Faculty Salaries Climb 3.8 Percent

[Time for the grenade] I am politically conservative and tied to both evangelical Christianity and the military. If you think you all have a hard time being liberal and dealing with conservative students, try being me.

Every semester I have the Daily Show heads and Rachel Maddow acolytes who think they can condescend to me. Why wouldn’t they? They just mimic their heroes like clapping seals.

But I, for one, do not support efforts to de-politicize the classroom. I think it is important for professors to be upfront about their agenda rather than passive aggressive. The more open professors are about their liberalism, the more everyone else gets to document just how few conservatives teach in the academy.

The academy needs to have more conservative professors; that is the solution. I have been in contact with David Horowitz’s foundation and must credit him for helping right-wing professors in danger for their jobs. My position at Cal State U hangs by a very frail thread and I get no help against racial, sexual, or anti-veteran harassment because all the liberal groups that run EEO offices don’t want to help a right wing Latino military guy. But I think David Horowitz would do a great service to us all if he shifted some of his focus away from limiting liberal professors toward strategizing good ways to bring more right-wing voices into the Humanities and Social Sciences. (In the hard sciences, who cares? Teach about quantum physics and biochemistry.)

So in response to this article, I have to say, students are a captive audience and need to give their professors a patient and respectful listen. Students should also keep in mind that they have a whole lifetime to argue against the positions of their professors and do not need to win the argument in their midterm paper or final exam. But there needs to be equal protection. While leftists may be open to harassment from students, conservatives are open to harassment from radical students, AS WELL AS other academics–and we are least likely to get assistance or sympathy from the institutions in which we teach.

Bias alert! Bias alert! You jab Fox News (which I don’t watch by the way), but remember that liberal students also love Rachel Maddow and love trying to sneak Huffington Post articles into their works cited list. And the Daily Show is famous for its clapping seals (don’t say “but Jon Stewart criticizes Democrats too” because then I will ask you to notice all the liberals on the many shows that populate the 24-hour cycle that is Fox News.)

Grading is an obsession with all stakeholders such as students, prpfessors amd the employers. It is important part of the career development. In my opinion, the best person grader is the one who teaches the students. Maybe the idea of outsourcing grading to experts for mid terms will be good but not for the final. The bond of the one with who is taught is critical esp in the final exams.

Grading is objective but no strings are attached to any student as long as they perform well in the  assignment and project management. Grading should be done as per the THE KTB SCORECARD that was developed for the college in BC. It had four segments to the score that could be discussed satisfactorily in a seminar for the stakeholders. Perhaps WGU can provide this opportunity to meet and discuss openly.

To be a professional, it is more than dotting the “I’s” and crossing the “T’s”. Teacher professionalism has relevant significance in education in that it affects the role of the teacher and his or her pedagogy, which in return affects the student’s ability to learn effectively. It can be defined as the ability to reach students in a meaningful way, developing innovative approaches to mandated content while motivating, engaging, and inspiring young adult minds to prepare for ever-advancing technology.

It was well done and reflected by the experimental group called as MOMS (KTB Group). However, this definition does little to exemplify precisely how a professional teacher carries himself or herself – especially in an OnLine Teaching Environment. Due to the growing autonomy being given to educators, professionalism remains one of the most influential attributes of education today.

Teacher professionalism contains three essential characteristics, competence, performance, and conduct, which reflect the educator’s goals, abilities, and standards, and directly impact the effectiveness of teaching through the development of these qualities. This was exemplified in the terminal project done by and explained in the KTB Scorecard

Agreed!

“Teacher professionalism has relevant significance in education in that
it affects the role of the teacher and his or her pedagogy, which in
return affects the student’s ability to learn effectively. It can be
defined as the ability to reach students in a meaningful way, developing
innovative approaches to mandated content while motivating, engaging,
and inspiring young adult minds to prepare for ever-advancing
technology”

Exact grading schemes tend to emphasize operating “in the box”.  We need graduates who want to work outside the box.  Can such a college system develop such a desire?  Many of our grade schools and high schools are doing just the reverse.

Do you make it explicit what they are going to hear throughout the rest of the course in the first week of the course?