That's So Maven [Formerly "Ethics" or something]

[Paelos]

This whole idiotic thread was worth it for Dr. Goat Evacuator. 

If that's not his title by week end, you've failed at internet. 

[Maven]

Thank you everyone.

[Khaldun]

There is actually some pretty good evidence from several studies that the teachers with the highest evaluations do not overlap the teachers who were the most effective at teaching the subject. One of the best examples of this recently has been studies of what's called "flipping the classroom"--where the professor records the lectures and makes that the "homework" and where the class does problem sets or other applied work together with the professor when they actually meet. "Flipped classrooms" typically show up as making a huge difference in retention of information and skills compared to standard listen-to-lecture, do the problem set as homework. But students also downrate flipped classrooms compared to listen-to-lecture, and it's easy to see why they do: a flipped classroom is on balance harder work--you can't zone out, it compels you to be active and interactive, etc.

There's also some studies that show that there are some pretty substantial bias effects in evaluations.

That said, students also see things that faculty never notice about their own teaching, and student judgments of effectiveness are really important for faculty to hear in some respect. I frankly wish most of my colleagues could find a way to listen invisibly in on conversations students have about them (sort of like Scrooge in Christmas Carol) because they'd find out a lot of useful information about their own teaching style (not all of that information would be negative). I was sitting in one of the lounges the other day working on something before a committee meeting and there were a bunch of students behind me who didn't notice I was there, and the observations they had on several departments were just very interesting and actually quite helpful.

Part of the problem with standard teaching evaluations is that sometimes the end of a course isn't the best time for a student to be thinking about what they learned and didn't learn from a class--a lot of evaluations would be more helpful if you were getting them after six months or a year or even after the student graduates. You often don't know what you learned or how useful it was to learn it until you're putting it to use in some fashion, much later.

[HaemishM]

There's also some studies that show that there are some pretty substantial bias effects in evaluations.

I think when it comes to students evaluating teachers, I would classify that study under the "No Shit, Sherlock" form of wasted grant money. 

[Khaldun]

I guess, but you know, if you didn't document it, you'd get people saying it wasn't true. As it is you can document something pretty clearly like "women professors get lower evaluations than male professors even when delivering it in the same way, with the same results in terms of testing or assessment of student learning" or "evaluations of women professors use very different, more negative words" and find that there are people who either don't believe those studies or dismiss their findings as unimportant.

[Maven]

RateMyProfessor is what I use. The Yelp of Teaching. I try to get a teacher 4.5 or above or at the very least nothing below a 4.

It's meant to give *some* indication of quality and more information than I would otherwise have. It has proven accurate so far.

[Margalis]

Go take a comp sci class taught by someone fresh off the boat who literally knows more than god but can barely speak english and get back to me on how it went.

I once took a Comp Sci class (or maybe math, I forget) that was in large part taught by a TA that I couldn't understand one fucking word of. Literally not one word.

I just looked up my sister on some professor rating site. She got pretty good reviews and a red pepper for "hotness."

[HaemishM]

I just looked up my sister on some professor rating site. She got pretty good reviews and a red pepper for "hotness."

 

[Khaldun]

RateMyProfessor tends to have info basically on really popular profs and really unpopular ones, like all rating sites. Also profs who are notorious characters or unusual in some way. People who are basically solid teachers don't tend to motivate students to go and post on them. I'd generally trust other students I know first, something like RMP later.

[Mazakiel]

I've had to take classes with professors that rated poorly on the rating sites because that's all I could fit into my schedule, and more often than not, it wasn't that they sucked as teachers, it was because they didn't make the class an easy way to get an A.  I don't bother checking the rating sites these days. 

[Paelos]

I just looked up my sister on some professor rating site. She got pretty good reviews and a red pepper for "hotness."

 

Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad.

[Nebu]

I've had to take classes with professors that rated poorly on the rating sites because that's all I could fit into my schedule, and more often than not, it wasn't that they sucked as teachers, it was because they didn't make the class an easy way to get an A.  I don't bother checking the rating sites these days.  

 

I'm a tough prof with high standards.  I see the same in my own ratings. 

I also get more students into medical, pharmacy, and dental school because they do well on the PCAT, MCAT, and DAT.   

Which would you prefer?

[Sir T]

I dunno. What pepper are you on the hotness scale?

[schild]

I dunno. What pepper are you on the hotness scale?

Waiting for Dr. Goat to respond since I already looked him up (LOOOOOOOOOL)  #fangirl

[Maven]

Whee.

[Rendakor]

10/10 Thread title, would read again.

[Mithas]

Needs more Nerf.

[01101010]

10/10 Thread title, would read again.

This title is fantastic now. Thanks 

[MahrinSkel]

I'm gaming the system at college at every opportunity, up to and including picking my college. I figure out what the optimal strategy is, I execute, I adjust it, for each class I am taking. My target is an "A" in every class.

But you have to roll with the punches. Don't get so tied up in your plan that you think you have to win every little point on it. I have one class where the professor is nearly useless, probably should retire (a "Speech" teacher that goes off on tangents, forgets what point he was trying to make, and several times has given us assignments in terms that left most of the class mystified about either what the assignment actually was, or when it was due). I'm having to teach myself from the textbook in order to pass the written exams, which means that class takes several times as much attention as my Government class, which is taught by a notorious hardass but he *actually* teaches.

Other people have their own plans, fighting them is often more trouble than it is worth.  Adjust, adapt, and overcome. And I want to echo what others have been telling you, Maven: You've got to learn to let this shit *go*, or you're going to snap one day and burn down the building because somebody stole your stapler.

--Dave

[Pennilenko]

I too game the "system" at my college. My strategy is to do all of my work, and get good test scores. So far I have had all A's every single term.

[MahrinSkel]

I'm talking more in terms of what I study, figuring out how the teacher signals (even if subconsciously) that something is on the test in a tricky form, analyzing the syllabus to figure out which assignments have the most weight in terms of my final grade (for example, one class, if I show up every class, and turn in a "A" quality "extra credit" book report, I'm a lock for an "A" even if I do nothing else). Or taking a particular English prof again, because I know he "gets" my oddball humor and won't count it against me when I write papers for him.

--Dave

[Khaldun]

Maybe life and education aren't problems to solve with tricks. Not always. It's kind of like Groundhog Day. The "I'm figuring out all the tricks" is Phil Connors' problem up until he starts to just live and learn.

[MahrinSkel]

Four decades as a gamer has not prepared me to win life?



Seriously, where there rules, there are optimum strategies. The more those rules involve numbers, the more applicable game strategies are, and college is filled with numeric feedback and inputs. I'm not here for the 'College Experience", I'm only incidentally here to learn things (even if I need to learn them in formal settings, I don't need to be "in" a university , I could audit courses at a community college or download lessons from the net), I'm here to get a piece of paper that says "I are smart, really".

--Dave

[schild]

Maybe life and education aren't problems to solve with tricks. Not always. It's kind of like Groundhog Day. The "I'm figuring out all the tricks" is Phil Connors' problem up until he starts to just live and learn.

Bullshit.

Edit: If you're not min/maxing life, I put it to you that you're somehow living wrong.

[Morat20]

The question is what part of life are you min/maxing.

Earnings potential? Sex? Family? Knowledge?

Everyone's got their priorities.

[MahrinSkel]

The question is what part of life are you min/maxing.

Earnings potential? Sex? Family? Knowledge?

Everyone's got their priorities.

True enough. One of the factors I balanced when picking a school was that it had to be within 400 miles of my youngest daughter, so that I can frequently visit her and be part of her life. Schools out of that radius didn't even get considered. Other factors involved the proportion of students on financial aid (indicates a highly active Financial Aid office and a flexibility of payment deadlines to match FinAid disbursement schedules), the availability of scholarships, etc.

Knowledge: This is undergraduate. The substance of what I am going to potentially learn is not going to change significantly regardless of where I do it.

Earnings Potential: Since schools with widespread name recognition were outside both of my radius and my financial reach, all that mattered was that the school was a "University" rather than a mere "College", and especially that it not be a "Community College". I've been in the room when resumes were being sorted, after the "brand name" schools and the alma maters, that's the only consideration that matters.

I built a spreadsheet with various factors, applied some thought to what those should be and how they should be weighted (and what was a disqualifying score for any given factor), and picked one out of the top five for personal reasons. As Schild said, if you aren't minimaxing the parts of your life that *can* be reduced to numbers, you are doing it wrong. "Munchkin" for life, yo.

--Dave

EDIT: As for sex: I am 44 years old and recently divorced. I do not need the drama of relationships with girls younger than my oldest daughter.

[Maven]

I get where Dave is coming from. Gaming my college experience for the highest return is a core part of my thought process, but not the only one. Shooting for a high GPA but also areas where I think I'm lacking. I'll sit up front, stay engaged, figure out my points budget I can lose before I get a B, get a sense of the semester. I took classes with harder subjects like International Political Economy, an English course that was harder than 101 but focused on issues in business, and am filling Gen Ed with Health and Nutrition because I take poor care of myself, especially measuring the stress cost of my decisions. Those I care about. Art and science, I pick the classes that will get me the easiest A: Genre Film Studies aand the easiest Astronomy course on campus.

I know I don't have a broad or neurotypical perspective, but I have to make this work and leverage as much as I can to better my chances of success. Call me a schemer or a shitty strategist who can't see the political rules society plays by, but no one is going to come to my rescue if I reach a fiscal point where I can't meet my basic needs, and low wage low skill jobs are a death sentence. I have to look good on paper and a worthwhile investment, and the new normal appears to be 3.75+.

Yes, that competitive attitude is death to interpersonal relationships and liable to have me end up in some casino gambling away my earnings. I'm afraid of failure. (I know, get help. I can't do that overnight.)

[MahrinSkel]

Maven: In all honesty, you need to learn how to recognize when 'intangibles', things that can not be reduced to numbers, are involved, and how to value them without obsessing on them. You strike me as the kind of guy who doesn't like his peas to touch his mashed potatoes (perhaps literally, perhaps not, I'm speaking of that kind of "this is not in the right *place*, RAGE!" reaction).

Life is messy, and no matter how hard you try, things are going to slop out of their proper roles and channels. Learn to recognize when it is time to let the petty shit go, and what that stuff is. Be suspicious of that urge to kick back because the plan is falling apart, learn to have goals you improvise your way towards instead of precisely mapped out checkpoints.

--Dave

[rk47]

You should play huniepop.

[angry.bob]

I get where Dave is coming from. Gaming my college experience for the highest return is a core part of my thought process, but not the only one. Shooting for a high GPA but also areas where I think I'm lacking. I'll sit up front, stay engaged, figure out my points budget I can lose before I get a B, get a sense of the semester. I took classes with harder subjects like International Political Economy, an English course that was harder than 101 but focused on issues in business, and am filling Gen Ed with Health and Nutrition because I take poor care of myself, especially measuring the stress cost of my decisions. Those I care about. Art and science, I pick the classes that will get me the easiest A: Genre Film Studies aand the easiest Astronomy course on campus.

I know I don't have a broad or neurotypical perspective, but I have to make this work and leverage as much as I can to better my chances of success. Call me a schemer or a shitty strategist who can't see the political rules society plays by, but no one is going to come to my rescue if I reach a fiscal point where I can't meet my basic needs, and low wage low skill jobs are a death sentence. I have to look good on paper and a worthwhile investment, and the new normal appears to be 3.75+.

Yes, that competitive attitude is death to interpersonal relationships and liable to have me end up in some casino gambling away my earnings. I'm afraid of failure. (I know, get help. I can't do that overnight.)

You seem extremely worried aboout shit that isn't going to matter the instant you graduate. No one is going to give two shits about any of that. It's the next step in not mattering. How you did in grade school didn't really matter in middle school which didn't really matter in high school which didn't really matter in college and won't really matter in the work force. I just spent 5 years watching 150 very young adults become complete fucking wrecks trying to finish at the top of the class. And none of it mattered. At the end all that mattered was if we were competent or not.

Also, friends don't matter much either. Once you get married most of them fall out of your life, and once you have kids the rest disappear. The people you get to have as friends are the parents of kids in your kid's class and the neighbor you say hello two a couple times a week when you're both doing stuff outside.

[MahrinSkel]

Biz school is different, Bob: They really will care about what his GPA was for the first 5 years or so of his career, and it will be absolutely *critical* if he wants to go on to graduate studies. He's not sweating over nothing on that front, he's just not leaving any stretch in his strategy and getting too worked up when the inevitable happens and the plan hits even minor derails.

--Dave

[Margalis]

It does depend a great deal. For CS your GPA doesn't really matter unless it's below a certain threshold. For pre-med? It matters immensely.

It takes some guts to go back to school as an oldster. Kudos to you guys. I felt awkward enough when I was the right age, hard to imagine me going back now.

Sometimes when I visit my hometown I walk around college campus there and even that feels weird, even it students are on break.

[Nebu]

I've sat on admissions committees for medical school, pharmacy school, and graduate school.  If you have any interest in those areas, I can tell you what the committees look for.

[Rasix]

I got into a very highly rated MIS program with that I'd consider average grades in my undergraduate CS (and even one black mark against my record).  I had a few things going for me: I'm hispanic, I had better than good grades outside of my major, I had great recommendations, and I present well compared to other CS/highly technical majors.

I think I did fairly well on the placement exam (MCAT?), although I don't think I did that well. 

[Khaldun]

The major respect in which Schild is right, shocking as that thought might be, is that you gotta know what matters to you--why you're in school or for that matter why you're doing anything else. Never use a university or department's system and requirements as your own value system, or let it dictate the reason why you're doing something. Universities may act like their systems and rules are for the benefit of students, but they aren't, at least not directly--those systems exist largely to keep day-to-day business functioning, as a way to route resources efficiently, and so on. I think there's no harm in suspending judgment and trying some new subject or class with an open mind, and I think deciding that the system is always your enemy is just as dumb as trusting that it's always your friend. But every student (and employee, etc.) should have their own goals, should be playing their own game and be playing it to crush.