive for good grades now? How does this public case affect her in the future- win or lose? How much should P try to bend to help a student? How much should they be required to bend?</p>
<p>Naturally questioning of her handling all these things are not an indictment of all with LD’s, all who seek accommodations, all who decline accommodations, P accommodations, or all colleges. It is not a questioning of how effective any one course or one test is to one’s career. It is questioning only her choices based on what we’ve read.</p>
<p>Re timed tests: whether or not they test anything of importance, most of the timed tests I have taken in college were designed so that speed was of importance. I just took a math midterm last week where the class average was in the 50s. Not a single question on the exam was tricky, it was just too long to finish in the time we had - on purpose. 100% extra time would give someone a huge leg up, unless they actually work at half of the pace of everyone else - due to a disability unrelated to the material, e.g. a broken hand. An LD that affects how fast someone processes math should not entitle them to extra time on an exam like this, because the purpose of the exam was to measure speed. Our homework is an indicator how well we master the material when time is not an issue. </p>
<p>Most of the exams I have taken in college were untimed take-home exams. It seems that our professors make exams unlimited time when they do not intend for time to be an issue. When there is a time limit, time is usually of importance. That’s why I am skeptical of extra time for LDs - it might bypass the purpose of the exam (whether or not that purpose is justified is an entirely different question altogether).</p>
<p>It is also important to keep in mind that learning disabilities are not a black-white issue. There are enough students who have weaknesses that are not extreme enough to qualify as a disability. These students don’t get any accommodations at all, while someone whose weaknesses are a bit more profound might get arrangements that let them perform at a level above the students with a moderate weakness in that area. Is that fair?</p>
<p>I am not saying that students with learning disabilities should not get any accommodations at all. I am just saying that we should be careful not to give them an unfair advantage over other students.</p>
<p>I had stopped looking at this thread awhile ago, but I just ran into a passage in a book I am reading, that relates to the original topic and to some of the posts:</p>
<p>"Samantha, Multiple LD’s</p>
<p>Samantha attended a top university on a full academic scholarship and graduated with high honors. She majored in Asian history and minored in theoretical mathematics - even though she has difficulties with writing and has never been able to do basic arithmetic. She almost flunked third grade because she couldn’t memorize her times tables, and she was denied entry to a gifted math program because her scores on the written placement exam were very low - despite the fact that she could talk about the same problems and explain them easily and clearly. She uses speech recognition software (and landed her first campus job helping other students use it) and a calculator to work around her learning disabilities." Mary Ann McDonnell and Janet Wozniak</p>
<p>This is an example of an apparently brilliant student who deserved to be at a “top university” but could not have attended (or gotten in) without accommodations. In the old days, before the ADA, who knows what would have happened to her, but it is quite possible that her academic abilities would not have been recognized.</p>
<p>A student like this should not have to research accommodations at different schools, but should be able to assume that they would be offered. The student should not have to limit educational options or opportunities due to the disability. Eventually, this will be true.</p>
<p>I’m just joining this thread, but I’ll add further support for timed tests, @ time-and-a-half. My DS1 took an SAT I without time, and got a 600 in Math. (He was so anxious that he couldn’t finish that he left many, many questions blank.) He took another timed test, this one at 1 1/2 time, and got a 790. No, he didn’t study more. He just had time to finish. He’s the kind of kid someone described as “LD and gifted”. Incredible work ethic…sometimes takes his work oh-so-seriously…but gives his 110%.</p>
<p>My DS1, who qualifies for extra time, rarely uses this option now that he’s in college, but, it helps him to know it’s available. I have other children, and they don’t get extra time; they’re not disabled.</p>
<p>I didn’t read through all twenty-four pages of this thread. Still, it seems a consensus is forming that performance is not time-related. That kind of begs a few questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Why are so many teachers incompetent when it comes to figuring how much much material to put in a test within the time-frame they allow?</li>
<li>If some students do better with less time and some with more, why don’t teachers simply adjust time limits for tests? If a class period is 50 minutes, the faster students could simply have their tests taken away after 25 minutes.</li>
<li>Why not give everyone time-and-a-half to complete the test?</li>
</ol>
<p>This is something that I truly just cannot understand. If the speed part is truly that critical to the class - and the grading in the class - why is it not part of the syllabus or course description?</p>
<p>My guess is that 99.9% of college-level math courses make no reference to speed in either. Instead there is usually a list of topics covered, in terms of actual content.</p>
<p>Is the evaluation based on speed implied? Clearly there exist courses where the grade has no dependence on speed (i.e., all untimed out of class work), including many math classes. Why are some that way and others not? It seems to be more professor preference and style than anything else.</p>
<p>Also, without knowing which classes emphasized speed over knowledge, I can’t possibly tell what the grades mean. Maybe student A’s bad grades all were due to him/her doing poorly on exams requiring high speed. Alternatively, maybe student A’s good grades were all due to him/her being ridiculously fast at exams, and his/her bad grades are in the classes which have untimed work. There’s simply no way to distinguish the two cases without anecdotal evidence.</p>
<p>Nah, not really. No disrespect intended at all b@r!um…</p>
<p>If you have dyscalculia, a parietal lobe issue which effects your math ability, or a non verbal learning disability… to the extent that you would need 50% extra time or 100% extra time then it would also mean that you study at a far slower rate than that of your peers as well.</p>
<p>While we are rehashing a little bit, the discussions of whether and when tests should test speed or knowledge combine a couple of unrelated things:</p>
<ol>
<li> In general, as a society, we tend to conflate smart and quick. In common vernacular, a “slow student” is a poor student who doesn’t get the ideas. That is usually true. But not always. For folks with certain kinds of learning disabilities, speed of input and output mask speed of processing. I liken my son’s situation to having a supercomputer chip and dial-up input and output. If he gets the same test time as a typical kid, he actually has less time to think than they do because he’s got to go through a fuzzy I/O filter and work hard at doing that. So, if your objective was to accurately test the processing capability, you’d need to allot more time. Some people actually do the processing more slowly (I think this may be what dyscalculia is, though I’m not sure) and need more time for the processing to provide the same output. In many subject, math especially, I see no obvious reason why we need to have tight time limits (other than to protect students from harming their other subjects). In an earlier post in this thread, I gave my favorite example:</li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’d venture to guess that Bardeen was smarter than anyone who has ever posted on CC who is highly confident of the value of speed in math tests [maybe anyone who has ever posted on CC] and yet he was really, really slow. So, be aware that you are likely unknowingly conflating notions of intelligence and speed and that sometimes that conflation is incorrect. </p>
<ol>
<li> When is speed a useful criterion? Short, timed tests are, frankly, a lot more convenient for professors and universities (and school teachers and schools). Procotoring is easier. Less worries about cheating, or if only some kids get longer tests, logistics. Let’s discount the convenience of schools systems. Let’s assume that the reason to go to school is primarily to educate and not to sort (many CC folks get that confused as well and focus largely on the sorting effect of education, for the benefit of employers, grad schools, etc.). Are there any reasons to have timed tests (with tight time limits relative to the material? I’m open to hearing them, but I can’t think of any.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Other than convenience, we’re thus left with the sorting function of colleges as the reason for timed tests. For example, someone else wondered if someone who needed extra time on tests could be a brain surgeon. If kids couldn’t do well on timed tests and Princeton didn’t use its grading system didn’t downgrade them for this inadequacy, would medical schools unwittingly take unqualified candidates? That’s tricky. For one thing, there are different kinds of LDs that affect different kinds of speed. Speed in reading and writing, or speed in doing calculations, is very different from speed in surgery. A dyslexic with great spatial sense might be superb as a surgeon – they can just “see” how to do things. They might, however, need longer to read charts. Dyslexia might not be a bar at all to someone who wanted to use complex math models to trade fixed income securities for Goldman Sachs but might be a bar to them become in lawyer.</p>
<p>Does a Princeton degree or a high GPA at Princeton (as someone said in an earlier post) promise to employers that someone can quickly process information and produce answers? On this, I’m less clear. I think that employers will assume that a Princeton grad can scan lots of material, synthesize it, and summarize it relatively quickly. A Princeton grad who cannot probably will need to a) choose the write career path; and b) let potential employers know he is not great at that function and should not be hired for that kind of job.</p>
<p>Interesting about the validity of timed tests as it applies to one’s career. I don’t quite see though how that relates to the student suing P over accommodations?</p>
<p>I wonder how the young lady is coming along with her studying. No one has mentioned that at all and the article linked from the very first posting on this thread did ot either. </p>
<p>The poor gal must have to study for at least 75% (rough estimate, obviously) more time than that of her peers. </p>
<p>I wonder if her datebook would be proof for her case or something? Or maybe her classmates or even professors might have noticed a thing or two which could help her in court?</p>
<p>I think b@rium’s math test is poorly designed. There are better ways to determine who knows the material than just measuring who is really, really fast. I remember taking a Calculus final many eons ago at Harvard. I finished well before the half way mark and every other person in the room was still working feverishly away. I’m sure many of them had more natural ability in math than I did. It doesn’t bother me a bit, that some of them took longer than I did, but also got A’s.</p>
No disrespect intended at all b@r!um…</p>