Teachers: Easy College - What Do You Think?

[mathwonk]

there is always a tension between doing a good job and reducing course content. most people agree it is impossible to teach the standard curriculum in any course and do it thoroughly enough for most students to learn it, but it takes a lot of moxie, or foolhardiness to omit any sanctioned topics. that's why its more fun to teach number theory than calculus, you get to pick the topics and its ok to choose fewer of them. of course if the professional number theorists hear me say this they rise up and demand that i include more quadratic reciprocity or whatever their favorite topic is.

 

[mathwonk]

At a local state university, there was a recent change from giving only full letter grades, to also giving plus and minus grades. As result, a score of 72/100 that might have been a (low) C before, normally became a C-. However there was no change in the requirement that a student receive "at least a C" to pass certain requirements. hence a 72 went from satisfying that requirement to not satisfying it. Rather than change the stated requirement, the university began to suggest that some teachers may wish to redefine the meaning of the grades, so that what used to be a D on a standard scale now would become a C-.The current version of this situation is reflected, on a website where a range of "sample grade scales" are suggested for the instructors possible use. Almost half the suggested scales suggest giving a C- for what used to receive a D.

http://bulletin.uga.edu/bulletin/PlusMinusSampleGradingScales.pdfNote that one possible grade scheme discussed here is that of simply grouping the scores into coherent bunches, without regard to specific numerical values.Anyway it seems there is no firm uniform meaning to any particular letter grade. The primary requirement is simply that the initial class syllabus shall make it clear what the grade scheme will be.

 

[mathwonk]

A "politifact" article in today's paper analyzes a statement that the HOPE scholarship has made the state university one of the best regional schools. They interpret that in terms of US news ranking. They conclude that the scholarship has indeed attracted more qualified students to the school, but that those same students, in order to hold the scholarship, have taken weaker courses and easier majors, and that funding cuts to the university have simultaneously meant fewer professors to teach them.

They conclude that a situation in which fewer professors teach more students who take increasingly easier classes, has mostly indeed made the university better regarded, apparently because those students had higher incoming test scores, and conclude the statement is mostly true. If student / professor ratios were used as a measure, or numbers of science majors, or job placement success, one may ask whether similar conclusions would have been reached. I do not know the answer.

http://www.politifact.com/georgia/s...ays-hope-helped-universities-become-some-bes/

 

[Andy Resnick]

<snip>
Anyway it seems there is no firm uniform meaning to any particular letter grade. The primary requirement is simply that the initial class syllabus shall make it clear what the grade scheme will be.

Wow. When the administration acts this foolish, it's hard to blame students from trying to find the path of least resistance to a degree.

 

[physics girl phd]

At a local state university, there was a recent change from giving only full letter grades, to also giving plus and minus grades... the university began to suggest that some teachers may wish to redefine the meaning of the grades, so that what used to be a D on a standard scale now would become a C-.

Ouch. At our university (also an SEC state university) we went to +/- grading, but I didn't feel the pressure to give more C-'s rather than D's. In fact, until the first term of the new scale passed, I didn't know the +/-'s extended into the D range, so I didn't list that on the syllabus. I think some students were the happy I then gave D+'s (while I still gave the rest of the range D's).

 

[physics girl phd]

An update on "my" reading: I found Higher Education? trite, but have Academically Adrift next on my list, as this is the one my spouse found most interesting (of course it's written by a sociologist, and he's one).