Mistake #4: Give Tests That Are Too Long.

Engineering professors routinely give too long exams for most of their students. Problems, involving a lot of time-consuming mathematical analysis. The few impulsive students finish with a few careless mistakes, while reflective learners who never get to some problems get failing grades.

One major factor causes engineering enrollments to decrease by %40 or more in the first two years of the curriculum. When concerns are raised about the impact this attrition on the engineering pipeline.

Fallacy:

the dropouts are all incompetent or lazy and unqualified to be engineers. WRONG

Studies correlating grades of graduates with subsequent career success, negligible.

Students dropping out of engineering have the same academic profile as those who stay.

Slow, careful and methodical students, better engineers than quick and careless students.

To evaluate your students' potential, test their mastery of the knowledge and skills you are teaching, not their problem-solving speed.

Testing point:

1. Take the test yourself.
2. Time youself.
3. Make sure to give the students at least three times longer to take it than you.
4. You don't have to stop and think about it.
5. If a test, challenging, the ratio should be four or five to one for the test to be fair.