2008 Woodie Awards
Students struggle with Core revisions
Candace Pontoni, Assistant News Editor
Issue date: 11/14/06
Last Updated: 12/26/07
"You just have to study what you know and hope you get lucky," he said.
McCrillis said he has an average test score of 75 percent. Other students earning higher grades, are still struggling with the updated Core 150 program as well.
Freshman Kynda Laufmann, who described her grade as being in the high B, low A range, said, "I don't like the changed program, but I deal with it because I have to."
Laufmann, who has spoken to Beebe about the difficulty of the program, was told that this version of Core 150 is good preparation for harder courses that she will take throughout college.
Freshman Nathan Shea, another student currently taking Core 150, also thinks that the course is challenging. For him, long hours of studying do not always result in high grades, he said, and he would rather instructors find a happy medium between the previous and current Core 150 structures. He does, however, see the positive benefits of the course as well.
"We learn more this way," he said.
But both Laufmann and Shea question the fairness of the fact that past students were able to study less and come away with better grades.
"I've talked to students who were in the class last year, and they looked at the exam instructions and said, 'What is this? This isn't a study guide'," Laufmann said.
Senior Nels Berg, who took Core 150 in the fall of 2002, said he benefited from the study structure provided by the exam guides. Berg said he received about a 94 in the course, and spent only about one and a-half to two hours studying for each exam with the study guides.
While Berg said he thinks trying to get freshmen to have good study habits by pushing them to study more in this introductory level class is not a bad thing, he does not agree with the administrative decision to broaden the study requirements to the current level.
David Dolphay, a junior who took the course in the fall of 2004, has taken a different position on the issue.
McCrillis said he has an average test score of 75 percent. Other students earning higher grades, are still struggling with the updated Core 150 program as well.
Freshman Kynda Laufmann, who described her grade as being in the high B, low A range, said, "I don't like the changed program, but I deal with it because I have to."
Laufmann, who has spoken to Beebe about the difficulty of the program, was told that this version of Core 150 is good preparation for harder courses that she will take throughout college.
Freshman Nathan Shea, another student currently taking Core 150, also thinks that the course is challenging. For him, long hours of studying do not always result in high grades, he said, and he would rather instructors find a happy medium between the previous and current Core 150 structures. He does, however, see the positive benefits of the course as well.
"We learn more this way," he said.
But both Laufmann and Shea question the fairness of the fact that past students were able to study less and come away with better grades.
"I've talked to students who were in the class last year, and they looked at the exam instructions and said, 'What is this? This isn't a study guide'," Laufmann said.
Senior Nels Berg, who took Core 150 in the fall of 2002, said he benefited from the study structure provided by the exam guides. Berg said he received about a 94 in the course, and spent only about one and a-half to two hours studying for each exam with the study guides.
While Berg said he thinks trying to get freshmen to have good study habits by pushing them to study more in this introductory level class is not a bad thing, he does not agree with the administrative decision to broaden the study requirements to the current level.
David Dolphay, a junior who took the course in the fall of 2004, has taken a different position on the issue.
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