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> ...whose instructors... cannot or will not accurately assess the correctness of a student's work? Have you graded proofs? GP's approach is entirely sensible.

> ...whose instructors... cannot or will not accurately assess the correctness of a student's work? Have you graded proofs? GP's approach is entirely sensible. Proofs are written for humans. Writing a proof upside down is wrong, even if the derivation is correct. The underlying cause of that incorrectness could be a simple matter of poor communication, or the student might have a more fundamental misconception about how implication works (and/or quantifiers). Sometimes the instructor knows enough about the student to determine which is the case. Sometimes it's impossible without talking to the student. Hence the long note and (perhaps implicit) invitation to office hours. I can't find anything in GP's post that indicates he "cannot or will not accurately assess the correctness of a student's work", aside from the obvious impossibility of projecting a multi-objective assessment of a fundamentally human task onto an integer in [0,100]. If anything, GP provides an excellent example of why auto-grading for upper division courses -- especially courses that are trying to teach students how to write for a human audience -- will probably require fundamental scientific advances in AI in addition to innovation on top of existing tech stacks. My money's on self-driving cars happening first. > With that in mind, what do you think is going to happen when someone in Silicon Valley disrupts higher education accreditation and/or secondary degrees? This already happened! University of Phoenix has been around for a while. > The point is everyone on HN has their own stories of experiencing this problem-- where the intellectual environment advertised by the university was violated If you want to know how people really feel, look at where they send their kids rather than they say/say they will do in online debates. Again, University of Phoenix et al have been around for a while. > My fear is that will strip the money needed for grad programs-- where the real learning and research happens-- and the modern uni will fall like a house of cards. Masters programs are cash cows. Top Ph.D. programs usually aren't appreciably funded through undergraduate programs. And when they are, it's almost always backed by Ph.D. student labor. Which is crazy cheap, and which startups are going to have a very hard time competing with. > Short digression: It's been interesting to read the criticisms of Uber on HN. The same is true of higher education :-)

jancsika 9y ago
> Have you graded proofs? GP's approach is entirely sensible. GP wrote characterized the mistake as a "significant misunderstanding" of the material. GP use of the word "just" strongly implied that the assessment inside the long, probably unread note was not reflect in the grade. If that is indeed the case then the student's "significant misunderstanding" of this material wasn't reflected in the calculation of their final grade, which is the textbook definition of grade inflation. Again-- this kind of grade inflation happens often. (If the class size is greater than 75 and fulfills one of the uni's writing requirements, I'd argue it's almost a requirement that it happens.) It's a truth about an impossible situation with only bad choices, not an ad hominem. > This already happened! University of Phoenix has been around for a while. By disruption, I mean Uber/AirBnB style disruption. Disruption resulting in customers who leverage the technology saying things like, "Dude, it's changed the way I go out in Atlanta." I seriously doubt the existence of University of Phoenix has ever made an employer say anything close to that. (E.g., "it's changed the way we hire employees.") I mean an accreditation service that basically tells an employer: look, do you really want to know if that employee is worth hiring? I doubt this even requires any testing whatsoever-- just require incoming Freshman to get a Chromebook. But the end of their studies there could be a new Google "Fasttrack" app. You could make it almost like a digital scratch ticket-- giving Google the relevant permissions and you can see whether you really graduated with honors. Edit: added example
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  > If that is indeed the case then the student's "significant misunderstanding" of this material wasn't reflected in the calculation of their final grade, which is the textbook definition of grade inflation. I don't know; it depends. I typically write my rubrics so that there are "style" points. In a really easy proof, style might be up to half the available points. In a very difficult proof perhaps only 1/10 or less. But even that doesn't totally solve the problem. Some mistakes are on the border between style and substance. Grading and assessment aren't a perfect science. > I seriously doubt the existence of University of Phoenix has ever made an employer say anything close to that. Call me old-fashioned, but IMO the actual education is still the hard part of the Education Industry. My comments have all assumed the goal is student understanding. IMO the obsession over grades (by students and by external observers), testing, and accreditation is completely mis-guided. Focus on exceptional student outcomes and the rest is easy.

jancsika 9y ago

> Have you graded proofs? GP's approach is entirely sensible. GP wrote characterized the mistake as a "significant misunderstanding" of the material. GP use of the word "just" strongly implied that the assessment inside the long, probably unread note was not reflect in the grade. If that is indeed the case then the student's "significant misunderstanding" of this material wasn't reflected in the calculation of their final grade, which is the textbook definition of grade inflation. Again-- this kind of grade inflation happens often. (If the class size is greater than 75 and fulfills one of the uni's writing requirements, I'd argue it's almost a requirement that it happens.) It's a truth about an impossible situation with only bad choices, not an ad hominem. > This already happened! University of Phoenix has been around for a while. By disruption, I mean Uber/AirBnB style disruption. Disruption resulting in customers who leverage the technology saying things like, "Dude, it's changed the way I go out in Atlanta." I seriously doubt the existence of University of Phoenix has ever made an employer say anything close to that. (E.g., "it's changed the way we hire employees.") I mean an accreditation service that basically tells an employer: look, do you really want to know if that employee is worth hiring? I doubt this even requires any testing whatsoever-- just require incoming Freshman to get a Chromebook. But the end of their studies there could be a new Google "Fasttrack" app. You could make it almost like a digital scratch ticket-- giving Google the relevant permissions and you can see whether you really graduated with honors. Edit: added example

throwawayjava 9y ago
> If that is indeed the case then the student's "significant misunderstanding" of this material wasn't reflected in the calculation of their final grade, which is the textbook definition of grade inflation. I don't know; it depends. I typically write my rubrics so that there are "style" points. In a really easy proof, style might be up to half the available points. In a very difficult proof perhaps only 1/10 or less. But even that doesn't totally solve the problem. Some mistakes are on the border between style and substance. Grading and assessment aren't a perfect science. > I seriously doubt the existence of University of Phoenix has ever made an employer say anything close to that. Call me old-fashioned, but IMO the actual education is still the hard part of the Education Industry. My comments have all assumed the goal is student understanding. IMO the obsession over grades (by students and by external observers), testing, and accreditation is completely mis-guided. Focus on exceptional student outcomes and the rest is easy.