Obama calls for overhaul of education system

[quote name='dmaul1114']I'd agree with you on the need for creativity and experimentation in the classroom to find out what works best.

First step toward that is getting away from reliance on standardized tests which force teaching a certain way.[/quote]

Yes, but I'm advocating getting away from standardization, period.

College is just up to the individual professors. They're mainly there to do their research (teaching colleges aside), and already have freedom to do whatever they want in the classroom as long as they're covering the relevant material.
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That isn't very much freedom. The course subject is obviously already determined in almost all cases. So are which courses are to be taught, and which degrees are offered, and the basic framework for measuring all of those things. So again, the "freedom to do whatever they want" doesn't really exist to the extent I'm talking about.
 
Yeah, but people go to college to learn a specific discipline in effort to get a job in a specific field, so I see little wrong with that.

Courses are set, but you have total flexibility in what exactly you cover in that area (courses are pretty broad most of the time) and how you structure the course.

But otherwise we'll again have to agree to disagree as we have too different of views on schooling, education and disciplines in college and no point in going in circles.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Yeah, but people go to college to learn a specific discipline in effort to get a job in a specific field, so I see little wrong with that.[/quote]

Are you saying people major in the field they're going to work in? That's not true a lot of the time.

Courses are set, but you have total flexibility in what exactly you cover in that area (courses are pretty broad most of the time) and how you structure the course.
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Not true. For example, professors are generally required to give exams and assign grades on the standard scale. That's not "total flexibility" in how the course is structured.
 
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[quote name='rickonker']Are you saying people major in the field they're going to work in? That's not true a lot of the time.[/quote]

Not necessarily, but they choose to major in something and focus on one area more than others. Unless the major in general studies or liberal arts or something.

But you generally go to college (and 100% grad school) to become knowledgeable in a specific area--and the good thing IMO with undergrad is you also have to take courses in other areas and get more knowledge. With grad school you're soley studying to become an expert in a field and it's generally going to be the field you work in (or at least closely related).


Not true. For example, professors are generally required to give exams and assign grades on the standard scale. That's not "total flexibility" in how the course is structured.
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Well we don't have to give exams, we can have papers, projects, homeworks etc. either along with exams or in place of exams.

True on having a grading scale. But we'll have to agree to disagree on that one as I support grades. They give incentive to study and work hard, and seperate the wheat from the chafe--which is important since so many kids go to college who have no business being their (be it lack of ability or lack of interest/commitment). I have zero problems with the A-F grading scale.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']True on having a grading scale. But we'll have to agree to disagree on that one as I support grades. They give incentive to study and work hard, and seperate the wheat from the chafe--which is important since so many kids go to college who have no business being their (be it lack of ability or lack of interest/commitment). I have zero problems with the A-F grading scale.[/QUOTE]

Ok, but that means when you said
I'd agree with you on the need for creativity and experimentation in the classroom to find out what works best.
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you weren't really going very far. You apparently believe the A-F grading scale is the best possible option for all students, no exceptions. That's the kind of thing I was arguing against when I talked about variety and experimentation.
 
I meant variety and experimentation in how material is presented in the classroom and things of that nature.

There has to be a standard grading system IMO. Yes some will fail out, but getting a diploma (or especially a college degree) isn't a right. Having a chance to is. But some people just aren't cut out for it, not everyone can be an intellectual and have a white collar job etc.

And there's no shame in that there are millions of blue collar jobs that are important to society, and schooling helps weed out the people better suited to do those jobs.

That said, we need more experimentation and variety in how things are taught to maximize the number of people who can learn and get a good education. But I don't support scrapping the grading system.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']There has to be a standard grading system IMO.[/QUOTE]

It's not really a standard, though. I mean, sure, the A-F part of it is standard, but not which of those grades are assigned. They vary heavily across:
  • subjects
  • courses
  • professors
  • schools
  • other random factors

You'd probably agree that an A in Comparative Literature from Prof. Jones in Maine is not comparable to an A in Organic Chemistry from Prof. Jackson in Washington. In other words, grades are...wait for it...arbitrary. :D
 
I'm not sure I get that. I mean yeah some courses are harder than others and/or require more work that others. But an A is still an A.

Regardless of course the students who got an A where the ones that performed the best in that specific course. The kid hat gets an A in Comparative Literature peformed among the best among students of that class and the kid that gets an A in Organic Chemistry performed among the best among students in that class.

If you were complaining about GPA I might get it more, as averaging all courses some takes can be misleading--maybe they'd did great in the ones for their major that are all that's relevant to their employer etc.

But still a high GPA shows they did well in most all of their courses which does mean something IMO.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I'm not sure I get that. I mean yeah some courses are harder than others and/or require more work that others. But an A is still an A.

Regardless of course the students who got an A where the ones that performed the best in that specific course. The kid hat gets an A in Comparative Literature peformed among the best among students of that class and the kid that gets an A in Organic Chemistry performed among the best among students in that class.[/quote]
Sure, but 1) this is only according to the professor at that time, and 2) you don't know how tough it was to get an A. Did 50% of the class get an A, or only 10%? You could compare two students who took the same subject at two different schools, or even just with two different professors, or even with the same professor at two different times, and they both could've scored in the 75th percentile. But one could have gotten an A and one could have gotten a C. Why should it matter so much who happened to take a course at the same time you did?

If you were complaining about GPA I might get it more, as averaging all courses some takes can be misleading--maybe they'd did great in the ones for their major that are all that's relevant to their employer etc.

But still a high GPA shows they did well in most all of their courses which does mean something IMO.
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Yes, the GPA makes the problem even more obvious. As you know, your GPA usually depends on the grades you got in many different courses. Each one of those grades was subject to all of the sources of error I mentioned earlier. You're probably familiar with statistics, so you can understand why I think it's ridiculous for GPA to be used to compare students who were not only in totally different situations, but in totally different sets of situations.
 
That's fair, but there's nothing that can be done about that. Different professors will always teach and grade differently. Having an A-F scale doesn't exacerbate that. You can't scrap grades totally there has to be some assessment--and that assessment will always very between professors, courses etc.

And I agree GPA is definitely a flawed indicator. It has some value as high GPA shows you were near the top of most every course you took. And combine that difficulty of major and reputation of school and it has some use. But people do make too much out of it IMO.

But at the end of the day, if you go to college you should be striving to be a straight A student and doing everything you can in every class. So it doesn't bother me that much, most people with low GPAs are people that just didn't try hard enough and others just aren't cut out for it.

Grades and GPA are flawed and contain error like ANY measurement of academic achievement and other social/psychological constructs like that always will be.

But at the end of the day for the most part kids with high gpa's were the brightest ones who worked hard enough to earn it, and the low GPAs are the ones who either didn't work hard enough, didn't have what it takes or both. In between are the bright kids that didn't work hard and the kids that worked hard but just weren't cut out to make mostly A's.

But even with that said, it really only works to compare students within the same majors in the same colleges. So I agree it's very flawed and relied on too much in many cases.
 
[quote name='rickonker']Sure, but 1) this is only according to the professor at that time, and 2) you don't know how tough it was to get an A. Did 50% of the class get an A, or only 10%? You could compare two students who took the same subject at two different schools, or even just with two different professors, or even with the same professor at two different times, and they both could've scored in the 75th percentile. But one could have gotten an A and one could have gotten a C. Why should it matter so much who happened to take a course at the same time you did?

Yes, the GPA makes the problem even more obvious. As you know, your GPA usually depends on the grades you got in many different courses. Each one of those grades was subject to all of the sources of error I mentioned earlier. You're probably familiar with statistics, so you can understand why I think it's ridiculous for GPA to be used to compare students who were not only in totally different situations, but in totally different sets of situations.[/quote]

I find it funny/odd that some school systems decide that certain classes count more towards your GPA than others in high school. I also love how I can get 8 A's on a Report card, and it's somewhere between 4.0 and 5.0 and yet they say I didn't make the Dean's list at the school because it wasn't a 5.0 (you couldn't take 8 classes that were worth the '5' att). It's stupid shit like creating new boundaries for grades by some that should be dealt away with.

Oh, and a unified scoring system. We currently have something like these two through High School
100-93
92-85
84-77
76-70
69-0

100-90
89-80
79-70
69-60
59-0

Clearly, this division of how grades are determined is a problem.
 
Yeah, I favor just the straight 10 point scale system.

No need to go to the smaller intervals (my high school had them) or complicated by weighting by honors classes and what not (which my high school also did).
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']That's fair, but there's nothing that can be done about that. Different professors will always teach and grade differently. Having an A-F scale doesn't exacerbate that. You can't scrap grades totally there has to be some assessment--and that assessment will always very between professors, courses etc.[/quote]

That's not true. Of course you can scrap grades totally, and that doesn't even necessarily mean there's no assessment. There are some colleges even within your system that do this already.

And I agree GPA is definitely a flawed indicator. It has some value as high GPA shows you were near the top of most every course you took. And combine that difficulty of major and reputation of school and it has some use. But people do make too much out of it IMO.

But at the end of the day, if you go to college you should be striving to be a straight A student and doing everything you can in every class. So it doesn't bother me that much, most people with low GPAs are people that just didn't try hard enough and others just aren't cut out for it.

Grades and GPA are flawed and contain error like ANY measurement of academic achievement and other social/psychological constructs like that always will be.

But at the end of the day for the most part kids with high gpa's were the brightest ones who worked hard enough to earn it, and the low GPAs are the ones who either didn't work hard enough, didn't have what it takes or both. In between are the bright kids that didn't work hard and the kids that worked hard but just weren't cut out to make mostly A's.

But even with that said, it really only works to compare students within the same majors in the same colleges. So I agree it's very flawed and relied on too much in many cases.
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Also it's pretty silly to report GPAs down to two decimal places. But again like before this is something that's fundamental to the system, and you say it's flawed, but still you also say the system is fantastic.
 
[quote name='KingBroly']I find it funny/odd that some school systems decide that certain classes count more towards your GPA than others in high school. I also love how I can get 8 A's on a Report card, and it's somewhere between 4.0 and 5.0 and yet they say I didn't make the Dean's list at the school because it wasn't a 5.0 (you couldn't take 8 classes that were worth the '5' att). It's stupid shit like creating new boundaries for grades by some that should be dealt away with.

Oh, and a unified scoring system. We currently have something like these two through High School
100-93
92-85
84-77
76-70
69-0

100-90
89-80
79-70
69-60
59-0

Clearly, this division of how grades are determined is a problem.[/QUOTE]

Oh that reminds me, I didn't even mention applying GPAs to high schools. Every problem I mentioned with college and GPA is even worse in high school. How are you going to compare any grade between students in different classes with different teachers in different schools? It's absurd to use the same grading system because that implies they are somehow comparable. And of course they're used that way.
 
[quote name='rickonker']That's not true. Of course you can scrap grades totally, and that doesn't even necessarily mean there's no assessment. There are some colleges even within your system that do this already.
[/quote]

I've not seen any personally, so I'd love examples. Unless you just mean pass/fail grading etc. And I don't like that kind of crap.

There has to be someway to separate the wheat from chafe, the great students fromt he good students etc. And I don't think you can do that without something like grades, and I think there's no way to do it that won't be flawed in some way. So I'm fine with the grade system, and won't probably won't change from it unless forced to do so. But maybe someone will come up with something that can do better at ranking students for performance with in a specific course.

Also it's pretty silly to report GPAs down to two decimal places. But again like before this is something that's fundamental to the system, and you say it's flawed, but still you also say the system is fantastic.
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I don't think how students are judged upon graduation is fantastic. But that's more on employers etc. who pay too much attention to them etc. than on the University system.

From my stand point as a teacher, my only role is do a good job teaching, make sure the kids that want to learn do so. And grade my course fairly and give it grades that reward people who did the best in the course. I don't worry about GPA and crap like that, my obligation to undergrad students ends when they leave my course with a final grade. Grad students are a different matter.

But anyway, what I mean is I think the university system is fantastic at teaching. There are problems with how GPAs, degrees etc. are used in the real world. But that's beyond my scope to deal with.
 
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[quote name='rickonker']Oh that reminds me, I didn't even mention applying GPAs to high schools. Every problem I mentioned with college and GPA is even worse in high school. How are you going to compare any grade between students in different classes with different teachers in different schools? It's absurd to use the same grading system because that implies they are somehow comparable. And of course they're used that way.[/quote]

I didn't experience this first hand, but some colleges have GPA records just for A, B, C, etc. while some have records for A+, A, A-, etc. I would imagine that if one transferred from the latter to the former, it'd be no problem as it'd simplify everything. But going from the former to the latter might be a problem. But that's if everything transfers, and in most cases, they don't, so you're going to be stuck doing a class over again.
 
That's true, some colleges give only letter grades and some add pluses and minuses. But I don't know that many use the +/- in the GPA calculation. My undergrad gave +/-'s, but they didn't matter for GPA, an A+, A, and A- where all worth 4 points.

But I'm sure some places probably do it differently.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I've not seen any personally, so I'd love examples. Unless you just mean pass/fail grading etc. And I don't like that kind of crap.[/quote]

Examples: New College of Florida, Evergreen State College, Hampshire College

There has to be someway to separate the wheat from chafe, the great students fromt he good students etc. And I don't think you can do that without something like grades, and I think there's no way to do it that won't be flawed in some way. So I'm fine with the grade system, and won't probably won't change from it unless forced to do so. But maybe someone will come up with something that can do better at ranking students for performance with in a specific course.
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I thought the purpose was to teach and learn, not to measure and rank students. If you look into the examples I gave you, you'll see that there is a small minority within your system that agrees.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Yeah, but people go to college to learn a specific discipline in effort to get a job in a specific field[/QUOTE]
rofle yeah right

that's true of very few degrees

most get a degree in baloney and work some bullshit desk monkey job that a 10 year old could easily do
 
[quote name='rickonker']Evergreen State College[/QUOTE]

only one i'm familiar with and by far one of the worst schools i've ever second-hand experienced... you basically do whatever the hell you want, pay them tuition, have a professor say you learned something and you get a degree.

i LOL'd so hard when the dude in Futurama ran up holding a degree from ESC saying "I've got a degree in homeopathic medicine!" and the guy in the truck flat out told him "YOU'VE GOT A DEGREE IN BALONEY", i think it was the global warming episode
 
I'm sure there are examples. I think teaching and learning is the ultimate goal, but there needs to be someway to rank who learned the most and performed the best as well.

Both to motivate people to work hard, and to give tangible rewards to those who excel. As a student I'd have been pissed to be working hard and acing exams and papers and get nothing more to show for it than someone that half assed it.

But it also varies a bit from pre-college to college level. Teaching and learning is more important pre-college as you're teaching basic skills. College is more self driven and the teachers job is more to present material in a way that's interesting, and give assignments, papers, exams etc. that force people to apply the knowledge. So professors are more guiding people in self study, while K-12 teachers really have to teach things to people. And in college evaluating how well people did and ranking them is important as you're weeding out who has what it takes to work in a given field or go on for advanced study in a given field.

Also, I just checked Hampshire College--I don't know that I like it. Narrative reviews could work--but major pain in the ass for faculty at research universites (rather than teaching colleges) where their expectations for tenure are much more heavily based on publication than teaching.

As much as I sing the praise of education, I don't consider myself a teacher--I'm a professor. I'm a researcher first and teacher second. I take the teaching seriously and do the best I can with time constraints, but I don't think narrative evaluation system is practical in research universities.

Also seems like it could be redundant with letters of reference that people usually send off with job applications etc. along with their GPA and what not. If a professor writes one of their students a letter of reference, that would more or less contain everything the narrative evaluation would and more.

But maybe it could work better at the pre-college level. Get narrative reviews every year, and a final summary report is what is sent off to colleges.

But still, I really honestly don't have a problem with the grading system. Good teachers are already busting ass, and something like evaluation reviews adds a ton more work that I'm not sure really improves much.

I also don't like the idea of no majors--certain courses are essential to being succesful in a given field and need to be required. But majors should allow a lot of electives as well.
 
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[quote name='rickonker']It's not really a standard, though. I mean, sure, the A-F part of it is standard, but not which of those grades are assigned. They vary heavily across:
  • subjects
  • courses
  • professors
  • schools
  • other random factors

You'd probably agree that an A in Comparative Literature from Prof. Jones in Maine is not comparable to an A in Organic Chemistry from Prof. Jackson in Washington. In other words, grades are...wait for it...arbitrary. :D[/QUOTE]

I've said it a billion times, dumb people disagree with me while smart people know I speak the truth: the way to correct the issue is to use class ranking

You can use grades in each class all you want -- Prof. Jackson can give his student an A, but at the end of the class / quarter / year / program, whatever, that student is compared to their peers and the recorded & reported grade is their relative standing. Relative performance, when taken into consideration along with program & institution rigor, is the only feasible way to assess performance. Random numbers like "3.27" only mean something if you know how that fares relative to the program average, in which case might as well cut out the middle man...
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I'm sure there are examples. I think teaching and learning is the ultimate goal, but there needs to be someway to rank who learned the most and performed the best as well.

Both to motivate people to work hard, and to give tangible rewards to those who excel. As a student I'd have been pissed to be working hard and acing exams and papers and get nothing more to show for it than someone that half assed it.[/quote]

Nothing more to show for it? Again, if learning is the ultimate goal (and you're big on the joy of learning, right), doesn't having learned more serve that purpose?


College is more self driven and the teachers job is more to present material in a way that's interesting, and give assignments, papers, exams etc. that force people to apply the knowledge.
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"Self-driven" but people have to be forced?

Also, I just checked Hampshire College--I don't know that I like it. Narrative reviews could work--but major pain in the ass for faculty at research universites (rather than teaching colleges) where their expectations for tenure are much more heavily based on publication than teaching.

As much as I sing the praise of education, I don't consider myself a teacher--I'm a professor. I'm a researcher first and teacher second. I take the teaching seriously and do the best I can with time constraints, but I don't think narrative evaluation system is practical in research universities.
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In other words, teaching at a research university is guaranteed to be worse than it should be?

Also seems like it could be redundant with letters of reference that people usually send off with job applications etc. along with their GPA and what not. If a professor writes one of their students a letter of reference, that would more or less contain everything the narrative evaluation would and more.

But maybe it could work better at the pre-college level. Get narrative reviews every year, and a final summary report is what is sent off to colleges.

But still, I really honestly don't have a problem with the grading system. Good teachers are already busting ass, and something like evaluation reviews adds a ton more work that I'm not sure really improves much.

I also don't like the idea of no majors--certain courses are essential to being succesful in a given field and need to be required. But majors should allow a lot of electives as well.
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No, narrative evaluations are designed for the student and are totally different from letters of reference. I'm not saying I think that's the perfect system. I just pointed those out because you said
You can't scrap grades totally there has to be some assessment
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and narrative evaluations are an example of assessment without grades.
 
[quote name='Koggit']I've said it a billion times, dumb people disagree with me while smart people know I speak the truth: the way to correct the issue is to use class ranking

You can use grades in each class all you want -- Prof. Jackson can give his student an A, but at the end of the class / quarter / year / program, whatever, that student is compared to their peers and the recorded & reported grade is their relative standing. Relative performance, when taken into consideration along with program & institution rigor, is the only feasible way to assess performance. Random numbers like "3.27" only mean something if you know how that fares relative to the program average, in which case might as well cut out the middle man...[/QUOTE]

That doesn't solve all of the problems we discussed, because it depends on your fellow students at that particular institution at that particular time.
 
[quote name='rickonker']Nothing more to show for it? Again, if learning is the ultimate goal (and you're big on the joy of learning, right), doesn't having learned more serve that purpose?[/quote]

It's not the only purpose. People have to have careers and make money, and we live in a (flawed) meritocracy and we need rewards and something to show for our work. And something to show how the stand relative to other graduates when they hit the job market.

And of course the students who got the best grades should be the ones that learned the most. The key there is to have exams and assignments that accurately test student's knowledge of what was taught and their ability to think about it critically and apply it. Some professors do that better than others.

"Self-driven" but people have to be forced?
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Never said anyone should be forced to go to college. But in college they should be forced to take courses on a variety of stuff and on stuff important for their field that they may not like and would learn on their own without having a required course.

You have to be self driven, but the professor is there lecturing, sharing his/her expertise, available to answer questions, and (hopefully) giving assignments and exams that make them apply what they've learned. So it's not self-learning, but college students have to be self driven. It's not K-12 public education anymore.

In other words, teaching at a research university is guaranteed to be worse than it should be?
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Not at all. You're learning from people who do actual research and are experts in the field they are teaching in. And most care a lot about doing a good job in lectures etc. And as I and others said before you learn a ton just from hearing lectures and talking with such people.

I was ust saying some things may be too much added burden on people already working very long hours to try to be the best teacher and best researcher they can be without adding much benefit to the system.

No, narrative evaluations are designed for the student and are totally different from letters of reference. I'm not saying I think that's the perfect system. I just pointed those out because you said and narrative evaluations are an example of assessment without grades.
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Fair enough. I don't like the idea. Students can already get narrative evaluations. I write lots of comments on the backs of every paper I grade, for instance, and a student can come to office hours anytime and I'll give them a candid appraisal of their performance and what they can improve.

Just seems like one of those touch feely changes to make just because grades rank students and hurt feelings or something.

I think grades are fine as long as teachers/professors do a good job of having assignments that accurate reflect who well the student absorbed the material and can apply it.

GPA is trickier, maybe something like Koggit's idea of using class rank is better. It at least has more meaning than a GPA, especially if it's just based on rank with class in that major. It's not perfect, but there will never be a perfect indicator of how you faired vs. all students at all time at all universities. That's just an impossible thing to accuratel represent.

Employers and graduate schools just want to see that you did well in school (if they care at all) so either GPA or class rank gets at that for them.
 
[quote name='rickonker']That doesn't solve all of the problems we discussed, because it depends on your fellow students at that particular institution at that particular time.[/QUOTE]

We've discussed this... it'd only be issue for small samples, which is the point of rolling averages for tiny classes / tiny programs...

"particular institution" always has to be considered but can generally be assessed by admissions data (e.g. incoming HS class ranking, average SAT, acceptance rates)... of course "50th percentile" isn't going to be equivalent at Harvard and at Hamburger State, but using percentiles you're able to compare much more accurately than when given a useless random number (GPA). Rankings aren't intended to be universal, they're intended to be meaningful.

And "particular time" is not a random variable as that's precisely the point -- class structure, course rigor and quality of instruction vary heavily even quarter to quarter, which is a huge incentive to go by ranking.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']It's not the only purpose. People have to have careers and make money, and we live in a (flawed) meritocracy and we need rewards and something to show for our work. And something to show how the stand relative to other graduates when they hit the job market.[/QUOTE]
See the parts in bold.
[quote name='dmaul1114']From my stand point as a teacher, my only role is do a good job teaching, make sure the kids that want to learn do so.

But anyway, what I mean is I think the university system is fantastic at teaching. There are problems with how GPAs, degrees etc. are used in the real world. But that's beyond my scope to deal with.[/QUOTE]
 
[quote name='Koggit']We've discussed this... it'd only be issue for small samples, which is the point of rolling averages for tiny classes / tiny programs...

"particular institution" always has to be considered but can generally be assessed by admissions data (e.g. incoming HS class ranking, average SAT, acceptance rates)... of course "50th percentile" isn't going to be equivalent at Harvard and at Hamburger State, but using percentiles you're able to compare much more accurately than when given a useless random number (GPA). Rankings aren't intended to be universal, they're intended to be meaningful.

And "particular time" is not a random variable as that's precisely the point -- class structure, course rigor and quality of instruction vary heavily even quarter to quarter, which is a huge incentive to go by ranking.[/QUOTE]

The issue is that how high your ranking is obviously depends on how well the other students do. So, at best a ranking isn't a great measure because it depends on something that isn't supposed to matter.

I'm not saying ranking would be worse than GPA, though.
 
[quote name='rickonker']See the parts in bold.[/QUOTE]

I didn't mean to imply that I didn't have to give grades. My job it to make sure the kids who want to learn do so, and to give them grades the reflect how much they learned and their ability to apply that knowledge.

The last part is true--I don't care about GPA, class ranking etc. etc. that's beyond my scope. All I can do is teach to the best of my ability and give fair grades that I think accurately reflect how well the students grasped the material.

Showing how they stand when they hit the market is up to the university to figure out how they take all these grades professors gave a student over their academic career and make them interpretable in some overall ranking or indicator of how well the student did that can be put on a resume and quicly glanced at by people skimming through stacks of applications etc.
 
[quote name='rickonker']The issue is that how high your ranking is obviously depends on how well the other students do. So, at best a ranking isn't a great measure because it depends on something that isn't supposed to matter.

I'm not saying ranking would be worse than GPA, though.[/QUOTE]

Rankings and GPA together are kind of useful though.

An A average shows you excelled in classes (C shows you did average and so on).

And the ranking shows how that compared to others in your major that year--i.e. was it easy and most people got A's or B's. Or was getting an A average a big deal?
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I didn't mean to imply that I didn't have to give grades. My job it to make sure the kids who want to learn do so, and to give them grades the reflect how much they learned and their ability to apply that knowledge.

The last part is true--I don't care about GPA, class ranking etc. etc. that's beyond my scope. All I can do is teach to the best of my ability and give fair grades that I think accurately reflect how well the students grasped the material.

Showing how they stand when they hit the market is up to the university to figure out how they take all these grades professors gave a student over their academic career and make them interpretable in some overall ranking or indicator of how well the student did that can be put on a resume and quicly glanced at by people skimming through stacks of applications etc.[/QUOTE]

Ok, but why is it your job or the university's job to do that? Why isn't it just your job to teach, and have the measuring be beyond your scope?
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Rankings and GPA together are kind of useful though.

An A average shows you excelled in classes (C shows you did average and so on).

And the ranking shows how that compared to others in your major that year--i.e. was it easy and most people got A's or B's. Or was getting an A average a big deal?[/QUOTE]

That would probably be an improvement over just comparing GPAs from different schools directly, but we're back to the issue of the grades themselves.
 
[quote name='rickonker']Ok, but why is it your job or the university's job to do that? Why isn't it just your job to teach, and have the measuring be beyond your scope?[/QUOTE]

I don't know what to say to that. You just have some radical idea of what education should be, that I don't think I agree with at all.

Who is going to judge whether the students learned what they were taught other than the person doing the teaching? And what's a degree worth if there were no grades to show that people earned it and how well they did?

But hey if it means I don't have to grade huge stacks of shitty papers every semester I'm all for it!
 
[quote name='rickonker']The issue is that how high your ranking is obviously depends on how well the other students do. So, at best a ranking isn't a great measure because it depends on something that isn't supposed to matter.

I'm not saying ranking would be worse than GPA, though.[/QUOTE]

ummm.. what?

In case you didn't know bell curves are pretty damn popular already, which are essentially the same thing... further, nearly every school gives latin honors based on class rank (top 10% = cum laude, top 3% = magna cum laude, top 0.5% = summa cum laude)...

so what exactly does "at best a ranking isn't a great measure because it depends on something that isn't supposed to matter" mean?
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Rankings and GPA together are kind of useful though.

An A average shows you excelled in classes (C shows you did average and so on).

And the ranking shows how that compared to others in your major that year--i.e. was it easy and most people got A's or B's. Or was getting an A average a big deal?[/QUOTE]

what is "excelled" if not relative to others?

if 75% of the class gets A's, is an A really excelling?

I'd argue that it is not.

I hate speaking in terms of letter grades though.. I've never attended any school that used letter grades.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I don't know what to say to that. You just have some radical idea of what education should be, that I don't think I agree with at all.[/quote]

Now we're talking. :D

Who is going to judge whether the students learned what they were taught other than the person doing the teaching?
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That is a great question. Since you feel that needs to be judged, I assume you believe someone needs to know what the students learned. So, in order to answer your question, let me first ask, who do you feel needs to know?

(I'm seriously asking. I'm not saying no one needs to know.)
And what's a degree worth if there were no grades to show that people earned it and how well they did?
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Well, a degree is basically just a set of grades, so we can apply the same answer.
 
[quote name='Koggit']ummm.. what?

In case you didn't know bell curves are pretty damn popular already, which are essentially the same thing... further, nearly every school gives latin honors based on class rank (top 10% = cum laude, top 3% = magna cum laude, top 0.5% = summa cum laude)...

so what exactly does "at best a ranking isn't a great measure because it depends on something that isn't supposed to matter" mean?[/QUOTE]

What I'm saying is that if you're trying to measure how much a particular student learned, that doesn't have anything to do with how much other students learned. Since a ranking depends on that, it's definitely an imperfect measure.
 
[quote name='rickonker']
That is a great question. Since you feel that needs to be judged, I assume you believe someone needs to know what the students learned. So, in order to answer your question, let me first ask, who do you feel needs to know?[/quote]

Someone who hires them out of school assuming they know what they need to to get started working in the field.

A grad school who needs to know if students learned enough and did well enough at the easier undergraduate level to be cut out for grad school and/or to deserve getting paid to go to grad school.

Me as a professor reviewing applications from grad students for research assistant positions.

Basically anyone looking at a resume who is trying to hire someone for a job that requires certain knowledge and skills.

If there are no grades or standards, then a degree doesn't represent very much. Just that the person sat in a class room for 4 years and got a piece of paper at the end.

Well, a degree is basically just a set of grades, so we can apply the same answer.
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Yeah but what that set of grades is matters. I'm going to here the person with an A average over the person with a C average all other things being equal (which they usually aren't as the A average person usually has more things that stand out on their resume).
 
[quote name='rickonker']What I'm saying is that if you're trying to measure how much a particular student learned, that doesn't have anything to do with how much other students learned. Since a ranking depends on that, it's definitely an imperfect measure.[/QUOTE]

Sure it does. You want to know how well the student learned the material and learned to apply the material (again assuming the professor has assignments and exams that measure that well).

If they had the highest grade in the class that shows they learned it better than everyone else. If they graduated first in their classes that shows they really excelled.

As someone looking at resumes that means a lot to me. The whole goal in hiring someone is to pick the person who will do the job better than any of the other applicants.

Like it or not in society we are always compared based on where we stand relative to others who are in competition for the same things.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Someone who hires them out of school assuming they know what they need to to get started working in the field.

A grad school who needs to know if students learned enough and did well enough at the easier undergraduate level to be cut out for grad school and/or to deserve getting paid to go to grad school.

Me as a professor reviewing applications from grad students for research assistant positions.

Basically anyone looking at a resume who is trying to hire someone for a job that requires certain knowledge and skills.

If there are no grades or standards, then a degree doesn't represent very much. Just that the person sat in a class room for 4 years and got a piece of paper at the end.



Yeah but what that set of grades is matters. I'm going to here the person with an A average over the person with a C average all other things being equal (which they usually aren't as the A average person usually has more things that stand out on their resume).[/QUOTE]

So if students have learned something, they're still supposed to know it after they leave, right? Why not let the people you mentioned measure that knowledge however they please?
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Sure it does. You want to know how well the student learned the material and learned to apply the material (again assuming the professor has assignments and exams that measure that well).

If they had the highest grade in the class that shows they learned it better than everyone else. If they graduated first in their classes that shows they really excelled.[/QUOTE]

Even if this were actually true (like Koggit apparently, I don't buy it), that still doesn't tell you how much they actually learned, only how much they learned compared to others.
 
[quote name='rickonker']So if students have learned something, they're still supposed to know it after they leave, right? Why not let the people you mentioned measure that knowledge however they please?[/QUOTE]

There's no time for that when hiring people and getting hundreds of applicants etc.

You need some quick indicator that can help with your decision, that goes along with everything else on the resume, how they do in the interview etc.

But as I said in the other thread, you can have the last word as I'm just agreeing to disagree with you and not willing to spend anymore time debating education with you as we're coming from very different view points and neither one of us is going to change our views.

But it was a fun debate, and helped me keep my mind off my cold the past couple days, so thanks for the respectful dialogue! But I'm feeling better so I won't be wasting as much time on the net.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']There's no time for that when hiring people and getting hundreds of applicants etc.

You need some quick indicator that can help with your decision, that goes along with everything else on the resume, how they do in the interview etc.[/quote]

Is this the only problem? Just as an example, suppose some employers required a score from some relevant test. Problem solved.

But as I said in the other thread, you can have the last word as I'm just agreeing to disagree with you and not willing to spend anymore time debating education with you as we're coming from very different view points and neither one of us is going to change our views.

But it was a fun debate, and helped me keep my mind off my cold the past couple days, so thanks for the respectful dialogue! But I'm feeling better so I won't be wasting as much time on the net.
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Same to you, hopefully we're not the only ones still here.
 
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