| 2023-12-12 | An awakening! I received an email from a student showing his gratitude towards my teaching -- and failing him -- on ECON1210 (Introductory Microeconomics).
I have to say, the message from the student is very encouraging. As a teacher, I try my best to teach, and to assess students honestly. I have repeatedly told our students that "It is all about attitude!", and that if they put in 10 productive hours per week, they will do well in the course. An honest assessment means that we should award students a failure grade if they cannot achieve the intended learning outcomes of our course. Some listen to my advice, many do not! I have to say, in recent years, an increasing percentage of students ignore my advice.
The enrollment number of our course is big. ECON1210 is a required course for many students (who intend to major business related curriculum). Measuring against the same standard, we ended up with an increasing percentage of students failing the course. It is increasingly more common to see students fail, retake, then fail again, then retake again, then fail again, then retake again.
Have you ever wonder why retakers repeatedly fail the same course? The only reasonable guess is, they are using the wrong approach -- and attitude towards learning. Many students are trying to use all kinds of shortcuts to study for the course. They are not willing to spend 10 productive hours on our course weekly -- as advised. They want to use the minimum effort to get the highest grade. (Wrong focus! The correct focus is "use minimum effort to get the biggest LEARNING"!) If we want to use the minimum effort to get the highest grade, we would try different shortcuts to help acheive a high grade. After failing the first time, we tried to hire some ghost exam takers. The problem is that unless the ghost exam takers have been practising throughout the semester, such ghost exam tackers would not be able to solve most the problems within the allowable time. After failing the second time, we heard that templates written by some A+ students might help, and we rushed to purchase some templates. The problem is that knowing the existence of such templates, teachers rewrite the questions so that those students who are not familiar with the concepts will found the templates useless in the exams. Then, we fail the third time. Such shortcuts all wind up in a failure grade. Then, one day, there is an awakening. Yes, sometimes, it takes several failures to get to that awakening moment. Then, we change. Yes, it has to be an attitude change!
Many students hated me because I (the GPA serial killer) failed them. I believe John at one time hated me when I failed him the first few times. That is exactly why receiving his "A simple gratitude" email makes my day!
I hope his message included here will inspire many other students to adopt the right attitude of studying the course and hence to overcome the challenge of studying ECON1210, and, to overcome more importantly many more challenges in their university life.
----- A simple gratitude -----
Dear Dr. Wong,
I am writing to express my relieve throughout my journey in ECON1210. I have been your students, well, not the first time, but more than 4 times (if I have not mistaken). I am definitely not a good student, and I had tried to use minimum effort on my every former attempt. I skipped lectures and tutorials, blindly used templates and even cheated (and got caught by you, and you showed me I still got a failure grade, as well as a nice illustration of game theory), yet I never thought to use real effort.
I have changed as I promised this semester, this will be the last time I enroll in this course. I used proper effort, and now I deeply understood the words you had spoken to me previously, and it is really about attitude, on everything, simple, but not easy.
If I had not mistaken in my calculation, I would have got 90% in the final exam refer to the answer key just released, and it is quite a shocking result. Words cannot express my relieve, joy and gratitude.
Throughout the semester, I did not arrange any consultations with you, but I would really like to have a chat with you, given that I know this would be a hectic period for you and the teaching team.
Thank you for your time and teaching, and hope that we can have a chat soon.
Sincerely,
John
------ My reply -----
Dear John,
I am so glad to see your attitude change and your growth. Yes, it is all about attitude!
You deserve the good performance in this course! If we are willing to pay effort in our learning, our chance of good performance will be enhanced – though never guaranteed. As I always say, if we pay our effort, even if we do not get B and above, at least we will pass. And, at least, we will learn some solid knowledge. And, that knowledge will be good for life! What would be better when our effort is rewarded with good grades!
Turn your setback into an asset! I hope you will continue to keep this experience in mind and constantly revisit the experience of these days and realize how you could overcome the difficulty with the right attitude and effort. Then, this difficulty you encountered in the past few years would become an asset – not a burden (debt) – for the rest of your life!
Sincerely,
Ka-fu
| 2023-05-25 | Templates on sale, anyone? | | 2023-05-23 | Who is to blame? The Observatory? Or yourself? | | 2023-05-20 | I hope all students would be just as willing to learn and reach out for help from us! | | 2023-05-05 | Can students late-drop their worst performing course? | | 2023-01-16 | We shall overcome! We shall overcome the GPA killer's challenge! | | 2022-12-30 | Rules! We follow rigid rules! | | 2022-12-30 | I am honest. Why don't you trust me? | | 2022-12-17 | How many times do I have to repeat before you listen and follow my instructions? | | 2022-12-06 | Teaching Innovation Award | | 2022-11-07 | Our expectation: 10 hours per week for 12 weeks! | | 2022-09-28 | Is it possible to late drop? | | 2022-06-21 | Why not implement zoom invigilation on top of personalized exam papers? | | 2022-03-21 | DO NOT PANIC. YOU CAN DO IT. WE CAN HELP YOU, ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! | | 2022-01-27 | Can you help supervise my project? | | 2022-01-19 | Please help me to enroll in Introductory Microeconomics NOW! | | 2022-01-15 | Thank you, for putting in your best effort, thus letting me achieve what I wanted to achieve. | | 2022-01-06 | It is never easy to face failure, but it can be an important learning experience. | | 2021-12-30 | University life is not just about getting good grades, but also exploring your limit and understanding yourself. | | 2021-10-04 | Reasons for disapproving late drop requests | | 2021-08-04 | It takes two to tango! | | 2021-08-02 | ECON1210 a killer course? KF Wong a killer? | | 2021-07-20 | Shock and sad to see student's poor performance in 2021 Spring | | 2021-07-14 | Cooling-off period | | 2021-03-17 | Online data are cheap and easy to find, but they have limitations! | | 2021-02-08 | Mini-projects to build up research ability (1) | | 2021-01-11 | Be our advisor, please! | | 2020-12-21 | Why do we need this transparency? For fairness! For learning! | | 2020-11-23 | You want to build some muscle but do not want to use your time exercising? I can help by exercising for you! | | 2020-11-18 | Feedback to feedback | | 2020-11-15 | General comments on participant's performance in a competition | | 2020-11-04 | Yes, 1200+ personalized versions of the test paper! | | 2020-02-18 | Let students focus on learning, teachers on teaching, and thus together achieve the intended learning outcomes. | | 2020-02-10 | Online learning requires Discipline, DISCIpline, DISCIPLINE! | | 2019-01-15 | Supposedly not difficult to get a B grade. | | 2018-12-11 | This quality is more important than grades. | | 2018-11-15 | Late dropping | | 2018-11-15 | Unreliability of average SETL scores due to the high non-response rate | | 2018-11-13 | Let go! | | 2018-10-24 | No, please do not use my lecture time for your society's announcement. | | 2018-09-26 | Scheduling an appointment | | 2018-08-27 | None of my business | | 2018-08-21 | Course evaluation bounds and response rate | | 2018-08-09 | Be a responsible job applicant | | 2018-02-10 | No calories browsing.... | | 2018-01-24 | Would "uncertain" help your postgraduate study application? I would say, CERTAINLY NOT! | | 2017-09-14 | When helping your friend is NOT HELPING YOUR FRIEND! | | 2017-09-13 | My life as a student -- AGAIN | | 2017-09-05 | You like easy grade, easy honor, easy graduation? | | 2017-07-18 | My Facebook friends, please protect me just as I protect you. | | 2017-07-12 | An internship | | 2016-03-01 | You know me. But, do I know you? | | 2015-12-17 | Why learning fails to happen despite the great design of the course and the great teacher? | | 2015-10-20 | Can I trust you, my friend? | | 2015-10-17 | If we have the second chance to "retake", failing or getting a low grade would not be so stressful. | | 2015-09-18 | My first-hand experience on why learning is not taking place in lectures! | | 2015-08-20 | Are you sure Econometrics is useless? | | 2015-05-04 | Eating 100 bowls of rice in a day | | 2015-01-31 | You say you love me. How can I tell whether you truly love me? | | 2014-10-24 | I would be happy to write recommendations letter for your PhD or Master application if .... | | 2014-10-23 | Master of Finance at MIT | | 2014-10-06 | Are you sure what you saw was black? | | 2014-03-05 | GOLDEN opportunity -- only to the hard-working students. | | 2014-03-01 | What to do when your teacher's teaching style does not fit your learning style? | | 2013-11-28 | A negative experience? Not completely. It can be made into a positive one! | | 2013-11-27 | Many thanks for your appreciation of my teaching (II) | | 2013-07-23 | My next stop is Barcelona! | | 2013-06-01 | Her decision to pursue Master of Finance after her undergradaute study at HKU | | 2012-11-10 | What should I do at HKU (activities versus study and many other things)? | | 2011-09-12 | Coach, can you teach me to swim? | | 2010-02-18 | How government policy with good intention can create frustration and political instability? | | 2009-12-01 | Cherish our beloved ones who are still around us -- when we still can! | | 2009-11-27 | Trust your teachers, but don't trust them blindly! | | 2009-11-26 | You can give me a low score but please write some comments to help me improve my teaching. | | 2009-08-26 | The similarity in health care service provision and fire fighting service provision | | 2009-03-23 | Be brave. Visit your teachers. Ask them questions. Your teachers are a lot nicer than you think. | | 2009-03-14 | How can you verify this is really you -- Dr. Ka-fu Wong of HKU? | | 2009-03-09 | I dream to work in the business sector. Should I pursue a master degree before I join the private sector? | | 2009-02-19 | Any economist can predict this... Can you? | | 2008-12-21 | My students performed poorly in the final exam.
Help me help them.... please. | | 2008-12-20 | Learning should not end with the final exam! | | 2008-11-19 | Exchange in Europe can be very rewarding! | | 2008-11-18 | UC Berkeley is my top choice for exchange! | | 2008-11-02 | Why did we not have fresh mushrooms twenty years ago? | | 2008-02-23 | Dialogue is preferred to monologue. | | 2008-02-13 | If I were a single unemployed old man who lives on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) | | 2007-12-17 | Is forecasting a pure guessing game? | | 2007-12-16 | I want zero emission of CO2! | | 2007-11-30 | How would I choose universities for exchange? | | 2007-11-28 | Excuse me. Can you write a recommendation letter for me? | | 2007-11-12 | No pain, no gain! | | 2007-09-14 | Teaching is to be enjoyed, and so is studying. Grades should only be secondary. | |