David and Barry on measurement in education struck a chord:
>Barry says:
>
>>I grew jaded over the years by the way in which incompetence and incompetents
>>peppered the teaching profession. Little could or would be done about it.
>>There was no MEASURE that would successfully address the vague, foggy notions
>>of product output--the student. Teachers were, in my own experience, in a
>>world unto themselves... that.
David adds:
>
>There's a reason teachers are so vehemently against outcome-based
>education. It sets up standards against which their performance is
>measured. That takes control of educational objectives and outcomes away
>from the teacher and into the hands of those who develop the outcomes and
>standards. Many teachers remember when they were an underpaid class of
>employees, with little respect and less reward. Is it any wonder they
>bristle at being held accountable?
>
Two resonances: yeah, we ARE more anti-intellectual than I like,
and I wish we were not. Clearly, our society doesn't much believe in the
value of education, because we don't take it seriously. On the other hand,
the issue of measurements is a tough one: there ARE measurements in use in
most colleges and universities, and they are pretty awful: simple-minded
student surveys (widely sneered at, with some justification IMHO, as
"popularity contests").
Teachers face a dilemma: much of what students need to know, isn't
"fun" to learn, but takes discipline, persistence and effort. Until those
are invested, the students cannot do the work - whether it's write a
competent sentence, parse a paragraph in a foreign language, work a
chemistry problem, or apply a rule from physics. A fair number of young
folk aren't especially interested in work, until they've done enough of it
to find it really does pay rewards. So the profs that make students work
(especially if surrounded by others who don't, but still give "good
grades") can come up short on popularity contests. The excellent students
think the "work-'em" profs are stellar: "Prof. X really taught me
something important!" But many others, who are in school for the
credential or to pass the time, resent having to work for grades, and
discount grading as "wholly subjective" in any area where there is not a
calculated answer.
Meanwhile, of course, the conundrum is wound tighter yet. Students
ARE "customers," and there is some genuine justification to listening to
their complaints and preferences. Yet if they're customers, they're also,
by definition, to some degree "ignorant" of the subject matter they come
to learn. If they knew it all already, they wouldn't need the class. Thus
profs have an obligation to craft the learning experiences, direct the
class, etc. to some degree - at the same time that it is the STUDENTS who
learn, not the prof (though I've never taught a class without learning
something!). The students ultimately are responsible for their learning,
and if they won't - especially at higher levels - it's not obviously "the
professor's fault."
No easy answers, alas.
Sam
-- MXJELI@MAIL.WM.EDU Mariann Jelinek Richard C. Kraemer Professor of Business Graduate School of Business, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23185Tel. (804) 221-2882 FAX: (804) 229-6135