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> According to The New York Times, 82 of Jones' 350 students signed the petition last spring; it alleged that too many of them were failing and that this was un
by tromp 4y ago
> According to The New York Times, 82 of Jones' 350 students signed the petition last spring; it alleged that too many of them were failing and that this was unacceptable. The students cited emotional and mental health complaints to make the case that Jones ought to make the class less difficult.
> "We urge you to realize that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students' learning and well-being a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole," the petition read.
> The Times article suggests that throughout the pandemic, Jones made a number of accommodations for struggling students. He reduced the difficulty of his exams, but students were still failing them.
> "Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate," said Jones.
> The article does note that the petition never called for Jones to be fired. But the university evidently decided that the best way to resolve the situation was to turn him loose.
> His departure is certainly a loss for NYU's academic caliber. After all, Jones is a lion in the field of organic chemistry, publishing 225 papers in his 40-year career. He literally wrote the textbook, "Organic Chemistry," which weighs in at 1,300 pages.
It's sad that professors are strongly incentivized to lower difficulty and grade generously until a large majority of students pass, without having mastered the material the professor is supposed to be teaching them. No professor ever got fired for making things too easy or for imparting too little knowledge.
- deliriumchn 4y agoThis is very sad to read to be honest. My prof. was an old school guy who was author for few very in-depth books about organic chemistry. He was very, very demanding and his class was very hard, our median scores were around 20-30% lower than in any other class, but in the end, I can def. say that after two years studying with that dude, it was my strongest subject, I could literally spit pages of text about anything in his exams in the end. It was very hard, but it was very worth it and very fun to actually understand whats going on inside large chemical reactors. Ofc, there are some teachers/professors that are making things too hard with no purpose (like robot-reading walls of text in a super speed mode and then demanding you to remember them on exam word by word), but some of them just have high standards and its a good thing
- Freak_NL 4y ago> […] I could literally spit pages of text […] Impressive, but probably figuratively or in a manner of speaking.
- tpush 4y agoLiterally can also mean figuratively, that debate's been over for a minute.
- thrill 4y agoLiterally declaring a winner and telling everyone to go home figuratively doesn't mean everyone quits playing.
- mcphage 4y agoMy daily bread is literally implored I have no barns nor granaries to hoard; John Dryden, The Hind and The Panther (1687) Every day with me is literally another yesterday for it is exactly the same. Alexander Pope, Letter to H. Cromwell (March 1708) His looks were very haggard, and his limbs and body literally worn to the bone Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1839) If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843) He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies. Frances Brooke, The History of Emily Montague (1769) I look upon it, Madam, to be one of the luckiest circumstances of my life, that I have this moment the honour of receiving your commands, and the satisfaction of confirming with my tongue, what my eyes perhaps have but too weakly expressed — that I am literally the humblest of your servants. George Colman and David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage (1766)
- resizeitplz 4y agoI'd very much believe that person could literally write pages on the topic.
- WithinReason 4y agoI feel like and old man saying this but I remember the pass rate for the C++ exam at my uni (in Eastern Europe) was 42%. There was no petition, we learned to code.
- ryandrake 4y agoFor me, first year Physics was the weed-out. I vaguely remember the professor's speech on the first day: "I know you all want to be engineers, but in order to do that, you need to pass PHYS101 and this is a difficult class. There are over 1,000 people in this auditorium. By the end of the semester, it will be closer to half of that. There will be no retakes. There will be no curve. There will be no appealing of grades after the fact. If you are struggling with the subject matter, my office is open, but not after your grade is issued. [And so on and so forth]" I think a few people just walked out after the speech in fear rather than even try. It looks like none of that would even remotely fly today.
- Balgair 4y agoI had professors that would very literally cackle in glee at how hard their classes were. The best/worst was the 'Choose your Grade' exam. The professor has written up four exams for the final. One was a D grade, one a C, one a B, and the last was an A. Each exam being progressively harder. You got to choose your grade by choosing your exam. If you passed, you got that grade, if not, you got an F. All were open book, no time limit, but you had to stick with your choice. I remember talking with the TA grad students about grading the exams and even they were stumped by the difficulty of the A exams. Looking back, it was marvelous. I was so proud of passing that B level exam.
- rcxdude 4y agough, that seems like basically the opposite of a good exam. More like setting up a psychological experiment than a useful way of gauging the ability of your students.
- 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]