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• 3 years - 108 posts - Latest - RSS
• Thread: 322 Goods vs 111 No Goods

1. Economist
   23f6
   

   They are far from perfect for a reason. They don't test the right things like abstract reasoning, understanding the material, etc. It's usually just dumb calculations.

   standardised exams are for exam taking robots who love multiple choice exams.

   this is why hard, standardised exams are a fantastic idea. if the assessment is independent and rigorous, teaching quality actually matters. otherwise it's meaningless in the cowboy world of self regulation (the UK).
   academics HATE the idea of course, even though it's entirely feasible to standardise the undergraduate economics curriculum and most other subjects.
   

   who said multiple choice?
   they are from perfect but they are the best option, something an economist should be able to grasp.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

2. 3f50
   Rep: 53

   A good chunk of students don't care about learning.

   Yes, but I'm not at all sure that stops them from learning. Plus, this fraction isn't exactly exogenous -- to some degree the instructor can influence it. See Ken Bain's "What the Best College Teachers Do."

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

3. Economist
   2516
   

   In my department median teacher ratings are 4.8/5. But enrollment is still tanking! This is because students know we aren’t teaching much of value (that would drive our ratings down).

   You're a parasitic administrator. Please die.

   Will you still be championing the free market when your trash department is closed and your tenure is rescinded due to low enrollment?

   1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !

4. Economist
   000e
   

   Only measure should be enrollment and price. Revealed preference anyone?

   I have often found that students give low ratings to tough but useful classes but many get enrolled in it.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

5. Economist
   8fce
   

   I remember some research paper was doing the rounds a few years ago that used a natural experiment to show that students from courses that got bad evaluations tended to perform better in later courses than those who took an equivalent course that got a higher rating. The implication being that courses that get poor evaluations prepare students better for what is to follow.

   Student here. So I will perform well in later courses if I give you a bad rating now? Where is the logic?

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 4 No Good !

6. Economist
   b3d3
   

   I remember some research paper was doing the rounds a few years ago that used a natural experiment to show that students from courses that got bad evaluations tended to perform better in later courses than those who took an equivalent course that got a higher rating. The implication being that courses that get poor evaluations prepare students better for what is to follow.

   Student here. So I will perform well in later courses if I give you a bad rating now? Where is the logic?

   Wow.

   The "logic" here is that whiny students complain about difficult courses where they were actually forced to learn something.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 4 Good 0 No Good !

7. Economist
   a14b
   

   I remember some research paper was doing the rounds a few years ago that used a natural experiment to show that students from courses that got bad evaluations tended to perform better in later courses than those who took an equivalent course that got a higher rating. The implication being that courses that get poor evaluations prepare students better for what is to follow.

   Student here. So I will perform well in later courses if I give you a bad rating now? Where is the logic?

   The logic is that courses that push you out of your comfort zone are the ones where you learn the most. Professors who do that (and teach things like critical thinking) tend to be rewarded by students like you with low ratings. If you had taken more classes with those kinds of professors then you would have been able to figure that out.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 5 Good 0 No Good !

8. Economist
   000e
   

   ^I took one. It hurted but was worth it. I probably lije econ because of its frankness not necessarily due to any topic in particular.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

9. Economist
   2516
   

   THIS. 8fce, I do believe you have been “owned.”

   I remember some research paper was doing the rounds a few years ago that used a natural experiment to show that students from courses that got bad evaluations tended to perform better in later courses than those who took an equivalent course that got a higher rating. The implication being that courses that get poor evaluations prepare students better for what is to follow.

   Student here. So I will perform well in later courses if I give you a bad rating now? Where is the logic?

   The logic is that courses that push you out of your comfort zone are the ones where you learn the most. Professors who do that (and teach things like critical thinking) tend to be rewarded by students like you with low ratings. If you had taken more classes with those kinds of professors then you would have been able to figure that out.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !

10. Economist
    74dc
    

    Are you pretending to be dense or are you really dense?

    I remember some research paper was doing the rounds a few years ago that used a natural experiment to show that students from courses that got bad evaluations tended to perform better in later courses than those who took an equivalent course that got a higher rating. The implication being that courses that get poor evaluations prepare students better for what is to follow.

    Student here. So I will perform well in later courses if I give you a bad rating now? Where is the logic?

    1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Good 0 No Good !

11. Economist
    8ac9
    

    Teaching a new course joint with a colleague. When he felt that the evaluations were going to be bad, he kept on blaming the book that I chose for the course (with his consent) and said that he did not have enough time to prepare (he had 6 months to prepare but chose to let me do the heavy lifting and got involved only in the last month). The evaluations turned out stellar and now he is taking all the credit by saying that he prepared a lot! Ridiculous!

    1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

12. Economist
    23f6
    

    I disagree with most of your posts. Your problem is that you think University teachers should act like entertainers and put on a show as to make sure that even the s**ttiest students get something out of it. It's ridiculous.

    A good chunk of students don't care about learning.

    Yes, but I'm not at all sure that stops them from learning. Plus, this fraction isn't exactly exogenous -- to some degree the instructor can influence it. See Ken Bain's "What the Best College Teachers Do."

    1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 2 No Good !

13. Economist
    d5bf
    

    I disagree with most of your posts. Your problem is that you think University teachers should act like entertainers and put on a show as to make sure that even the s**ttiest students get something out of it. It's ridiculous.

    A good chunk of students don't care about learning.

    Yes, but I'm not at all sure that stops them from learning. Plus, this fraction isn't exactly exogenous -- to some degree the instructor can influence it. See Ken Bain's "What the Best College Teachers Do."
    

    Yeah, how ridiculous to expect all students to get something out of your class

    1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !

14. Economist
    bbfc
    

    I disagree with most of your posts. Your problem is that you think University teachers should act like entertainers and put on a show as to make sure that even the s**ttiest students get something out of it. It's ridiculous.

    A good chunk of students don't care about learning.

    Yes, but I'm not at all sure that stops them from learning. Plus, this fraction isn't exactly exogenous -- to some degree the instructor can influence it. See Ken Bain's "What the Best College Teachers Do."
    

    You don't need to be a stand-up comedian. You do need to be engaging. This is exactly the same set of skills that make someone good at giving presentations or an effective discussant. Communication is extremely important in any field.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 5 Good 1 No Good !

15. 3f50
    Rep: 53

    I disagree with most of your posts. Your problem is that you think University teachers should act like entertainers and put on a show as to make sure that even the s**ttiest students get something out of it. It's ridiculous.

    A good chunk of students don't care about learning.

    Yes, but I'm not at all sure that stops them from learning. Plus, this fraction isn't exactly exogenous -- to some degree the instructor can influence it. See Ken Bain's "What the Best College Teachers Do."
    

    You don't need to be a stand-up comedian. You do need to be engaging. This is exactly the same set of skills that make someone good at giving presentations or an effective discussant. Communication is extremely important in any field.

    Exactly.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Good 1 No Good !

16. Economist
    d442
    

    ^You need to be engaging to a set of undergrads with the attention span of a fruit fly, who were raised on YouTube and Pokémon Go.

    That is not always compatible with explaining subtle concepts in depth, in my experience.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 4 Good 2 No Good !

17. Economist
    23f6
    

    There's a difference between between engaging to a crowd of colleagues and appearing engaging to a bunch of idiots.

    I disagree with most of your posts. Your problem is that you think University teachers should act like entertainers and put on a show as to make sure that even the s**ttiest students get something out of it. It's ridiculous.

    A good chunk of students don't care about learning.

    Yes, but I'm not at all sure that stops them from learning. Plus, this fraction isn't exactly exogenous -- to some degree the instructor can influence it. See Ken Bain's "What the Best College Teachers Do."
    

    You don't need to be a stand-up comedian. You do need to be engaging. This is exactly the same set of skills that make someone good at giving presentations or an effective discussant. Communication is extremely important in any field.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Good 1 No Good !

18. Economist
    83eb
    

    ^ social media, Netflix, smart phones, political correctness, data science etc. have destroyed the potential for rigorous academic engagement. Now kids care about cat videos.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 1 No Good !

19. 3f50
    Rep: 53

    ^You need to be engaging to a set of undergrads with the attention span of a fruit fly, who were raised on YouTube and Pokémon Go.
    That is not always compatible with explaining subtle concepts in depth, in my experience.

    Could be, but there are other possible reasons that your explanations don't work. One is our limited working memory -- we can juggle maybe 5 different chunks of information. Here's an example: what are the days of the week -- in alphabetical order? Further, those chunks are larger for experts than for novices. We see broad general concepts and students largely do not. One nice paper on this is Hultberg, and Calonge, "Effective teaching of economics: A constrained optimization problem?," The Journal of Economic Education 48.4 (2017): 265-275. A general guide to deal with this problem is "Improving Learning by Reducing Unnecessary Mental Load," http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/instructor_guidance.htm (tons of other excellent guides on teaching here).

    The "curse of knowledge" might also be a factor -- experts typically think a lot differently than novices. One paper on this is 'The “Curse of Knowledge,” or Why Intuition About Teaching Often Fails,' https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200711/backpage.cfm . One particularly interesting paper is "Toward a Neurobiological Basis for Understanding Learning in University Modeling Instruction Physics Courses," https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fict.2018.00010/full , where the authors find that after one semester's instruction in physics, different brain regions are activated when answering the same problem (fMRI imagining is used).

    There is also the impact of prior knowledge on understanding of a current topic. That is, if a student has incorrect prior knowledge their learning can be hindered. That is, students are not blank slates. I suspect that this is pretty common in economics as we seem to think quite a bit differently about many topics than the general public. Physicists have made this a big deal in their teaching research: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/tomorrows-college/lectures/problem-with-lecturing.html .

    Finally, telling is not a particularly good means of teaching. In some instances you can tell people something again and again but it doesn't sink in. Instead, asking a question that gets to the heart of misunderstanding (and that all students have a reason to answer) seems to work better (if done well, this can address prior incorrect knowledge and it might help with limited working memory). Links to YT lead to deleted posts here, but Google for "Student Misconceptions in Physics - Part 1" where novice physics instructor Shane Hutson explains this idea after reading some physics education research and seeing how accurately it described what he saw in class with this students.

    There are a handful of fairly simple principles that go a long way to better understanding how our students learn.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

20. 3f50
    Rep: 53

    There's a difference between between engaging to a crowd of colleagues and appearing engaging to a bunch of idiots.

    How so? In both you need to be aware of what they can process (much less for students), have a sense of their background knowledge (ditto), and be able to articulate why they should care about a given topic. I actually find the tasks in general pretty similar when you think of it this way.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

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