This Q&A was adapted with permission from the book Chalk Talk: E-advice from Jonas Chalk, Legendary College Teacher, edited by Donna M. Qualters and Miriam Rosalyn Diamond –
Question
Dear Jonas,
I coordinate many sections of a single course, and one of my instructors has come to me – a week before the end of the quarter – to tell me that his class will not finish the syllabus; they will not cover the last two sections of the textbook. He wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t include topics from the last two sections on the block final.
I don’t know what to do. If I do include material from the last two sections, his class will bomb the final exam, through no fault of their own. If I don’t include material from the last two sections, the other classes get penalized; those students went more quickly over the other material, in order to finish the syllabus.
A less immediate, but perhaps bigger, problem is that the students who did not finish the syllabus will not have covered the material that they need for subsequent courses I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know what to say to this instructor. Can you help me?
Signed: Confounded Coordinator
Answer
Dear Confounded Coordinator,
In the future, you might want to stress to the instructors of the course that it is important that they finish the syllabus, and you could check on their progress every so often. Periodic meetings for all instructors teaching a common course would allow for review of progress as well as discussion of any other issues encountered.
However, given that you do have the problem now, here’s what I suggest: the final exam should include at least one problem/exercise in which the students get to select which of two or more problems they wish to do. Maybe they are required to complete one out of two, or two out of three. Then, make the choices in such a way that people who did not cover the last two sections of the textbook have fewer problems (from material that they’ve covered) to choose from. The students who covered the whole syllabus have a wider choice of problems, while the students who did not cover the last two sections should know their limited choices better.
All students should be informed that the final exam will be constructed in this manner, and they should be told why. The instructor who did not finish the syllabus should offer optional meetings, outside of the regular class time, in which students can learn the last two topics, not for the exam, but for preparation for future courses.
Jonas