I had long felt called to be a college professor, so in 2002 I left my cushy, high-paying engineering job to accept a position as an Assistant Professor of Physics at a local community college in the mid-west. The college seemed excited to have me and soon asked me to forward my curriculum vitae and course syllabi to the college partnership office which was negotiating for credits in the community college courses to transfer toward engineering degrees at a nearby four year university…
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Wow, that is sickening.
If you’re lucky enough to be fishing, you’re lucky enough.
Please note that the name of this author was missing. Also, only 2 year institutions were discussed. And, these may have been “for profit” institutions. My experience at the College of Charleston was vastly different. JMHO
Marsha
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Marsha, I have to ask how long ago was that? Not being a smart a**! Kind of like Participation Trophies!
Seems like a pretty small sample size. I guess he found some backwoods tech schools to go to. Does it really surprise anyone what people are willing to do a lot for the all mighty $$$$? Money is money. If it comes from running a restaurant, bank, charity, school, or church it’s still money and many people will do what it takes to make more.
My only experience was Clemson Engineering and one semester of Architecture. They would fail the whole class there. I’m pretty sure I had an engineering or physics class where the average for a test was 52, and no we didn’t get a curve or bonus assignment or any of that.
My neighbor had her son recruited to some sort of junior college/tech school to play football. They told him time and time again that his credits would transfer to Clemson Engineering or get some type of engineering degree at their school. Pretty sure it turned out they didn’t actually have any type of engineering degree to give and no association or transferable credits to Clemson…he ended up with a math degree I believe.
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My wife is a hard working and dedicated teacher/admin at TTC. It’s very true that many kids coming from HS are woefully prepared for college. But I will tell you that they must take courses to get up to speed before they can begin college level classes, and that if they do not do well they will fail. Like with an F. Or withdraw. My wife will not let a pre-nursing student through unless they are prepared because someday they may be working on her! (for example). These articles are meant to draw a shocking reaction, but they are unfair to the legit schools.
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Originally posted by Great WhiteMy only experience was Clemson Engineering and one semester of Architecture. They would fail the whole class there. I’m pretty sure I had an engineering or physics class where the average for a test was 52, and no we didn’t get a curve or bonus assignment or any of that.
One needs to exercise due care to recognize schools who still maintain appropriate academic rigor, and we’re fairly certain that Clemson is one of them.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" - The Messiah
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Originally posted by marshgrassPlease note that the name of this author was missing. Also, only 2 year institutions were discussed. And, these may have been “for profit” institutions. My experience at the College of Charleston was vastly different. JMHO
These were public schools. One was a two year college, and the other was a four year university.
I wonder if is your general knowledge or your reading comprehension that leads you to conclude that a University with “graduate students” among those gifted grades could possibly be a “2 year institution.”
Given that observation, I am not convinced that your “experience at the College of Charleston was vastly different.”
From the article:
Shortly after arriving to start the position, I was shocked in a Chemistry Department faculty meeting when a junior faculty member asked if his tenure and promotion potential would be harmed if he failed two graduate students who had completed 0% and 20% (respectively) of the required work in a summer research course.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" - The Messiah
I went to College of Charleston… I can tell you that the teachers wouldn’t think twice about failing you. My roommate in college had a 0.9 GPA his first semester. I would sign up for a max course load every semester and then drop the one I was failing by the drop\add date.
PS. I didn’t read the entire article. It was too long…
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Originally posted by skinneejI went to College of Charleston… I can tell you that the teachers wouldn’t think twice about failing you. My roommate in college had a 0.9 GPA his first semester. I would sign up for a max course load every semester and then drop the one I was failing by the drop\add date.
PS. I didn’t read the entire article. It was too long…
From the teaching jobs I’ve had, it’s not as if professors have to pass all the students, it’s that they have a certain target threshold (usually 80-90%) of the students enrolled on the first day of class that must earn As, Bs, or Cs. So there is a limit (10-20%) on the number of students that can be assigned Ds, Fs, or Ws. There is no pressure on the teacher by the administration unless the number of Ds, Fs, and Ws gets too high. The compromise with academic rigor occurs when you have less than the 80-90% of the class working hard enough to earn a C or better.
This was explained in the 4th paragraph of the article, had you made it that far.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" - The Messiah
Working through this problem backwards… If 50% of your students fail, did you get a stupid class? Or, do you suck as a teacher? Just a thought… There are always 2 sides… Can you imagine a teacher that has 25 1 rst graders with half of them failing? Would there be any question who was at fault? Okay, so I get that college students are grown ups and they should take their education seriously, but what if you have a group of 25 students and most are failing a class, but generally they do very well in other classes? What is the common thread? This seems like a pretty simple statistical distribution. Many private corporations use this… When I was at Microsoft, the performance review had a 20%, 70%, 10% distribution. If you were in the 20%, you were a “top performer” and got compensated well… If you were in the 70%, you did a “pretty good” job. If you were in the bottom 10%, you probably got fired… If a boss wanted to fire 50% of his people, then it means you either hired the wrong people to begin with, or your standards are too high, etc…
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Originally posted by skinneejWorking through this problem backwards… If 50% of your students fail, did you get a stupid class? Or, do you suck as a teacher? Just a thought… There are always 2 sides… Can you imagine a teacher that has 25 1 rst graders with half of them failing? Would there be any question who was at fault? Okay, so I get that college students are grown ups and they should take their education seriously, but what if you have a group of 25 students and most are failing a class, but generally they do very well in other classes? What is the common thread? This seems like a pretty simple statistical distribution. Many private corporations use this… When I was at Microsoft, the performance review had a 20%, 70%, 10% distribution. If you were in the 20%, you were a “top performer” and got compensated well… If you were in the 70%, you did a “pretty good” job. If you were in the bottom 10%, you probably got fired… If a boss wanted to fire 50% of his people, then it means you either hired the wrong people to begin with, or your standards are too high, etc…
There are actually three common reasons why students do not succeed in a class: poor teaching, unprepared students, and students who have insufficient work ethic to do the required work.
The assumption of a bad teacher can be rejected in many cases if the teacher is having great success in other classes or at other institutions. A friend of mine taught for 15 years at one school with great success, his students regularly outperforming most other schools in the nation on the AP Physics and Calculus tests. Then he moved to a different state where problems with academic rigor were more widespread. He did not last more than a year at three different schools, because students were lazy and unprepared and the adm
^ I ran in to plenty of professors who were terrible teachers. Many of them too smart to understand how to dumb things down or that it needed to be done.
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Low homework completion can also be due to lack of understanding caused by poor teaching. It would be a misleading data source.
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quote:Okay, what if that means that your friend didn't know how to adapt to a new environment? All of the other teachers in that state were doing well and he had failure in 3 different schools? Doesn't that sound a tad peculiar?
Originally posted by LittleDrummerBoyA friend of mine taught for 15 years at one school with great success, his students regularly outperforming most other schools in the nation on the AP Physics and Calculus tests. Then he moved to a different state where problems with academic rigor were more widespread. He did not last more than a year at three different schools, because students were lazy and unprepared and the admins pressured him to pass them anyway. He is now enjoying great success in a different state at another school that upholds academic rigor and does not shift the blame to teachers.
While I agree that it’s not always the teacher’s fault, and probably not even usually the teacher’s fault, it sounds like you don’t ever want to accept that it could be… Again, I don’t think that the usage of data driven analysis (KPI’s, etc) are a bad thing unless they are used in a bad way. This was my real point… IN EVERY INDUSTRY OR DISCIPLINE there are “poor performers”. Teachers are no exception to that rule!!! If there are valid ways to quantify teaching performance, and you are a BOTTOM 10%, then you might should move on to a new job. Simple as that…
Anyway, point is… Yes, sometimes teachers suck, or sometimes they fail to adapt to their environment… I had a couple of teachers at CofC that seemed to be hell bent on failing everyone in the class because they wanted to show the students how smart teacher was… They would deliver you an “F” with a smile on their face. No general concern for the students education, only themselves as an “educator”. I put
When I was at CofC you either learned the material, or you failed. Many students failed, even in my liberal arts electives (History of Indian Art…not a bs class). They also took the students’ voice seriously. We had a new professor that was absolutely terrible, could not explain, did not provide a syllabus until 4 classes in. She was relieved on the spot and our class was given to another professor.
I don’t trust any article without an author, much less from biblicaltheologyofscience.com
It has been 30 years ago, but my college education came from the UND and the community college of the AF. Never had a teacher pass a student that was doing bad. Also not near as many going to college as the modern entitlement age.
Up to date I’ve had a daughter graduate from USC and now teaching school and my youngest is in the Nursing program. What I can say is her and several of her friends from High School struggled very hard in certain classes due to lack of preparation from High School. No slack on Professors part, those that strived to make it did, those that didn’t/couldn’t failed. There was one Math Professor that spoke fragmented English that the entire class failed and he was removed, but daughter had to take the class over.
I don’t think college is major the problem, it’s our grade schools. My daughter can not give a grade lower that 50% and if a student fails they get to take the test again. Know what I would have done? I’d fail every test then retake and ace it. She has three students that are just learning to speak English for gosh sake.
Ever really looked at common core? We as a nation are bringing down our brightest so it appears our dumbest are not so dumb.
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