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The college model has a forced failure system. The competition model should have no place in educating children who will become working, tax paying, and voting

by kaa2102 11y ago

The college model has a forced failure system. The competition model should have no place in educating children who will become working, tax paying, and voting adult citizens.

com2kid 11y ago
> The college model has a forced failure system. Only at the upper tiers of elite universities. Most large universities also have their intro courses taught in huge lecture halls with 100+ students. Yeah that system fails, so don't do it. But take the good parts. Small focused targeted quarterly classes that students can retake if they fail. Having classes that last an entire school year (or even half a school year) is overkill. I also like that with the quarter system in college, students typically take three 5-credit classes. That is 3 hours of instructional time per day, which at a good pace in class, is about the max an average person can learn. With 6 hours of class instructional time, teachers have to "burn" some of that time so students don't burn out. I could not imagine sitting through 6 hours of college lectures per day, it'd be insane, because every minute spent in class is productive. Compare that to High School, where students spend a LOT of time on busy work, or watching films, or reading entire chapters of a book out loud. Want a recipe for success? Make a class schedule that is the equivalent of 15 college credits per quarter. 3 hours of lecture per day, intersperse lectures with dedicated study time, let students immediately apply what they just learned to solve problems. Students will get to learn more per class, and have better adherence to homework policies.
- kaa2102 11y ago
  I'm referring to "the curve" when I say forced failure. Grading models at public and private universities require that x% of students receive a failing grade. The goal is not to teach the student to be knowledgeable of subject X but to rather weed out those who do not cross a subjective proficiency threshold.
  - com2kid 11y ago
    > I'm referring to "the curve" when I say forced failure. Grading models at public and private universities require that x% of students receive a failing grade. The goal is not to teach the student to be knowledgeable of subject X but to rather weed out those who do not cross a subjective proficiency threshold. This varies by university and department. In theory you should always have a performance curve if you have a large enough sample size. This does not mean that 1 standard deviation away has to fail. It does mean that some students will do better than others. You can set performance targets however you want, if we desire to create an education system that supports students so that -2σ can still perform at a competent level, well you have a system that supports 97.6% of students. (Although I'd actually say that performance target is somewhat unrealistic for a country in which only a mid 80% of students currently graduate high school.) Universities don't have the resources, time, or motivation, to educate 97% of the population, so they are going to put policies in place such as "more than -1σ and you fail out". There is no need to employ that en-masse to all education!

by kaa2102 11y ago

The college model has a forced failure system. The competition model should have no place in educating children who will become working, tax paying, and voting adult citizens.

com2kid 11y ago

> The college model has a forced failure system. Only at the upper tiers of elite universities. Most large universities also have their intro courses taught in huge lecture halls with 100+ students. Yeah that system fails, so don't do it. But take the good parts. Small focused targeted quarterly classes that students can retake if they fail. Having classes that last an entire school year (or even half a school year) is overkill. I also like that with the quarter system in college, students typically take three 5-credit classes. That is 3 hours of instructional time per day, which at a good pace in class, is about the max an average person can learn. With 6 hours of class instructional time, teachers have to "burn" some of that time so students don't burn out. I could not imagine sitting through 6 hours of college lectures per day, it'd be insane, because every minute spent in class is productive. Compare that to High School, where students spend a LOT of time on busy work, or watching films, or reading entire chapters of a book out loud. Want a recipe for success? Make a class schedule that is the equivalent of 15 college credits per quarter. 3 hours of lecture per day, intersperse lectures with dedicated study time, let students immediately apply what they just learned to solve problems. Students will get to learn more per class, and have better adherence to homework policies.

kaa2102 11y ago
I'm referring to "the curve" when I say forced failure. Grading models at public and private universities require that x% of students receive a failing grade. The goal is not to teach the student to be knowledgeable of subject X but to rather weed out those who do not cross a subjective proficiency threshold.
- com2kid 11y ago
  > I'm referring to "the curve" when I say forced failure. Grading models at public and private universities require that x% of students receive a failing grade. The goal is not to teach the student to be knowledgeable of subject X but to rather weed out those who do not cross a subjective proficiency threshold. This varies by university and department. In theory you should always have a performance curve if you have a large enough sample size. This does not mean that 1 standard deviation away has to fail. It does mean that some students will do better than others. You can set performance targets however you want, if we desire to create an education system that supports students so that -2σ can still perform at a competent level, well you have a system that supports 97.6% of students. (Although I'd actually say that performance target is somewhat unrealistic for a country in which only a mid 80% of students currently graduate high school.) Universities don't have the resources, time, or motivation, to educate 97% of the population, so they are going to put policies in place such as "more than -1σ and you fail out". There is no need to employ that en-masse to all education!