Teachers: Easy College - What Do You Think?

[Andy Resnick]

I'm curious what other teachers think of this:

http://www.indianagazette.com/b_opinions/article_1fe88e14-6d5c-53a9-956d-c31c64ab7b24.html

and this:

http://highered.ssrc.org/?page_id=324

If you agree with the observations, and what (if anything) have you done to address the claims?

 

[AlephZero]

I'm not a teacher, but if this plays out in the US the same way as it is doing in the UK, it's probably self-correcting.

In the UK the previous government's scenario of "50% of young people should get university education" was partly achieved by simply renaming a lot of (perfectly worthy) further education colleges as "universities", so they could issue "degrees" rather than lesser qualifications.

The self-correction is coming from both flanks. Employers who need people with real first-degree skills are learning which universities are worthless. And the bright students are learning the same thing, when they apply for places.

As W S Gilbert wrote 100 years ago, "When everybody's somebody, then no-one's anybody".

 

[Andy Resnick]

Interesting perspective. So there is an opportunity for some schools to develop a reputation as meeting the current needs of students.

 

[mal4mac]

I'm not a teacher, but if this plays out in the US the same way as it is doing in the UK, it's probably self-correcting.

Employers who need people with real first-degree skills are learning which universities are worthless. And the bright students are learning the same thing, when they apply for places.

I don't see that it is self correcting at all.

One problem is it acts against bright students with social disadvantages. How is a bright student at a bog standard comprehensive going to find out which are the better courses and universities? Teachers in such schools are unlikely to give a **** and their parents are likely to read News of the World rather than the Sunday Times.

Entrances to OxBridge from private schools have been increasing relative to state schools. So we have a situation where 'Time nice but (relatively) dim' is getting into Oxbridge to party - courtesy of crammers, 1 to 1, teaching and pushy parents - while 'Bright Mike from the council estate (=projects USA)' gets a B in maths, with no help from anyone, and ends up at a bog standard college where everyone parties (including lecturers), but he wants to work.

Hard luck Mike.

Meanwhile China and India overtake the west - all empires must die sometime I guess...

 

[dacruick]

I think its true, and I think that its just the way it is. A lot of students I know go to universities that are known to be an easier ride; a school with a less than great reputation.

Thats what the school has to offer. A university is a business, don't get it confused with a service. They do what they need to do to make money. If offering easier courses and more laid back degrees gets students in the system, then that's what they will do. They can only follow the market. If there isn't a demand for a rigorous education, then why set one up?

I don't know why this reminds me of politics, but we call politicians liars, but never elect anyone with an attainable platform. What I'm trying to say is it all comes down to the choices that the students make. And you can't blame universities for lowering their standards.

EDIT: I may have a biased point of view because I come from a fairly prestigious university and am happy with the education I'm receiving.

 

[physics girl phd]

My spouse (an administrator in honors education, looking to eventually move up into an administrative level overseeing all undergraduate education) just got this text (Academically Adrift) yesterday, and he is impressed with the analysis of the author. He got a lot of others along a similar line too (Higher Education?, The Lost Soul of Higher Education, The Last Professor, Crisis on Campus, and The Heart of Higher Education)... I think he's supposed to give a review speech at some conference about this stuff. They just arrived yesterday, and I've yet to read any bits of them.

With regards to universities being a business, I will say our school (a state flagship university) just started offering a culinary program (not sure if it's really a "degree" though).

 

[Andy Resnick]

One problem is it acts against bright students with social disadvantages. How is a bright student at a bog standard comprehensive going to find out which are the better courses and universities? Teachers in such schools are unlikely to give a **** and their parents are likely to read News of the World rather than the Sunday Times.

Entrances to OxBridge from private schools have been increasing relative to state schools. So we have a situation where 'Time nice but (relatively) dim' is getting into Oxbridge to party - courtesy of crammers, 1 to 1, teaching and pushy parents - while 'Bright Mike from the council estate (=projects USA)' gets a B in maths, with no help from anyone, and ends up at a bog standard college where everyone parties (including lecturers), but he wants to work.

All systems have inequalities and are unfair- to argue otherwise is foolish. Even so, that does not mean we should not work to identify egregious problems and take corrective action.

A concrete example- my institution is very involved in national-level efforts to improve STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) teaching to K-12 (ages 5-18) students. There's an NSF-funded branch of UTeach here, and there's a new institution-affiliated ("urban") K-12 school that teaches the IB (international Baccalaureate) program. My institution benefits, because the K-12 school is used to "field-train" the education students, and the students benefit by being taught by highly motivated and qualified teachers.

Does this completely solve the problem? Of course not- but it does something concrete to provide some Cleveland city students a better education than they would have normally received. Over time, if the data supports the premise that these students will do better (and the education students become better teachers), the program will likely be expanded/used as a model for other programs at other institutions.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I think its true, and I think that its just the way it is. A lot of students I know go to universities that are known to be an easier ride; a school with a less than great reputation.

I was going to write a snippy response; but I just got done judging a local science fair (7-12 grade, feeder to the ISEF competition), and now sadly agree with you.

The 7-8th graders (14-15 y.o.) did good work. Yes, their projects were insipid, trite, and generally a waste of time- but they did the work *themselves*- at least, the majority did. Out of 100 projects, about 75% did the work themselves, and of those, 10 were decent (clear hypothesis, clean experiment, good analysis), and of those 3 were *really* good.

The 9-12 grades were unfortunately lacking. Of the 15 projects, maybe 3 did the work themselves (several simply recycled the poster their faculty advisor printed out for some other meeting, putting post-it notes over the name of the faculty member), and those 3 projects weren't much better than the 7-8th graders came up with.

And none of these students were inner-city underprivileged kids- they are *all* from "selective" (read- expensive) private schools.

I was thoroughly disgusted by the high schoolers (and their parents)- I argued against giving *any* of them an award.

 

[Andy Resnick]

My spouse (an administrator in honors education, looking to eventually move up into an administrative level overseeing all undergraduate education) just got this text (Academically Adrift) yesterday, and he is impressed with the analysis of the author. He got a lot of others along a similar line too (Higher Education?, The Lost Soul of Higher Education, The Last Professor, Crisis on Campus, and The Heart of Higher Education)... I think he's supposed to give a review speech at some conference about this stuff. They just arrived yesterday, and I've yet to read any bits of them.

I've heard of some of those (Academically Adrift, Last Professor, Crisis on Campus), but haven't read them either. Let me know what you think!

This book is *excellent*-
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226109224/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[dacruick]

I was going to write a snippy response; but I just got done judging a local science fair (7-12 grade, feeder to the ISEF competition), and now sadly agree with you.

How unfortunate, I would have enjoyed that snippy response.

There are mysterious sociological factors at work in my generation (I'm born in 1990).
The general response to people when I tell them what university I go to is, "Don't a lot of nerds go there?".
I'm going to take a stab at why the most important thing about a post secondary education isn't the education anymore.

A lot of kids, including myself a few years back, are told that they are going to University, because getting an education is "the right thing to do". In doing so, post secondary education becomes less of a privilege and more of the same thing high school was.

So what I'm saying is that students might choose to go to an easier school or an easier program just as they would choose easier courses in high school. University isn't something that is important to them. The idea is spoon fed to kids from age 4, and the money is put there by the parents. So who do you blame? At this point, its merely an extension of high school, and I don't think many will argue that a high school degree 30 years ago is like a university degree now and vice versa.

So who do you blame? Do you blame the kids? Do you blame the parents? The schools? The government? I don't blame anyone, and nor do I care. I'm just happy there are still people out there trying to do less work. It creates a nice foil come interview time.

 

[mathwonk]

I read the first indiana article and it did not surprise me at all. But if you read their data backwards, it says that after 2 years of college 1/2 the students made significant improvement in critical thinking skills, and after 4 years, 2/3 did so. that isn't so terrible. they are focusing on the negative to make a controversial impression, as usual in the media.

if there is some truth in the data that study time is going down, at my school it may be explained by the economy. our students do party but they also work outside jobs to a degree that was unheard of in my student days. i had one struggling student who worked at night as a janitor or something, then after staying up all night working, drove to class from 50 miles away, sometimes not arriving in time, but always tired. he eventually graduated and is a wonderful success story.

The grade inflation is true, and even at top schools. the average grade at harvard and MIT and other schools went up from around C+ in the 1960's to A-/B+ more recently. Some say this occurred in the vietnam war to prevent low performing students from being sent overseas to fight. some students say they are just smarter and better prepared, but that conflicts with the fact that SAT scores simultaneously went down.

Other factors I have seen in my school are an attempt to center the grades of a pool of even weaker entering students. It is true that many students at my school have entered for decades with very low levels of skills. If these students received the grades that were the norm years ago, too many would have failed to be acceptable to their parents and the administration. The usual response is that we are not good teachers if we have many failing students. Thus we respond by raising the grades or making the conditions easier by making tests easier, or giving students more chances to pass, or more time to decide whether to withdraw without receiving a grade.

In the past two years or so however these conditions are swinging back the other way at my school. Time to withdraw, and total numbers of withdrawals are being limited. This is making a huge and stressful difference in conditions for students, and soon will cause lowering GPA's, reducing graduations. This will probably not be sustainable for very long, as it is unlikely that students can adjust to this greater difficulty on their own. The preparation levels in high schools are not going up, and they still need to work to pay even for a relatively inexpensive school like ours.

Everybody wants someone else to do a better job, but no one wants to pay for it. We pay our football coaches millions of dollars but not our teachers. Parents want their children to receive HOPE scholarships, not challenging courses and fair grades. We want good high schools but won't pay the teachers enough to attract some of the brightest ones to the profession. My wife changed from school teaching to medicine after being disgusted with the conditions (parents) in the junior high school she taught at. One of my children does teach high school but witnesses fights, even stabbings, on a regular basis. He does not make enough to rent his own apartment. He wants to join a program for math teachers but they won't let him change topics (he had 800 on his math SAT's).

 

[physics girl phd]

I've heard of some of those (Academically Adrift, Last Professor, Crisis on Campus), but haven't read them either. Let me know what you think!

This book is *excellent*-
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226109224/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Thanks for that recommendation Andy.

Update regarding my spouse's opinions of his recent Amazon arrivals:

He thinks Higher Education? is written at a level an elementary student could understand... but makes some good points (i.e. at least college students usually come out of college knowing when to keep their mouths shut to avoid being embarrassed -- aka. knowing NOT to talk about some things they know nothing about, or crackpot theories say about Tesla or such -- he was annoyed by a computer-tech on campus this week expounding about some Tesla myths... I think he was really surprised this guy was NOT wearing an aluminum foil helmet after the conversation). He also admittedly just likes one of the author's names ("Hacker"). He suggests this to me because of my "limited time" (aka. I'm the one taking care of all the kids this week while they are on break.. and I'm always the one taking care of the baby except while I'm in class).

He doesn't like The Heart of Higher Education.. claiming that one of the author's is too loquacious about his Amish background at the beginning.

 

[Andy Resnick]

if there is some truth in the data that study time is going down, at my school it may be explained by the economy. our students do party but they also work outside jobs to a degree that was unheard of in my student days. i had one struggling student who worked at night as a janitor or something, then after staying up all night working, drove to class from 50 miles away, sometimes not arriving in time, but always tired. he eventually graduated and is a wonderful success story.

Mathwonk,

You had a ton of thought-provoking comments (which I may respond to later), I just clipped this out because I should have realized this as well- I surveyed my class last semester, and *all* of them were working a job at the same time they are enrolled as students.

 

[cdotter]

Mathwonk,

You had a ton of thought-provoking comments (which I may respond to later), I just clipped this out because I should have realized this as well- I surveyed my class last semester, and *all* of them were working a job at the same time they are enrolled as students.

Full time or part time? My part time weekend job negatively impacts my grades, but I don't admit this because I don't want to be seen as a whiner...but it's true!

 

[dacruick]

Full time or part time? My part time weekend job negatively impacts my grades, but I don't admit this because I don't want to be seen as a whiner...but it's true!

I refuse to maintain a job while in school. I would hate my life.

 

[cdotter]

I refuse to maintain a job while in school. I would hate my life.

It definitely sucks. My schoolwork has to be done during the week because I'm too tired after stacking boxes and moving pallets all weekend to study or do homework. It's especially stressful when I have Monday exams or extra long homework assignments because "you guys have all weekend to work on it!"

 

[Andy Resnick]

The grade inflation is true, and even at top schools. <snip>

It is true that many students at my school have entered for decades with very low levels of skills. If these students received the grades that were the norm years ago, too many would have failed to be acceptable to their parents and the administration. The usual response is that we are not good teachers if we have many failing students. Thus we respond by raising the grades or making the conditions easier by making tests easier, or giving students more chances to pass, or more time to decide whether to withdraw without receiving a grade.

You have identified two problems here- one is the preparation of entering students, and the other is 'grade inflation'. These are very deep and important issues, and I don't claim to have a solution, but here's my perspective:

1) Student preparation. I agree with you completely. My students completely lack the mathematical background for algebra-based physics I. Often, the prerequisite math class was taken 1+ years prior and have been totally forgotten. My students can't tell me the formulas for the area of a circle, the solution for a quadratic equation, or which trig function (sine or cosine) is used to obtain the component of a vector.

I'm not singling out math prep- their lab reports are atrocious as well. There is evidence of poor organizational skills in nearly every homework assignment and test that I grade.

However- from speaking to colleagues (and from other threads on PF), it seems to me that this is a near-universal complaint (students not being prepared *regardless* of the course), and has been the case for at least 20 years. So this isn't a new problem. And while it is tempting to put the blame on the K-12 system, that doesn't solve the problem, it just shifts blame.

I've started toying with using some recitation periods (the class is a 2-lecture, 2-recitation, 1-lab period per week) to teach basic problem-solving skills. Instead of working through Physics problems, I have the students solve problems in their daily lives: making dinner, paying bills, managing a schedule, etc. The students seem to really like it, but I'm not convinced it's worthwhile yet.

2) grade inflation. Something that surprised me when I started "officially" teaching was the complete lack of information provided to me about *how* to grade. Think about it- the grade is the #1 concern of students, and yet teachers (me, anyway) are not given any guidance about assigning grades. Of course new teachers will be sympathetic to students, and figure it doesn't matter one way or another. Even now I have not had a single discussion about grade distributions with anyone- *anyone*- who is in a position to evaluate my teaching effectiveness.

This is a real issue I have been struggling with- what is required to earn an 'A' in my class? How do I objectively distinguish between an 'A' or a 'B' (or if you prefer, a score of 90% versus 89%)? Conversely, what does a student have to (not) do to earn a 'D' instead of an 'F'? I have students that show up at every class, actively participate in class, attend every recitation, regularly show up at my office hours, spend hours on homeworks, and still do poorly- what grade should they be assigned?

But again, grade inflation (or more generally, 'loosening of standards') has been going on for a long time- My previous institution *eliminated* grades about 15 years ago- medical school is now pass/fail only- and my dad complained bitterly about it for months. Of course, he also complained that today's students had it too easy- when he was in medical school not only was attendance compulsory, but so was wearing a shirt and tie.

Maybe we should be asking about the function of a college education: it's a box to be checked by some, a route to a better job for others, and we (the givers of parchment) should give students what they *need* to move on to the next phase of life (as opposed to what they *want*).

 

[Andy Resnick]

Full time or part time? My part time weekend job negatively impacts my grades, but I don't admit this because I don't want to be seen as a whiner...but it's true!

It's a mix. Many have work hours during the week, but (I assume) work less than 40 hours per week.

Also, many of my students are "nontraditional", meaning older (mid 20s to early 30s)- lots of single parents, some married w/children.

I have a lot of respect for my students.

 

[mathwonk]

My previous lengthy post was just trashed by this frustratingly inefficient browser.

I was giving an example of standard lowering one can read about in today's Atlanta Journal Constitution, where the superintendent defends a recent decision to offer graduation credit for remedial courses taken by students who fail the basic courses previously required for graduation.

 

[mathwonk]

Testing and grading are very difficult. More difficult than deciding what they should know, is deciding how to tell whether they do know what you want.

E.g. if you want people to understand "why" things are true, you may begin by asking them to give proofs. But this results in memorized proofs that are mainly computational or symbolic, and still not understanding the reason for the steps. If you ask students to give a proof of a simple special case of a given result, intending for them to specialize the argument to that case, most students instead will regurgitate the full general argument, then say with a staright face that your question is a corollary of the lengthy general result. True enough but they have igniored the fact that a simpler proof using the same ideas is better here.

How to test whether someone has understood an idea is the hard part. It can only be done by testing the ability to do something they have not seen done, that uses the same idea. One has to invent ones own questions for this to work, since taking them out of a different book may just favor those students who have seen that book. One good way is to ask for examples of concepts they have learned.

Once I wrote down the expression for a Riemann sum of an integral of a continuous function f from a to x, wrote limit in front of it, and asked for the derivative of this function. If they knew what they were doing they would say f(x). Only one person got this, even all were supposed to know the FTC.

More shocking is to ask whether something explicit like e^(x^2) has an antiderivative. Almost all students will say in question 1, that yes every continuous function is the derivative of its indefinite Riemann integral, but then in question 2, no this continuous function does not have an antiderivative.

Of course I know that confusion rests on the common inability to understand what a "function" is, and to understand that the abstract looking limit of a Riemann sum of a continuous integrand from a to x, is just as much a function as a word like "sine" or a symbol like x^2.

How can anyone who does not know what an abstract function is understand the FTC? And how do we deal with that. We must try hard not to fool ourselves by devising tests that students can pass without understanding anything. There is some interesting current research on this, in the peer instruction movement. If you have not seen it I recommend the video by Eric Mazur? at MIT

 

[mathwonk]

This all goes exactly counter to the attempt to devise tests that the students will pass. I have often sat frightened the night before a test, faced with a class that cannot do anything, wondering how to ask questions someone might get right. In truth my job is devise questions that will not be got right except by those who understand.

Still experience shows that most students will only get questions for which they have been specifically prepared, ones which look like the ones in class, and require no additional thinking. Whether to ask such questions is a matter for ones own conscience,a s the outsider cannot tell whether one has prepared ones class for the questions or not.

Still even with the best intentions, we all know that students get right those tests which were written by his own teacher more often than those written by others. For this reason we used to make sure the teacher of a grad course never wrote the prelim in that subject. years later we did the opposite, the teacher who prepared the students also wrote the prelim. we got a lot more passes that way.

 

[mathwonk]

I once had a class so weak that even when I prepared them by asking on take home homework for proofs of certain basic theorems, then hand corrected them, gave them back, and then tested on those same theorems in class, the results were still miserable. This class could not even regurgitate correctly proofs they had practiced with my criticisms. My evaluations were very low that semester.

Another phenomenon that has accompanied lower standards of teaching os the class evaluation. In the early 1960's, Harvard had no evaluations. Indeed the Dean told us proudly when we started there that, probably for the first time in our lives, our teachers were not being graded on our performance.

I bragged about this to my colleagues at my state school when we obsessed over the fact that pleasing the students was rated higher than teaching them. Then I called Harvard to enquire the current practice and learned they now use evaluations.

 

[mathwonk]

Still, I love Andy's comment: :"I respect my students." Out of respect for those students I just criticized as weak, no doubt it was not their fault they could not prove anything. Their teachers from high school on up had probably never tried to teach them reasoning, continually watering down their courses from geometry on up, and this course was their first encounter with a difficult concept.

It is hard for an old guy like me to adjust to, or accept, the enormous deterioration that has occurred since 1956, and my retirement makes way for more energetic and more flexible people to jump in and try their hand. More power to you Andy.

Of course respecting students includes believing they can do more than they may think at first, and finding ways to inspire them to try. I know you include this in your mantra as well.

 

[mal4mac]

He thinks Higher Education? is written at a level an elementary student could understand... but makes some good points (i.e. at least college students usually come out of college knowing when to keep their mouths shut to avoid being embarrassed -- aka. knowing NOT to talk about some things they know nothing about, or crackpot theories say about Tesla or such -- he was annoyed by a computer-tech on campus this week expounding about some Tesla myths...

Why? You might expect the professors not to be expounding such myths, but why expect so much from a computer-tech? It's like expecting none of the cleaning staff to expound creationism. Why not run extension classes for non-academic staff?

 

[Skrew]

I don't care if people get through college easily, I do care when instructors do a garbagety jobs which screwover dedicated students.

As an example, I recently finished a complex variables course where the instructor blatently admited he didn't know anything about the subject, of course he is a tenured proffessor.

The class was not difficult, but it didn't develop sufficent understanding of the subject.

Most annoyingly the other students didn't care, some even supported the instructor.

 

[mathwonk]

its not the ones who admit how little they know that you have to look out for. from them at least sometimes you can learn how to learn.

sometimes the ones who are learning it along with you do a better job because they see the difficulties a beginner has and point them out. old hands have often forgotten where those problems are.

usually it is ignorant or insecure people who brag about how much they know.

it is also a teaching tactic to admit one knows very little, designed to give the students courage to ask questions, but sometimes as here, it backfires.

 

[Pengwuino]

I honestly don't really think college is sold to students as a means of improving themselves. There really is this kinda vagueness about college. How do you become successful? College. How does college do that? uhhh, it just does. I have begun telling my students that they really need to take advantage of the astounding resources the university provides you in order to make yourself better! I have a feeling students don't really understand this because we've all been trained to believe that all ability is innate and that people CAN'T become better at anything. Except cooking.

I'm also getting the feeling that professors and lecturers typically don't care. One professor at my university, based on what a few students told me, has a course where he gives no homework and no tests. Of course, they say that no one learns anything (it's not a physics course obviously). I feel most professors just feel their job is to read a textbook to people and the students are on their own to learn. This is unfortunately in contrast to the student's perception that all they're suppose to do is go to lecture and the professor is suppose to teach them and if at the end of the semester they don't know the material, it's the professors fault. How in the world did this idea about college come to be?

 

[Andy Resnick]

I honestly don't really think college is sold to students as a means of improving themselves. <snip>

I disagree- for-profit schools explicitly advertise your ability to get a better job simply because you own a degree from said institution. Plus, there's a lot of general rhetoric along the lines of "a college education is essential to compete in today's job market". There's a clear link drawn between a 'college degree' and 'more personal income'- and data supports that conclusion.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/moneymatters/a/edandearnings.htm

That said, it's true that a college education is rarely discussed in terms of non-material benefits: learning how to think critically, use of logical arguments, etc.

I'm also getting the feeling that professors and lecturers typically don't care. [...] I feel most professors just feel their job is to read a textbook to people and the students are on their own to learn. This is unfortunately in contrast to the student's perception that all they're suppose to do is go to lecture and the professor is suppose to teach them and if at the end of the semester they don't know the material, it's the professors fault. How in the world did this idea about college come to be?

This is a very good point; I need to think about it before I speak.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I'm also getting the feeling that professors and lecturers typically don't care. One professor at my university, based on what a few students told me, has a course where he gives no homework and no tests. Of course, they say that no one learns anything (it's not a physics course obviously). I feel most professors just feel their job is to read a textbook to people and the students are on their own to learn. This is unfortunately in contrast to the student's perception that all they're suppose to do is go to lecture and the professor is suppose to teach them and if at the end of the semester they don't know the material, it's the professors fault. How in the world did this idea about college come to be?

Burnout is definitely an issue. But, it's not limited to college professors.

For example, the same questions (we all have our favorites) are often asked again and again here on PF. This, in spite of there being a FAQ, access to previous threads, and the whole Google thing. The way we each deal with this is often illuminating.

I have to (attempt to, anyway) treat each student learning the material the same- just because I have heard the same question over and over again doesn't mean I should tell the student to 'go read the book' even though it's *really* tempting to do so.

One way to deal with this is to not teach the same class over and over and over again- that's fine when there's lots of faculty qualified to teach a particular class and everyone can rotate around. More typically, faculty are more qualified to teach some classes than others, and nobody really *wants* to teach classes perceived to be 'bad/boring' (e.g. Physics I for pre-meds) because it's a drag.

There's a lot of noise in AAPT about strategies to improve those giant intro classes nobody wants to teach- I'm not convinced there is a single right or wrong way, but knowing that I'm not the only one interested in trying new approaches is good, and having some freedom to try new things is essential to combat boredom- both mine and the students.

 

[mathwonk]

I always tried to rethink the material every time I had to teach the same class, to keep it as fresh as possible. Or teach it in a different way. there are lots of approaches to a subject, although it does seem sometimes the most popular teachers are those who do it over and over and always the same way.

It is very hard to do but I always tried to think of at least one new insight I had never understood before and share it with the class. Or teach from a different book.

One of my favorites was teaching from Euclid in my last year of teaching geometry for teachers. It turned out to be the best year I ever did it and the best book I ever used. Ironic that it took me 50 years of study of mathematics to find out Euclid has the best geometry book, when the whole world knew this for centuries, before it was forgotten in the modern era (1960 and later).

Another favorite was trying to figure out what the fundamental theorem of calculus should really say for riemann integrals of functions that may not be continuous.

It turns out to be difficult to state well. In one direction already Riemann knew that a function has a Riemann integral on [a,b] iff it is bounded and continuous off a set of measure zero. But a function IS an indefinite riemann integral iff it is Lipschitz continuous and its derivative equals a riemann integrable function almost everywhere.

That last condition is not so natural, but at least if you start with a riemann integrable function f, then you can recognize the indefinite integral G because G is Lipschitz continuous and its derivative equals f a.e.

I.e. there is a MVT type theorem that a Lipschitz continuous function whose derivative is zero a.e., is constant. I thought this was really cool, and helped me appreciate the radon nikodym theorem for the first time.

 

[Pengwuino]

I disagree- for-profit schools explicitly advertise your ability to get a better job simply because you own a degree from said institution. Plus, there's a lot of general rhetoric along the lines of "a college education is essential to compete in today's job market". There's a clear link drawn between a 'college degree' and 'more personal income'- and data supports that conclusion..

That's not what I mean by "improving yourself". By improving yourself, I mean literally improving yourself. Becoming a better writer, more comfortable with math, a better public speaker, etc. I feel even without having entered the actual job force, I'm already being punished for having a poor grounding when it comes to writing (my statements of purpose for phd programs were a nightmare to compose). I'm lucky my father was an English student and kept me on my toes and writing on forums such as this gave me a kind of "essay exercise". However, I know I still could be a better writer. I also know that most student's writing is atrocious. I feel this is partly due to the fact that by getting a 3 on my AP literature course, I never had to take a single English class in college.

From my experience, people who have never gone to college feel that college educated people are smarter and all around more capable and skilled than non-college graduates. However, in my experience as a college graduate, quite the opposite is true! I know the truth - college is just a place to sit through a bunch of classes and try to memorize things. They don't really learn how to be... well, better!

For example, my group communications course was taught like we were all 4 year olds (which most of the students were maturity-wise). We learned very little about group communication. We had to do 2 group presentations which in general were awful and nothing from the course was actually forced upon us. They may have mentioned "this and this and this helps get a crowd reaction" or "never do this in a speech as it offends the audience" or things such as that, but it was never applied. We went up, gave a talk of the quality you'd see in a high school and that was that. A+ for all.

Incidentally, one of my favorite courses was my undergraduate condensed matter lab course which had an attached lab where we actually fabricated things in the department's machine shop! We were told how to do something, why it was done that way, told what tolerances had to be met, and we went and applied that knowledge. Use the wrong drill-type? Do it over. Are your holes threaded incorrectly? Do it again. Are you outside of the tolerances required? Do it over. We did it until we became good. All while at the same time knowing half the machines you worked on could rip your hand off if used incorrectly.

That was a great class for me! Not so much because I'm some machinist deep down (or am I?), but because I was taught how to do something, told to do it, and not allowed to stop doing it until I got it right. At that point I felt "hey, I can do something a vast majority of people can't!" and I knew if I for whatever reason felt like pursuing fabrication even further, I would be able to. In my eyes, all I see at my university is "here is some stuff, memorize it and if you cant, oh well, you still pass" or "try to do this, if you can't, oh well". No effort into getting students to really achieve anything.

Also, I hate when people feel being good at something is simply genetic or innate. "I'm just not good at math" or "I'm not a good writer" or "I can't speak in public". BLAH. I failed my first 2 calculus courses and after 4 years of just toughing it out, I ended up being better at math than almost every physics major and some of the math majors. I was also terrified of speaking publicly or in front of a class. I'm not great at it now (I still have issues losing track of what I'm saying) but I'm a hell of a lot better after teaching labs for 2 years.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I always tried to rethink the material every time I had to teach the same class, to keep it as fresh as possible. Or teach it in a different way. there are lots of approaches to a subject, although it does seem sometimes the most popular teachers are those who do it over and over and always the same way.

It is very hard to do but I always tried to think of at least one new insight I had never understood before and share it with the class. Or teach from a different book.

I know what you mean- until recently, I had no appreciation for the amount of mental effort required to teach effectively, even for the most basic material.

I struggle with making the material relevant to non-majors; I want to use everyday examples that illustrate the underlying concepts, but even the most basic device references topics well beyond an introductory class. Even the simple camera in cell phones goes beyond what I can talk about- I can barely discuss the hologram on credit/debit cards.

I've thought about introducing more demos during lecture- I know those can be *very* effective, but I'm concerned that I would have to reduce course content.

 

[Andy Resnick]

That's not what I mean by "improving yourself". <snip>

I appreciate what you wrote- although your experiences at school has been somewhat different than mine, I totally understand sucking at writing (and there are many reviewers who would be happy to provide evidence of that).

Maybe there should be a distinction between "education" (self-improvement) and "training" (learning to perform specific tasks). Both are needed in order to earn a degree, but sometimes there's too much emphasis on one or the other- too much "education" results in navel-gazing 4-year olds, while too much "training" results in lab zombies.

 

[Pengwuino]

I appreciate what you wrote- although your experiences at school has been somewhat different than mine, I totally understand sucking at writing (and there are many reviewers who would be happy to provide evidence of that).

Maybe there should be a distinction between "education" (self-improvement) and "training" (learning to perform specific tasks). Both are needed in order to earn a degree, but sometimes there's too much emphasis on one or the other- too much "education" results in navel-gazing 4-year olds, while too much "training" results in lab zombies.

I attend a second tier state school system. I feel systems like the one I am in are given too little attention compared to the vast numbers of graduates we put out into the world. The problem of emphasizing "education" vs. "training" is a moot point here where we don't really do either. All that seems to matter to students is "can i graduate in may?", "who's the easiest prof?", "can I miss 3 labs and still pass?". It's almost like how traffic school is seen by teenagers - get it out of the way so I can go drive already!

 

[dacruick]

I attend a second tier state school system. I feel systems like the one I am in are given too little attention compared to the vast numbers of graduates we put out into the world. The problem of emphasizing "education" vs. "training" is a moot point here where we don't really do either. All that seems to matter to students is "can i graduate in may?", "who's the easiest prof?", "can I miss 3 labs and still pass?". It's almost like how traffic school is seen by teenagers - get it out of the way so I can go drive already!

There is definitely an aspect of that. I'm attending university for physics right now, and I don't learn anything that I can readily apply into a field. I'm learning a lot of theory, so maybe there is a part of me that wants to get it out of the way so I can go "drive". The thing is, I know I have good problem solving skills and common sense, and I don't believe my physics degree will be much more than a certificate proving employers that I can learn the things they need me to.

 

[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).