In some academic fields, such as the humanities, open-ended questions in essay form are de rigueur for assessment purposes. In my specialty, part of the sciences, assessment tools are often designed to prompt the student for a single, final (and often numerical) answer. It’s usual for instructors to deduct a number of points here and there when students omit a negative sign or make an algebra misstep in the development of the solution. But as one of my colleagues put it the other day, this type of grading is tedious, especially for very large classes. In the end, you end up feeling like you’re adding up change in a complicated transaction.
When I first started teaching, I subscribed to this method of grading, because it’s how my tests were graded when I was a physics major. But for the past year or so I’ve been pondering ways that my grading methods for these type of questions can benefit from procedures long used in the humanities for grading open-ended assessments. After all, our goals for assessment are not all that different: I’m as interested in the student’s development of the solution as much as the final answer.
So far, the most useful tool to me, in physics, has been the rubric, which is used widely in grading open-ended assessments in the humanities. I grade open-ended problems with a simple 4-point rubric, which is available on the syllabus from day one of the course. A student gets four points on a problem if their solution is complete, narrated, well-developed, and having no more than one minor error (pesky negative signs sometimes included, depending upon the magnitude of that type of error). Three points are received if a correct solution is given with few errors, but the solution is not as sophisticated as a 4-point solution. Two points are received if the solution is reasonable and complete but incorrect. Finally, one point is given if the solution was from way off in left field (akin to a student not fully answering an essay prompt, I imagine.)
This method has revolutionized the way I grade. No longer do I have to keep track of how many points are deducted from which type of misstep on what problem for how many students. In the past, I often would get through several tests before I realized that I wasn’t being consistent with the deduction of points, and then I’d have to go through and re-grade all the previous tests. Additionally, the rubric method encourages students to refer to a solution, which I post after the test is administered, and they are motivated to meet with me in person to discuss why they got a 2 versus a 3 on a given problem, for example. This opens up the opportunity to talk with them personally about their problem-solving skills and how they can better them. The emphasis is moved away from point-by-point deductions and is redirected to a more holistic view of problem solving.
I wonder what and how assessment techniques could be shared across disciplines. For example, I imagine that rubrics could be useful in grading part-writing in a music harmony class, in the same way they’ve been useful to me.
What suggestions do you think might be helpful for your colleagues in other fields? How can we facilitate the sharing of these methods? Let us know in the comments.
[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user stuartpilbrow.]
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57 Responses to Cross-Disciplinary Grading Techniques
cerebellum - November 22, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I really like what the author said about “they are motivated to meet with me in person to discuss why they got a 2 versus a 3 on a given problem, for example. This opens up the opportunity to talk with them personally about their problem-solving skills and how they can better them. The emphasis is moved away from point-by-point deductions and is redirected to a more holistic view of problem solving.” I already use rubrics, but I think I may make mine too specific and concrete, and therefore I don’t end up having this productive discussions with students. I’d like to try using rubrics as she is suggesting.
philosophy - November 22, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Here’s something relevant from a recent CHE Review:
“What I believe should be stressed instead is how a conclusion can be taught in such a way that students realize how much must have been lost in coming to that conclusion. For this to count as knowledge, students must learn how one conclusion is possible (among many other possibilities) and therefore how it is also open to question and continued discourse. We should not be trying to give students a sense of certainty; we should be helping them achieve an attitude of questioning. To do that, we need to clarify what is distinctive about teaching, what distinguishes university teaching, at least in the human sciences, from technical training and professional development.”
http://chronicle.com/blogs/old-new/a-call-on-faculty-to-“push-back”-on-administration/87
draekeferrell - November 22, 2010 at 5:17 pm
I also use rubrics which are planned for each assignment so that students know what is expected of them. When you have a Rubric, it clearly defines and explains what you need for full credit. This cuts down on the complainers but still makes some students very angry. However, if students file a grievance (and it does happen more than I thought), you have the documentation needed. I find it sad that I need to protect myself from grievances but I would still use rubrics and hope that students know what they need to do. Some students think grading is arbritrary (my answer was the same as —–)- I ask to see both papers, perhaps the student with the higher grade didn’t deserve that grade or I was too hard on the complainer. I have never had a student follow through.
lexalexander - November 23, 2010 at 9:20 am
My 9-year-old’s school uses this approach on longer-term assignments in both science (e.g., the science project he must complete between now and early January) and the humanities (e.g., a project he must complete on precolonial Native American life in our state). The language has to be a little more concrete than some of the examples given here to be meaningful to a fourth-grader. But when it is, he has little or no trouble understanding what is expected of him if he wants to get an A. More importantly, has grown increasingly adept at formulating strategies independently for executing the rubric.
benbel28 - November 23, 2010 at 9:21 am
Compelling view on a holistic approach, while our campus is moving toward very specific and concrete rubrics across disciplines for general education requirements– assessment for accreditation reporting.
mzamon - November 23, 2010 at 10:55 am
George Mason has had success in spreading the word on values of rubrics & scoring guides to all kinds of disciplines, including physics and computer science. We have had a lot of feedback on their value to students & faculty and to TA’s.
I suggest anyone interested get the book by Stevens,Introduction to Rubrics, from Stylus Publishing. We give it away at workshops and as door prizes at assessment activities.
Mary Zamon
lbcoleman - November 23, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Our use of rubrics in a large enrollment Physics for bioscience majors course is more detailed in that we provide feedback as well with a rubric for each problem that shows what was correct and what was off base. For example it will aware points with the letter S that means — got the concept correct, but made a math mistake, or the letter T which means, correct concept, but ignored frictional force. This way we not only give the student a numerical score, but also feedback on what they did. In this way too we are “grading” on an absolute scale ( no curve) as we assign a numerical score for each letter based on our determination of the value of the response.
laoshi - November 26, 2010 at 7:47 am
Rubrics are a handy method of adding some precision to assessment of critical-thinking tasks. If your rubrics are clearly understood, students are more likely to accept their marks as correct. One way to ensure this understanding is to devote a class lesson to the rubric itself, perhaps letting students assess a sample paper to see how they themselves would come to the same mark as the instructor.
avrhmsol - November 29, 2010 at 9:03 am
I think your method is absolutely to the point regarding education in general, and higher education in particular. My only reservation is that in my opinion you still attach too much weight to numerical exactitude. Surely that should count for no more than about 10% of the grade at a University level exam. In other words, a student should receive about 90% if his/her method is correct, clear, and complete, even if it does contain numerical or algebraic slips. (Don’t forget, the candidate is under considerable exam pressure.) After all, what is it we’re trying to assess?
If we could only persuade more to use such a system!
Avraham Solomons
Jerusalem College fo Technology
Israel.
yeidel - January 4, 2011 at 3:08 pm
I applaud the general notion that simple assignments should be graded with a highly reductive rubric. As the author suggests, this approach reduces “noise” about the details. I’m not clear, however, how it contributes to improved student performance.
I wonder what the effect would be if the numbers were eliminated, and the rubric categories were something like “Nailed it!”, “Mostly got it”, “Missed something important”, “flubbed it”. Then treachers couldn’t aggregate simple assignments readily to get a course grade — they’d have to rely on students’ larger efforts (term papers, final exam), where a more comprehensive rubric with multiple dimensions would be applied. That might be a context for discussions with students of particular strengths and weaknesses.
fizmath - March 10, 2011 at 6:20 pm
How? Easy. Drastically reduce admissions.
When? Fall 2011.
mark_r_harris - March 11, 2011 at 7:48 am
Conservatives and liberals can and should find common ground here. You can come at this issue from either perspective and still wind up being appalled (no lesser verb will do) at the amount of investment that goes into turning college into a four-year party (including investment by the students’ own future selves). It shouldn’t matter much if you’re a follower of Friedrich Hayek or a follower of John Rawls: This extreme hedonism is disgusting and deeply unproductive. I cannot be optimistic about America’s future prospects in economic competition with the rest of the world when I see how our students are groomed to be so unserious and pleasure-maximizing. Asian students, to name just one competing group, are nothing like that at all, as I have observed first-hand.
11167997 - March 11, 2011 at 8:46 am
Richard—You ought to be an evangelical booster for two points in the recently released Degree Qualifications Profile by the Lumina Foundation: (1) regardless of what version of the DQP an institution adopts, students are required to demonstrate the competencies included in that version as a condition of degree award, i.e. actual defined mastery becomes the third leg (along with credits and grades) for earning a degree; and (2) the student signs a learning contract on entrance that basically pledges them to work toward mastery of the competencies publicly described. These would be transformational changes. Get with it!
theblondeassassin - March 11, 2011 at 9:13 am
Even more shockingly, I find an almost perfect negative correlation between spending on higher-education and the number of Justin Bieber haircuts in the American population. I predict an inverse U-shaped curve that bodes ill for both.
electronicmuse - March 11, 2011 at 9:32 am
“It takes a village” to create public policy. Only a tiny fraction of our de facto “public policy” regarding education is due to governing bodies. Mostly it’s parents who give licence because they fear their children “might do (fill in the blank);” teachers who realize they cannot reform an entire milieu, and have thrown in the towel; and, most of all, rapacious marketers of electronic devices whose sole raison d’etre is to distract-not even to entertain or “amuse.”
We have an entire generation who are “distracting themselves to death,” a one-up of Neil Postman’s famous aphorism of “amusing ourselves to death.” Our public policy is originated, aided, and abetted by the public.
Oh! How I long for those halycon days when people had sufficient attention span to amuse themselves!
vincent878 - March 11, 2011 at 9:59 am
Analysis runs way ahead of evidence here. The subjects of the study Vedder cites were high school students.
11191210 - March 11, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Not to be simplistic, but most articles on education are unpinned by one of two assumptions: either that every student can learn something if the teacher has and uses appropriate tools for helping them do so, or that most students don’t benefit or deserve higher education. The purpose and philosophy of these assumptions is equally clear – either everyone deserves the chance to try, or they shouldn’t even be allowed to try, thus leaving education in the hands of the deserving writer and his or her friends and status group.
olddean - March 11, 2011 at 12:25 pm
True, his cited study was of high school students. But, who around higher education can deny that his eight marked points are widely true?
I do object to his gratuitous insertion of the adjective “trivial” in point eight. Much high quality and important research is taking place. Even then, however, the reward system leads faculty to focus more on research than on undergradute instruction. This is not necessarily a lack of interest in teaching; it is a recognition of what is expected.
nie_wieder - March 11, 2011 at 2:15 pm
“[O]lddean” raises a significant point in objecting to the characterization of research as “trivial.” The denigration of research has become a major theme, even within the academy, in discussions of higher education. Exactly what would students be taught if there were no research? Should college professors simply be conduits for information produced by others? Who, exactly, would those others be? Should college professors focus their teaching on basic writing skills that students should have mastered in high school? The separation of the generation of knowledge from teaching seems to reflect the concentration on process over content that has long characterized programs in education at the primary and secondary levels and is making itself felt on college campuses. Contempt for research is a symptom of a disturbing anti-intellectualism that is rising in the United States, the UK, and parts of Europe–but not in the rapidly developing nations in other parts of the world, where there is strong and growing support for university research in both the sciences and the humanities.
bscmath78 - March 11, 2011 at 3:03 pm
You wrote: “a faculty increasingly more interested in trivial research”
Yet you seem impressed by “Academically Adrift” and presumably the follow-up document by Arum and Roksa (and Cho):
http://highered.ssrc.org/files/SSRC_Report.pdf
A document that contains bar charts that show that their predicted CLA scores for students are:
- Only about 5.7% higher for High Selectivity institutions compared to Low Selectivity institutions.
- Only about 5% higher for Math/Science majors (the best) compared to Business, Education and Social Work majors (the worst).
Both stats having the enormous problem that the differences are less than the expected margin of error with such a test as the CLA, which you can apparently walk out of whenever you like. Even if you believe CLA measures something important, the apparent failure to headline the real possibility that nothing makes a real difference, seems an enormous omission. As is the lack of mention of students with declining CLA scores, which you would at least expect with Math/Science majors, who typically do not spend their time writing essays. As is the lack of mention of gender comparisons, which seems mighty suspicious, given the current panic over male enrollments and performance. Maybe only female students improve their CLA scores.
You can read more about my critique of their document, in the comments at:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/richard-vedder-on-the-ills-of-higher-education/28716
Your “trivial research” claim is on its surface incredible. If you had written “a Humanities faculty increasingly more interested in trivial research”, my question would be: When have the Humanities been different? Who was debating: “How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin”? They gave us the Dunce and the Dunce Cap. These were used to ridicule the Scholastics, the followers of Duns Scotus (wearers of the cap), an earlier academic school. Then having let you gore the Humanities ox for a while and let the Humanities defend themselves, I might ask some more questions. How does this apply to all those institutions that are not R1?
Karabel’s “The Chosen” describes the great care taken, in the early 20th Century, at Harvard, Princeton and Yale to ensure that no more than 10% of students were interested in studying. This when only men from the right social class and typically the right elite, Protestant, private prep schools were admitted. E.H. Magill, in 1892, told the MLA that 5% was an optimistic proportion of students who benefited from their professor’s research (see Gerald Graff’s “Professing Literature”).
If you had written “a Social Sciences faculty increasing interested in pleasing funding groups and supporting ideologies, with dubious experiment design, dubious instruments, dubious data, dubious statistical methods and dubious analysis” that would sound about right, though I would like to see non-dubious research (preferably run by Math, Stats and Physical Sciences faculty) to back it up. Just because some research appeals to my prejudices or observations or experiences, doesn’t make that research actually true. Something can come to the right conclusion, for the wrong reasons, by the wrong route and that is no reason to embrace it.
STEM faculty research has played a vital role in the rise of US military and industrial strength. Much if not all of the modern consumer product world is based on the work of STEM faculty or their students. Medical faculty research has played an important part in saving lives and improving the “quality of life” of millions. STEM and medical faculty research are under increasing pressure to provide profitable solutions sooner. They are far from perfect, but it is grossly unfair and misleading to lump them with the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Maybe R1 STEM faculty should have absolutely no contact with undergrads to end the whining (based on your articles it appears that teaching is a waste of time anyway) and to allow them to work just on research? Maybe Education funding and support should be switched to support new Research Labs and Institutes to provide new homes for productive R1 STEM faculty?
In 1996, Dilbert revealed the existence of “the male work avoidance gene”, the existence of which was confirmed by Alison who found that Ashok could identify “the sweet smell of unnecessary work”. Which does seem to describe taking time to do well on a CLA or other type of test that is not “high stakes”.
“You can lead a boy to college, but you can’t make him think.” – Elbert Hubbard
bscmath78 - March 11, 2011 at 5:17 pm
In an earlier comment, vincent878, made the very important point that the Kalenkoski and Pabilonia study is about high school students. Yet it is mentioned in the article in way that suggests that it is yet another study that reports, claims or supports the 8 negative things about college students. Though it is only specifically used to support the idea that students don’t spend their job earnings on school. It is phrased in a way that seems designed to cause you to think that the students are college students.
The study is entitled “Time to Work or Time to Play: The Effect of Student Employment on Homework, Sleep, and Screen Time” and the abstract tells us it is a study about high school students and how they spend their time. It says nothing in the abstract about how their job earnings are spent. Thus the study seems to have been misrepresented by this article.
Table 2 seems to show on school days, high school students spend more time on paid work than on homework, if they worked that day (which was 1/6th of the observations). More time on Screen than working. Why shouldn’t paid work be more educational than homework? Partying does not appear as a category, though maybe it is part of Extracurricular. Looking at the Total column it appears that Homework averages about 52 minutes, Extracurricular 8 minutes, Sports 40 minutes, Screen Time 122 minutes, Games 22 minutes, Paid Work 32 minutes and Sleep 515 minutes. The focus of the study is on the impact of paid work on how high school students spend their time. I could find nothing on how students spent money in general or how they spent their work income.
Please read the study yourself and draw your own conclusions:
http://ftp.iza.org/dp4666.pdf
It brings into question the reliability of the article since the article fails completely to say that the study is about high school students and just about their time allocation. The study itself is clear in the abstract and keywords. The article appears to make claims that are unsupported by the actual study. The article fails to make clear what relevance the study actually has to the 8 bullets. Its very mention in this article thus seems highly misleading.
Even ignoring the issues with “Academically Adrift” that I mentioned in an earlier comment, the question is whether that book is characterized accurately here and why should it be believed, other than it might be used (abused?) to support certain prejudices and preconceived notions?
bscmath78 - March 11, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Why isn’t each claim quantified? Why isn’t there something like:
x% party more than they study, with y% binge drinking more than twice a week, each week, at colleges with a median SAT score of w, with a margin of error of +/-z% based on self-reported, unverified student claims.
And then explain what the difference is from 30 years ago, when Friday and Saturday night were reserved for partying and binge drinking.
“Interact comparatively infrequently with their professors outside of class” Compared to whom? Compared to when? More than 30 years ago, the only reasons for an undergrad to interact with a professor were to challenge the marking of tests/assignments or if they were clueless, they went during office hours to have things explained to them again. If you were a good student you typically didn’t have to do this.
Underemployment of graduates has been true for many for at least 40 years. The Ph.D. taxi driver was a known joke/warning in high school 40 years ago, except we thought that was what happened to Humanities grads who didn’t have a rich family, a trust fund or a family business. 40 years ago, undergrads were often lucky to be “trimming trees, driving trucks or taxis, waiting tables, etc.”, even getting such a summer job required having the right family or other connections. Otherwise, it was minimum wage work, assuming you got it. The difficulty getting decent summer jobs or part-time jobs cast a pall over your prospects at graduation. Remembering Einstein’s patent clerk job did not encourage optimism. Is the disappointment, the disappoint of those who think they will be the 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 success, that they will be the lucky one in a Winner-Take-All-Market? Sure, Thoreau wrote that: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”, but I’m a winner.
How many people’s expectations have been met? Even during the optimistic, prosperous
post-war period there was disappointment. Betty Friedan’s Smith College classmates seemed to have been disappointed. “The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit” seems to have been disappointed. Is there actually an increase in disappointment factoring-in the impact of recessions, unemployment and under-employment over the years? Or have things been distorted by bloated self-esteem?
What is clearly different is that the relative cost has gone up sharply, combined with a reduction in inflation adjusted median benefits, due to increased competition for fewer middle-class jobs. This means that the individual median ROI is probably much lower than it was in 1967 and in some cases like Humanities adjuncts, negative.
It seems likely that the availability of easy credit has driven the increase in cost and the drop in individual median ROI, through perfectly normal supply and demand (in part driven by demographic factors). Lower individual median ROI should be expected every time there is a recession or large scale unemployment or over-supply in a particular field. “Education” appears to be a commodity and commodity markets are volatile.
Maybe the availability of easy credit should be the real focus. Easy credit has been the cause of most if not all bubbles, whether it is: the South Sea Bubble, the dot-com bubble or the recent housing bubble.
bscmath78 - March 11, 2011 at 7:04 pm
In summarizing “Academically Adrift”, you wrote in part: “In other words, the loans are beer money for students”
But when I searched “Academically Adrift”:
* I could not find the word “beer”, let alone “beer money”.
* I could not find the word “Nirvana”.
* Page 87-88 quotes another source (that studied exactly one institution) quoting two students as taking out loans so they could move out of the parental home. One said it was to avoid commuting and another to become “independent”. That same source is also quoted as reporting “loans had ‘improve the quality’ of their time in college” as the majority answer. But the % who answered the question is not provided. The % of those who gave the “quality” answer is not provided. The meaning of the answer is not provided. It all sounds like it might actually be rent, clothing and food money, not “beer money”.
* Page 110 reports no statistically significant relationship between the fraction of costs covered by loans and the predicted CLA scores.
* I could find “party” only once. It appears on page 69, where it appears in a quote of one student listing things he liked doing, in someone else’s study of exactly one university.
Page 69 also reports their findings on time spent “studying” and “preparing” but there is no comparison made with the amount of time spent: partying, socializing, playing games/sports, watching TV or other forms of recreation/leisure
* I could find “partying” only once. It appears on page 135 in quotation of a researcher who lists it among factors improving retention, along with “being a guest in a professor’s home”.
* I could find “hedonistic” only once. It appears on page 81 where it quotes another study where it is the impression left by the films “Animal House” and “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder” on students. I saw “Animal House” way back and it was very funny, but it seemed to be a 1978 parody of early 60′s SLAC fraternity life, from the viewpoint of what were clearly defined in the movie as misfits, rejects and the dregs of SLAC college life. It is not explained how students could be that stupid to decide that this was real-life. Life in “Animal House” was not “hedonistic”, it was low-rent, lazy slacker. No claim is made that significant numbers of students live the “Animal House” Life. No claim is made that significant numbers of students use loans to finance the “Animal House” Life.
I have difficulty matching your description and claims.
This is interesting since as a student more than 30 years ago I had no trouble observing several other students using their parent’s money and/or loan money to buy: new stereos, new records, vodka, wine, pizza and beer. They also tended to spend Friday and Saturday nights partying and often throwing up. College students wasted their time and money more than 30 years ago. It is the old story of: “wine, women and song”. Some credible, quantitative, unbiased data is needed to show what if any meaningful change has occurred in behavior.
grward - March 11, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Wow, I’m wondering if some of the commenters here are missing the forest for the trees. I’ve taught thousands of university students at all levels in a science program for over 15 years, and have also been a student advisor for some of that time. When I read articles like this and the favourable comments, it all seems so self-evident that I wonder who is supposed to be surprised by it. At ou undergraduate committee meetings, everyone who’s taught undergrads for more than a couple of years would, and do, agree. Then I read comments by individuals who seem to think that the article is somehow biased or selective or based upon inappropriate sources, etc., and realize just how many people out there are actively looking for ways to denigrate what little evidence we may have for the failure of our institutions to achieve their goals. Me thinks they doth protest too much. I and my colleagues have been suggesting to the higher ups for years that we actually do some sort of assessment of our graduating students to determine once and for all whether they are the grads we claim we are producing. They certainly won’t listen to us: universities simply will not do it in a way that would provide solid data. Therefore, instead of just critiquing someone’s attempts to draw conclusions from the little data that is available, start to use some of that precious academic freedom that your tenure has provided and agitate for some studies of graduates by your university. Tell the senior administrators to go ahead and measure the writing ability of your graduates, go ahead and assess their basic knowledge of their discipline, go ahead and ask them how many hours a week they study, go ahead and check to see if they really have read and understood the basic writings of their field. If the higher ups balk, ask them to explain why they are so concerned. If the students they are graduating have learned so much, then it shouldn’t be that hard to provide tests and exercises that show it. Just think, finally they would a weapon they could wield when someone somewhere claims what this article is claiming. We, the course instructors, are too weak and insecure in our positions to force the issue with our administrations. You guys with the regular faculty positions and, especially, tenure, have the power and job security to push them to do it. So stop wasting your energy denigrating all attempts so far to do it and push for the creation of a meaningful in-house assessment program. Then we’ll know if the conclusions such as those drawn by this article are valid.
bscmath78 - March 11, 2011 at 9:18 pm
You wrote: “seems so self-evident”
Yes, it was so self-evident to Aristotle and Ptolemy and the rest. This is why Hard Sciences are important, to actually make the measurements and point out the false “self-evident” truths, to point out the errors in data, methodology and logic. That’s why we needed Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Einstein and all the rest to protect us from the honey-tongued humanists and sophists who tell us what we want to hear.
It is worrisome when people don’t take the time to actually read the reports, look at the bar charts and look at the numbers, instead of taking at face value what I or the original author have written. It is evident that they aren’t doing basic “critical thinking” and they aren’t doing basic “complex reasoning”. The ability to write well and to write to convince, does seem to get more practice.
The reoccurring lesson of the Hard Sciences is that experts, the authorities and professors have been repeatedly wrong. Whether you believe Kuhn or Popper or someone else, the story is one of consistent error.
The goal of a respectable R1 Physics department is to teach the Physics majors in first year things like Newton’s Laws (again) and Special Relativity. They should be tested and if they don’t measure up, then they should be failed or advised to switch to an easier program. If you cannot measure whether your students understand these elements of physics, instead of asking to them to just parrot back a law or formula, then there is all the evidence you need to prove that you have failed. If you do not maintain consistent standards and monitor them, then you have failed. Beer, loans, study time or other excuses are irrelevant to the mission. Stand and deliver or be failed. Of course, if you are not tenured then you should not be setting or marking any test/assignment or making grade decisions, because you have a conflict of interest.
“Then we’ll know if the conclusions such as those drawn by this article are valid. ”
If the conclusions are valid then YOU will be history, because you are part of a system that has failed to teach anything of value to most and does “trivial research” according to the article. I, on the other hand believe STEM and medical research has delivered much of enormous value and thus the productive elements of STEM and medical research deserve to be defended.
grward - March 11, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Very good points. As I said, we are currently in a situation where a sizeable portion of university instructors believe that the conclusions drawn by the current article seem self evident. It’s not clear from your response if you’re agreeing with me or not on that point (I concede that university instructors in your department may not feel that the conclusions are self-evident). Yes, I know that to feel this way is unscientific: that’s why I made the point that we can settle this to a great extent by actually collecting and analyzing data. If you didn’t actually catch that (important) point, I apologize. I honestly didn’t think anyone reading it was going to think that was advocating the scientific validity of self-”evidentness”, but was simply pointing out the way a lot of us feel (my background as a scientist makes me more comfortable with analyzing GC-MS outputs, but that doesn’t mean that I can prevent “feelings”: it only means that I examine them closely to see what I can learn from them). I admit that I probably should have used another way of describing the problem. Perhaps the analogy of the blind men describing the elephant would have been more appropriate. Different groups of people think that the part they are examining is the true nature of the elephant, while others are criticizing the methodology being used by them. Meanwhile, no one is actually doing the productive thing here: that is, no one is advocating the use of established methods of inquiry to try to get a better picture of the elephant because it’s easier to just complain about the shortcomings of everyone’s blindness. You seem to be agreeing with my larger point that we need to go beyond the current shouting and actually start collecting data so that we can determine what types of abilities our graduating students actually have. You seem to be advocating some sort of approach similar to that used by the “hard sciences” since you do not believe that other approaches will work, but then you advocate assessing understanding of course concepts as opposed to assessing the ability of students to “parrot back a law or formula”. I suspect that we will have to rely on the methods of the social scientists for help with that, whether we like it or not.
I even agree, to some extent, with your at attempt to make me irrelevant because my lack of tenure gives me a conflict of interest. I agree that the separation of teaching and research in my institution has been a disaster for undergraduate education since decisions about passing or failing students is now done with a mind to the potential consequences for our careers. It’s clear to me that the tenured faculty in my department will get rid of me if I actually fail every student who can’t be bothered to figure out how meiotic prophase I sets the stage for genetic recombination. Hell, I can’t even fail every student who, by the end of 2nd year, still can’t remember the difference between germ cells and somatic cells.
Okay, enough of trying to establish my scientific bona fides. I’m going to play Darwin for a moment, and draw some conclusions based upon my observations of academic life. Feel free to call them feelings, if you wish, and then dismiss them accordingly.
First, I will say that we untenured faculty should be fired because we are afraid to fail the students who don’t deserve to pass. Will I get fired for saying that? Of course not. The tenured faculty in my department don’t want me to fail all those students. If I did, then the whole department will lose too much money and they won’t be able to advance their own pet projects. They won’t fire me because I’m doing exactly what they want me to do. Can I support that statement with means and SEM’s, and 95% confidence intervals? No. So go ahead and dismiss the notion, if you wish.
Second, I will say that we should definitely collect data about the understanding, deep knowledge and analytical skills of our graduating students. I would be happy to submit their assignments and exams from my 4th year courses for that purpose. Otherwise, I would be happy if someone put together some sort of assessment tool to do the same thing. Would anyone disagree with that? Very few, I think, although many would argue over the particulars of the tool and of its analysis and interpretation. Still, with effort, a reasonably valid tool could be drawn up. But you know what? I can advocate it all I want, but no one in power in the university is going to do it. The people in power in universities don’t want anyone assessing the abilities of their graduates. Never, ever. It’s easier to point out the limitations of the blind that to help them see.
bscmath78 - March 12, 2011 at 10:36 am
Dear grward, thank you for your thoughtful response. I will respond to a few of your points.
“instructors believe…seem self evident. It’s not clear….agreeing with me or not on that point.”
My response was intended to strongly make the point that it doesn’t matter in this context what instructors or I “believe”. The very idea of “self-evident” in this context raises a large red flag and brings to mind a variety of famous historical examples of what was believed and what was “self-evident” being wrong. I believe you should guard your wallet carefully whenever someone tries to sell you something “self-evident”. This applies equally to those who have long claimed that University is “Good” and that more Higher Education improves the national economy.
In my earlier comments, I cited some personal observations from more than 30 years ago that match some of the 8 negative bullets. So a major question is what is really different at R1 universities for STEM majors? Are R1 Physics, Chemistry and Math major graduates in 4 years, significantly worse in their scientific subjects (>30%)? Are UC Berkeley or Stanford Physics graduates worse at Physics? In Physics do they understand Thermodynamics when they graduate? I don’t care if they cannot write an essay about their feelings about entropy. My issues with this article include questioning where is the credible evidence for the claims when the sources used by this article seem to have been misrepresented, misused and/or misunderstood. The “trivial research” line completely discredits the article, please see my earlier comments.
In another thread, I wrote about the “weed-out” process for Physics, Chemistry and Math majors more than 30 years ago. You can read it at:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/rigor-in-the-business-school-guest-post-jason-fertig/32657#comment-158005561
More than 30 years ago, “weed-out” still didn’t prevent them from “belling” the marks or in some cases using mark transformations that were even more “student friendly”. As we used to say: “They can’t fail us all!” They needed enough survivors for subsequent years. Though Newton was content to lecture to an empty classroom, but then he had tenure, an endowed chair and powerful friends.
At an individual R1 STEM department level, it should not be that hard to see what you now expect of your graduating majors and see whether it is significantly different from 30 years ago. At Caltech they could also compare to the 1961-63 (published 1964) Feynman Lectures. Individual specific department level responsibility and accountability investigated by rivals, would lend some credibility. The results should be published.
“actually start collecting data”
This article and the document associated with “Academically Adrift” illustrate some of the problems with Social Sciences research. This is an area where you are almost guaranteed to see data and studies to support each faction, to support each theory of what is to blame or who is to blame. So I believe (today, I might change my mind tomorrow) that easy credit is a likely factor in problems for students who are NOT STEM majors who will graduate in 4 years. What is appropriate data to collect to be able to make a meaningful statement about even correlation? This is the kind of area where maybe 500 variables should be assessed in order to assess the correlation with a host of factors (self-evident and previously unnoticed). In Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”, the time of year you were born can have a strong influence on whether you come out on top in certain fields.
In the meantime, your Physics department can check to see if your Physics major graduates can solve the problems that Feynman expected his students to solve and publish the results. Or they could just switch to Feynman’s lectures and the associated problems.
Some might remember Richard Feynman’s role in the inquiry into the Challenger disaster. He famously did an on-camera experiment with his glass of ice water, to demonstrate the problem with the O-Rings.
But then I am biased by my belief that good R1 STEM and medical researchers are valuable and that we need new generations of those researchers. Which is not to deny that the STEM research process should be improved, but I doubt that the Social Sciences have much to teach STEM (the possibility exists, but how can STEM “separate the wheat form the chaff” in the Social Sciences?)
In this set of comments, I have deliberately mounted a narrow defense of STEM. It is up to the others to defend their fields, though all fields should be able to unite in identifying possible misrepresentation, misuse, misdirection or misunderstanding in the original article.
bscmath78 - March 12, 2011 at 11:58 am
Dear grward, I think you made my untenured point for me when you wrote:
“Hell, I can’t even fail every student who, by the end of 2nd year, still can’t remember the difference between germ cells and somatic cells.”
I didn’t write that the untenured were “irrelevant”, it’s that they should not make such decisions, because they are not free to do so. I believe that tenured faculty should be the ones held accountable for the standards that they set.
I learned somatic vs. germ in high school, along with Kreb’s Cycle (which I have forgotten). These cannot be Biology majors at an R1, can they? You seem to pass those that can’t even parrot answers.
Remember when textbooks had the wrong number of human chromosomes? You could look at the photo in the textbook and see the count was wrong. But no one pointed it out for a long time. Tijo made the correct count in a Swedish lab in 1955 and published in 1956 (so before your time). To be first author, he had to challenge the Director of the Institute of Genetics. Do you teach any of this?
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=19198
I don’t think I made one of my points clear. If people buy the Vedder point about “trivial research” then I think that many of the untenured will be among the first to be fired as money for research, grad students, post-docs, labs etc is eliminated and the tenured profs are forced to teach full-time.
If some of the other Vedder points are bought then there will be a sharp drop in the number of undergrads and likely a rapid drop in the number of colleges, so again the untenured will be out the door. Tenured positions will not be filled, they will be terminated, as money dries up. I interpret Vedder’s real conclusion as being that the money tap needs to be closed. Guess where that leaves you? Out the door. Even if you like the conclusion, the data, the methodology, the logic and the analysis need to be correct. Which doesn’t prevent Vedder from being right.
You can be right for the wrong reasons. But this article is so flawed that Vedder’s whole project needs close scrutiny. This article needs closer analysis than I can provide.
bscmath78 - March 12, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Dear grward, as a data point of one, how much of your employment money was spent on beer during your various phases of education? How much of your loans was spent on beer? Or of your parents’ money? How hedonistic was and is your lifestyle? What does “hedonistic” mean to you? Did you fly to Carnevale in Rio each year while an undergrad? grad? now? I am again trying to poke holes in the 8 points.
bscmath78 - March 12, 2011 at 12:52 pm
You can read my earlier related critique of an earlier article about another study about students, in the comments at:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/colleges-as-country-clubs/26210
You can read my earlier related critique of earlier proposals, in the comments at:
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/blogPost-content/26949/
and with additional comments after Oct 8 (comments before Oct 9 have lost their formatting)
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/a-modest-proposal-searching-for-an-academic-bottom-line/26949
bscmath78 - March 12, 2011 at 1:39 pm
I previously wrote regarding “Academically Adrift”:
“I could find ‘hedonistic’ only once. It appears on page 81 where it quotes another study where it is the impression left by the films ‘Animal House’ and ‘National Lampoon’s Van Wilder’ on students.”
I remember “Animal House” (1978) having an element of “Sex, drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll” in a kind of low rent way.
So I went searching for words in “Academically Adrift”.
* I could not find: vodka, wine, beer, pizza, porn, pornography, pregnant, pregnancy, sexual, ADHD, Ritalin, Adderall, Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, SSRI, mental, medication, drug, dealing, games, gamble, gambling, TV or rock.
* I could only find “sex” once, in a questionnaire asking if Male or Female.
* I could only find “music” once, in a questionnaire.
* I could find only 3 pages with the word “drug”. Only page 14 seems to relate to my interest. It mentions the general lack of administrative action to “control alcohol and drug use”. It does not comment on the effectiveness of those institutions who take action. It does not comment on the impact on CLA scores for institutions or students.
What kind of study of college students ignores: sex, illegal drugs, legal drugs, mental health, computer games, TV and music?
What was the basis then for you writing:
“party more than they study, leading, on average, relatively hedonistic lifestyles;”
What kind of “party” is it with no vodka, wine, beer or pizza? Has college partying become a Plato quotation challenge game? What kind of “hedonistic” is this? Relative to what? A gulag inmate?
bscmath78 - March 12, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Another thing I remember about “Animal House” (1978) was “being a guest in a professor’s home” (page 135 of “Academically Adrift” in the context of retention factors) seemed to be linked to sex and drugs with the professor (Professor Jennings in this case).
This puts your apparent complaint about students in a completely new light:
“interact comparatively infrequently with their professors outside of class;”
Whether it is Abelard or Heidegger, some Humanities academics seem to have an eye to “corrupting” youth. This did seem a recurrent theme in the 20th Century “college novel”. Is this what you meant by “Rising Expectations”?
Is there a need or desire to return to Abelard and Heloise? Is there a need or desire to return to the abuses of the elite English public school?
Why wasn’t prof partying on your list?
Why wasn’t prof payoffs on your list?
bscmath78 - March 13, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Why did you leave out:
* “Freedom is Slavery”
* “Ignorance is Strength”
* “Four legs good, two legs bad”
Aren’t these the true fruits of Revolution?
Whatever the revolution’s name?
But especially likely with one entitled “The Revolution of Rising Expectations”?
bscmath78 - March 16, 2011 at 3:34 pm
You wrote: “a faculty increasingly more interested in trivial research”
What would have happened if Polish and British mathematicians, and other boffins, hadn’t used their “trivial research” to break the Enigma Code? How much harder would have WW II been to win if the Western Allies didn’t know the Nazi military orders?
What would have happened if “trivial research” hadn’t enabled the US to break Japanese codes?
* What if Pearl Harbor and Manila hadn’t been warned to expect a Japanese attack?
* What if the US hadn’t decoded the infamous December 7, 1941 cable to the Japanese Embassy, hours BEFORE the Japanese Embassy did?
* What if a US radar unit hadn’t caught the first Japanese attack approaching Pearl Harbor?
Oh! things didn’t happen as they should during December 1941, but the code-breaking did have much better battlefield results after December 7.
As Robbie Burns wrote:
“The best-laid plans of mice and Men
Go oft awry
And leave us nothing but grief and pain”
Or as G.I.’s used to say:
“SNAFU!”
Science and Technology gives one a better chance, that doesn’t prevent it from it being misused or ignored.
At various times STEM faculty have heeded their nation’s, civilization’s or decency’s call “rather than their undergraduate student audience” to apply their “trivial research” to a great cause. Good!
juliewhite - May 13, 2011 at 2:51 pm
It’s not an appraisal, per se, but I ask students at the end of the semester to write a page or so (in class), about what activity/topic/class session most improved their “sociological imagination”? Of course different phrasing could be used dependent on the class; mine happens to be introductory sociology. This helps me know what most impacted students’ overall understanding of sociology.
raza_khan - May 13, 2011 at 3:44 pm
This has been an issue of probably the most contentious debate between the administration and the faculty. The administration simple adore this utility as it provides them some “numbers” to work with.. Whether it is meaningful or not… well…that really does not matter when it just comes to maintaining data for the sake of having data.
Both as undergraduate and graduate student, I really never cared for being honest on such surveys. As undergraduate, I was never told the value of such surveys for the course or for the professor so I filled them as fast as I could. As graduate student, I quickly learnt that most of my professors were tenured and they were teaching in the same style for the last 20 years without any change in their methodologies and also the fact that research work contributed to 80% or higher of their responsibilities as a faculty member. So yup, rushed there as well.
It is not the fact that I do not value them but the fact that the students do not see an immediate action / reaction to their response. For the last two years, I have added my own twist: During the middle of the semester, I have my students write out the course content and learning outcomes objectives from the syllabus and reflect on what we have done so far. Then, we have a meeting where we invite different vested groups such as Sciences faculty (I teach in Science), Learning Outcomes Chair, Student Life, and other faculty who talk with students in small group settings and then share their findings with me. I give space to the groups so that they can freely talk about the course as well. We have the same again at the end of the semester. The value of the mid-semester is where I learn what is on students’ minds and act accordingly where needed for better learning environment in the classroom. This also helps as such reflection needs time and students are given at least two days to write their thoughts. The bubble survey, in my view, is a snapshot of what students react to… if they got an “A” on the exam in the last lecture period, of course, they are not going to rate the professor poorly.
I also have post-it notes once every few weeks to gauge students as to what is working or not but that are typically content related.
A student in our faculty meeting remarked that he values more vocal interaction with the faculty than via any paper “bubble” or comments sheet.
Raza
______________
Raza Khan, Ph.D.
Dr.Raza.Khan@gmail.com
grward - May 13, 2011 at 4:56 pm
I understand the rationale behind having total anonymity in evaluations, but perhaps we could switch to a system where students (in larger classes, at least) were identified by an independent group that could run the evaluations but be under strict confidentiality rules so that they would be able to organize the results of the evaluations according to the student’s grade and year level, and whether or not they are a major in the that particular department, etc. I teach a couple of large service courses and my ratings are often all over the place, and I can’t do much with the info unless I know something about the type of student who gave it. If some of my students say that the classes are interesting but others say that they are boring, it would help to know if one group might be heavily represented by students who are in upper years taking it as an elective while the other are students in lower years taking it as a required course. If some students complain about the amount of reading while others think it’s appropriate, it would be helpful to know if their answers break down according to their grades. I’ve brought this up at meetings, but the senior admin people don’t seem interested in investing in what I think would be an improved system.
clarinetsarethebest - May 13, 2011 at 8:49 pm
As a student, I try to fill them out completely and fairly (erring on the kinder side if possible, although it’s not always). My biggest problems are 1) irrelevant, useless, or redundant questions (for example, my school asks us to “comment on my involvement in this course.” Considering I already dutifully checked off the boxes indicating how often I attended and how much time I spent studying, this always seemed like a waste of a question) and 2) professors who hand out evaluations when there are only two – or possibly zero – minutes left in class. It’s hard to come up with helpful comments when I’m worrying about being late to my next class. I will mention that our evaluations, at least, do ask us our grade level, if we were taking the course as a requirement or prerequisite, and if the course was in our major.
goodeyes - May 13, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Osborn states “I have had semesters where I don’t return any assignments at all because of cheating issues.” Isn’t this cheating your students out of their education? I hope you are getting poor teaching evaluations, because if not, you should be getting them. Learn how to teach or pick another career. Feedback is critical for learning and learning growth.
robjenkins - May 14, 2011 at 9:07 am
That’s pretty harshly judgemental of you, goodeyes, not to mention uncivil. You have no idea what kinds of situations Eliana is referring to, or what she might have been instructed to do by her department chair or dean. I’ve read all of her posts on this blog, and I’m confident she knows what she’s doing in the classroom.
You know, it takes a lot of courage for Eliana to write about her experiences, knowing some are going to criticize. She does it, I suspect, because she believes many of her colleagues across the country can relate. Why is it that some just use the comment section to try to tear down? The classic reason, I suppose: to try to build themselves up. But it’s still disgusting.
What is it they say on some blogs? “Disagree but don’t be disagreeable?” Sounds like good advice.
Aaron - May 14, 2011 at 5:58 pm
I tend to ignore the student surveys where no comments are left. If all they did was fill in the bubbles they probably did not put much thought into it.
Those that took the time to leave written comments I actually do look at quite closely. I’ve actually taken a few of their suggestions.
mbelvadi - May 14, 2011 at 10:09 pm
Yet another in a long line of “educators” who confuses teaching and assessment. Feedback in general may be critical for learning, but it doesn’t have to always happen with the formal assessment tools. Good teachers have lots of ways of providing constructive feedback, not just when returning graded work.
mbelvadi - May 14, 2011 at 10:12 pm
I had to laugh when my husband showed me his student comments from a recent course. In the “what could make this course better” open-comment box, one student wrote “use Moodle more” and the very next one in the pile held a longwinded complaint that came down to “use Moodle less” (Moodle being the course management system).
Eliana Osborn - May 15, 2011 at 12:06 am
Assignments that have been passed on to students in other classes and turned in as their own work. I feel comfortable with my decision there, knowing that all sorts of other feedback is given on a 1-1 basis. I’d love some tips on how to handle cheating issues, instead of an attack on my teaching.
Eliana Osborn - May 15, 2011 at 12:07 am
I love when they fill out the actual comments, though I don’t get them till several months later which is too late to make immediate changes.
Trey Medley - May 16, 2011 at 5:54 am
I’ve, unfortunately, noticed an increasing trend (with the newer students coming up) toward less useful information (at less useful than what they used to be). When comments are things like “the class is too hard” or “I wish we’d never covered ‘X’” When ‘X’ is explicitly stated as the topic of the course in the student course guide put out by the university.
Even more frustrating are the comments that directly contradict each, *sometimes on the same evaluation.* One I recently received had this strange dichotomy when the student wrote “I would’ve liked the class to include more of ‘Y,’” followed (not two lines later) by “The class uses too much of ‘Y’ and I wish it dealt more with other stuff.” While in the past I have found evaluations to be of (admittedly limited) use, and have even reworked my courses in response to issues raised in a few evaluations, for whatever reason, I have been grossly disappointed with the evaluations I have received so far for this term.
20ahabs - May 16, 2011 at 10:29 am
I actually make a separate sheet of very pointed and detailed questions: rank the novels we read from 1-8 on terms of difficulty, information learned, relevance to the course and give reasons why; ask them questions about what should be taken off a future syllabus to make room for a larger text and why; ask about the efficacy of writing assignment sequences and writing groups and the like. I give them self-addressed envelopes (addressed to my campus mailbox) and tell them to fill them out anonymously. (Sometimes I have them fill the questions out in class and take them with them, sometimes not.) I give them the option of turning the questions in with their final essays in the envelopes (putting them in my mailbox) or holding on to them until after final grades have been posted and sending them via campus mail; in any event I don’t look at them until a week or two after final grades have been posted to be fair. I get more consistent and better feedback this way than the questions on the feedback the university demands, partly because I frame the questions in terms of revision: these questions allow me to receive the kind of feedback I that I find useful to revise my course. That rationale helps to have students respond to these voluntary questions at the end of the semester, too, since I stress revision over the course of the semester in their own writing.
missoularedhead - May 16, 2011 at 10:44 am
In all my classes, both online and face to face, I put up a discussion board at the end of the semester worth some points, and ask students what they learned about the subject, what they learned about themselves, and tell them to be honest about what they liked, what they didn’t, and why (I actually say ‘you can tell me I suck, but you have to tell me WHY I suck’). Surprisingly, these very broad questions elicit some really useful, and powerful, information. Some people use the opportunity to complain about simply everything, but the vast majority give me solid feedback, which helps me fine tune the course in the future.
mbelvadi - May 16, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Do you know who is responsible for such a long delay? Administrators so frequently complain that faculty are very slow to change that it would be interesting to know if in this case, it’s the admin staff preventing the faculty from responding in a timely way to data supporting change.
jadee - May 16, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Wow, goodeyes, your response to Osborn’s statement was way harsh! Lighten up dude (or dudette), and please don’t ever wish for any teacher to get “poor teaching evaluations:” We get enough hard times from the students without having other teachers beat up on us!
jadee - May 16, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Hmmm . . . I once worked with a depressed colleague who had a sick preference for only reading the negative evaluations of her students. She felt that the negative evaluations were more truthful than the positive ones. Just goes to show that some people dwell on the negative and then wonder why they are walking around with feelings of inadequacy.
Ellen Bremen - May 16, 2011 at 6:51 pm
I’m chair of the Distance Learning Committee at my college. In my past year, I have had a personal mission to revise our standard student evaluation to cover the nuances of online/hybrid courses. Our current student evaluation is used for every class–and it covers nothing about this specific delivery method. Therefore, I had no way of learning if my students felt community in my online/hybrid courses, if my format was easy to navigate, if my online materials were sufficient, etc. To combat this, I searched other colleges student evaluations for online courses and compiled my own evaluation. Unfortunately, my formulated evaluation did not “count” for tenure or post-tenure (I included the documents in my package, anyway), but I was glad to get feedback about my course that actually told me something meaningful about it. The good news? Our DLC subcommittee met all year to wordsmith the new document and we’re presenting it to faculty for review later this month–then it will go further up the chain for hopeful acceptance campus-wide. I appreciate this article, as well as the other commenters who noted that they, too, form their own evals. Ellen Bremen, M.A. @chattyprof http://chattyprof.blogspot.com
mjburbri - May 20, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Our institution implemented online evaluations. As many of the instructors have discussed, our response rates have dropped drastically, and the students that do complete the evaluations are those that really liked the class and those that did not, which includes the comments ”I really like this…” and another that comments “I really didn’t like…” the very same thing. Although this shows that the students that do fill out the evaluations are not the ones that just go down through and mark whatever bubble to get it over with, but it does skew the results because some who just thought the class was fine do not feel the need to take their time to fill out the evaluation. Has anyone else had this problem? As some one else mentioned, it is the numbers that is important to the administration. These numbers can be arbitrary.
Also, how do you handle student comments that are inappropriate, not just those that are completely wrong, but comments such as “she’s hot,” ”he is great looking,” or ”she wears cute clothes.” It is really important to figure out a way to educate this generation, one that thinks everything they do should be posted on the Internet, on what is appropriate and helpful for completing evaluations.
iris2321 - June 2, 2011 at 6:56 am
I give a mid-semester evaluation, but think now that it should basically be the same one as the end of term one (which just changed to the typical online bubble one). One question that I think I could improve on is “the course was well organized”. I think I’m improved tremendously over the years, and now this is the minor weak point, but is an important one. I take great efforts to make my class organized, so it drives me nuts to see this be less than ideal: my syllabus is thorough, including all the project and a timeline; I post all my lectures on the blog; I break down each assignment in a ‘design brief’; I review any changes to the course schedule in class. I teach in a creative field, so there has to be some flex in the classroom – we’re not working from a textbook. Any insights into what this *really* means? Is it just a personality thing?
Tarkio - June 24, 2011 at 4:36 am
So D3 is a fraud. This is not exactly new information.
jffoster - June 24, 2011 at 7:46 am
How you can leap to that conclusion from the above story is beyond me. Ten institutions out of 400 some odd “ran afoul of the rule”, a rule which may not be clear, or which NCAA has now chosen to enforce in such a way that a student who plays the English horn can get a scholarship but not if he plays both the English horn and football. Maybe it’s the NCAA who is the fraud. Or certainly confused.
wisemandm - June 24, 2011 at 11:17 am
And the NCAA will also get tough with Ohio State, banning it from conference championships in football, cutting football ‘scholarships’ by 20 for two years or give it something akin to the SMU penalty? Dare we hope?