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And I'm surprised how many people defend that situation. Given the tuition that students pay, they deserve professors who are fully devoted to teaching. Even if teaching is not their only job, they need to still put their all into it. I can't just blow off parts of my job that I find less interesting.
Right, and universities usually have a teaching center for faculty who need help with their teaching skills. Those places can really work wonders. I've seen faculty who were really struggling, turn into award-winning teachers who get good student reviews. So there's no excuse for faculty at large state universities at least, or any college that offers coaching to it instructors, to continue to teach ineffectively.
And more indicative, the professor likely did a poor job at adapting to COVID restrictions and challenges.
More than simply being too difficult, it sounds like he failed to teach them, and possibly had an automated system for grading (online or multiple choice) that didn't update well. If you can't write the exam questions clearly...that's a problem. “Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote in a grievance to the university, protesting his termination. Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams. The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros."
You said that very few get in with just the prerequisite coursework. To make that claim, you'd have to compare the admission rate of non-STEM degrees with "just the prerequisites" to STEM degrees. If 90% of matriculants have STEM degrees, and 90% of applicants have STEM degrees, then STEM degrees are admitted at the same rate as non-stem degrees. If 95% of applicants are stem majors, and 5% are humanities majors, but 10% of matriculants are humanities majors, then humanities majors get admitted at a higher rate.
You make a good point. It’s been a LONG time since I took educational measurement/instructional design classes but IIRC, part of the instruction included looking at the results of a given exam to find out if students were missing specific questions at very high rates. For example, if your “correct” answer was C but 80% of students choose B, you really should be examining the question to figure out why students are choosing B. It may be a flaw in how the question was written or there may actually be two correct answers with B being the one selected because it was the first one of two that was right.
It seems like this professor’s questions were so difficult that 90% of the students were reading questions wrong most of the time. That seems to point to some problem with the test questions translating into the e-learning format. It may be that his test worked fine on paper, but when it had to be delivered electronically, it became exponentially harder.
And I'm surprised how many people defend that situation. Given the tuition that students pay, they deserve professors who are fully devoted to teaching. Even if teaching is not their only job, they need to still put their all into it. I can't just blow off parts of my job that I find less interesting.
So you're in the "I'm a customer" contingent? If so, you have no more standing to participate in any thread on education.
I was my high school's AP Coordinator for years. For a couple years we had money to pay the teachers for after school tutoring.
Care to guess how many students showed up for that over the two years? I'll give you a hint: the number ranges between 0 and 0. Over two years not one showed up for review and tutoring sessions.
So, whose fault is it, exactly, when resources are offered and the students don't take advantage of them?
I would have students come to me pissing and moaning about their grades and the first question I'd ask would be, "Have you gone to Mr./Mrs./Ms tutoring sessions which are held either Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday?" (Yes, I had to schedule them as well as keep track of the numbers).
Then came the excuses. Now a lot of these kids had no problem whatsoever attending the tutoring their coaches set up for the teams. Of course, that was mandatory.
Then, of course, the Principal would get into the act screaming about scores.
I was once in a chemistry class in college where the professor had a pre-set curve that he would not change. This was regular chemistry. He barely did a thing, teaching-wise. The class average was usually in the 40s on every test---didn't matter, he already decided where the curve would be at the beginning, and would not modify anything. The only person who was doing well in the course was the guy who took AP chemistry in HS.
So you're in the "I'm a customer" contingent? If so, you have no more standing to participate in any thread on education.
I was my high school's AP Coordinator for years. For a couple years we had money to pay the teachers for after school tutoring.
Care to guess how many students showed up for that over the two years? I'll give you a hint: the number ranges between 0 and 0. Over two years not one showed up for review and tutoring sessions.
So, whose fault is it, exactly, when resources are offered and the students don't take advantage of them?
I would have students come to me pissing and moaning about their grades and the first question I'd ask would be, "Have you gone to Mr./Mrs./Ms tutoring sessions which are held either Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday?" (Yes, I had to schedule them as well as keep track of the numbers).
Then came the excuses. Now a lot of these kids had no problem whatsoever attending the tutoring their coaches set up for the teams. Of course, that was mandatory.
Then, of course, the Principal would get into the act screaming about scores.
Afraid I disagree with you here. At what we pay for college today, yes, we are a customer. And as a customer I expect the professor to know the subject and to put effort into teaching that subject. Not half ass it or worse skip out. I expect class to be organized, structured in a logical manner such that the material builds on what was done before. I expect tests to be of a reasonable length for the amount of time allotted to the test and of a reasonable difficulty for the expected level of the class. I expect the test to reflect the material covered and grading to be done in a way that I can figure out what I did wrong and how to fix it.
I expect assignments to be do able and reasonable in scope for the level of the class. I don't expect to be spoon fed, nor do I expect the class to be easy. I expect to do my job, but also expect the professor to do hers.
I've been in way too many classes were none of those expectations were met. Professors late or missing. Ignoring questions. Disorganized to the extent they don't know what material they covered from one day to the next. Grading scales that were, bizarre and undecipherable. Tests composed of silly trick questions. (Example from a class "On page XX the author said "nnnnn." With four possible choices all of which the author said, but which page. Seriously, who asks questions like that.)
And I'm surprised how many people defend that situation. Given the tuition that students pay, they deserve professors who are fully devoted to teaching. Even if teaching is not their only job, they need to still put their all into it. I can't just blow off parts of my job that I find less interesting.
That's why there are Teaching Assistants. They already have a bachelor's or master's and they know the subject well enough. Maybe the prof is one of these who can't teach, really. The students may be better off that way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JONOV
And more indicative, the professor likely did a poor job at adapting to COVID restrictions and challenges.
More than simply being too difficult, it sounds like he failed to teach them, and possibly had an automated system for grading (online or multiple choice) that didn't update well. If you can't write the exam questions clearly...that's a problem. “Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote in a grievance to the university, protesting his termination. Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams. The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros."
As I posted elsewhere, when I had my review last spring I asked my asst principal how things were going. She said students had lost all their soft skills during COVID. Talk out personal differences? No, now they just start swinging. Work on a group project? Those skills evaporated. And so on.
That thing about misreading questions is student skills 101. They'll answer a question, but not necessarily the one you asked. Even making the test easier didn't help. People making zeros, even? If you didn't learn in the prerequisite courses the whole thing can come down like a house of cards.
And more indicative, the professor likely did a poor job at adapting to COVID restrictions and challenges.
More than simply being too difficult, it sounds like he failed to teach them, and possibly had an automated system for grading (online or multiple choice) that didn't update well. If you can't write the exam questions clearly...that's a problem. “Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote in a grievance to the university, protesting his termination. Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams. The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros."
You said that very few get in with just the prerequisite coursework. To make that claim, you'd have to compare the admission rate of non-STEM degrees with "just the prerequisites" to STEM degrees. If 90% of matriculants have STEM degrees, and 90% of applicants have STEM degrees, then STEM degrees are admitted at the same rate as non-stem degrees. If 95% of applicants are stem majors, and 5% are humanities majors, but 10% of matriculants are humanities majors, then humanities majors get admitted at a higher rate.
OK I see part of the issue here. I was talking about the handful of students who take little other than prerequisites, earn no degree, do well on the MCAT and then win a medical school slot. Some examples would be kids accepted into schools like The Texas Academy of Math and Science at The University of North Texas or TAMs. TAMs is a competitive admissions academy that combines the last to years of high school and the first two years of college. Every year TAMs sends students to medical school who have no degree but completed prerequisites and hammered the MCAT. My son attended medical school with TAMS kids who did this. Senator Rand Paul did something similar at Baylor (the college not the medical school) and after 2.5 or 3 years, not really sure, was accepted to Duke's medical school.
I don't really care about rates as you state them above. As the other side of the equation is what proportion of humanities majors are accepted into medical school vs. say biology or chemistry majors?
That's why there are Teaching Assistants. They already have a bachelor's or master's and they know the subject well enough. Maybe the prof is one of these who can't teach, really. The students may be better off that way.
He'd always gotten good reviews from his students before though, and even won a teaching award. And quite a few students sent letters of support after they heard there had been complaints. It doesn't sound like his issue was an inability to teach. Unfortunately, the article didn't mention what his colleagues' experience was in their Organic Chem classes, and if they were encountering similar problems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ILTXwhatnext;
As I posted elsewhere, when I had my review last spring I asked my asst principal how things were going. She said students had lost all their soft skills during COVID. Talk out personal differences? No, now they just start swinging. Work on a group project? Those skills evaporated. And so on.
That thing about misreading questions is student skills 101. They'll answer a question, but not necessarily the one you asked. Even making the test easier didn't help. People making zeros, even? If you didn't learn in the prerequisite courses the whole thing can come down like a house of cards.
Whatever happened to just avoiding the people you have "personal differences" with? Start swinging, just because of missing 2 years of in-person schooling? Were these kids raised by wolves?! That makes no sense. And the way you learn how to work on a group project is by doing it. No one knows how to work on a group project until one is assigned. You figure it out as you go along.
I'd like to see some psychologists' comments on these issues. I find it hard to believe that students can go through 10 years of schooling, and suddenly in 2 years forget how to read and answer questions. Especially when they were being given assignments to read and questions to answer on those assignments throughout those 2 years. But even without that, how do you forget how to read and understand questions? If it were so easy to lost those skills, students who took a gap year after high school would arrive at college completely lost, but that doesn't happen.
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