7 ms·

The methodology is flawed. If a lecturer really is terrible, then more people will fail that course and not go on to do the advanced course, artificially raisin

The methodology is flawed. If a lecturer really is terrible, then more people will fail that course and not go on to do the advanced course, artificially raising the average for the advanced course because only the best students are able to pass the prerequisite DESPITE the terrible lecturer.

strathmeyer 12y ago
Yeah, or even... good students are better at identifying bad professors. Some of my professors were leaders in their field but couldn't teach a class worth anything. I can see why the smart students would get good grades in those classes. Why wouldn't the rest of us be able to tell that they were a bad professor??
cantankerous 12y ago
True in theory, but not true in practice. Terrible lecturers find ways to rationalize the poor grades of their students (i.e. externalize the blame) and curve grades to get kids to pass the class. Especially bad lecturers will give the bulk of students high grades to preclude complaints. For their part, poor students could care less about what they learn, instead focusing on passing or getting a good letter grade. In poor programs, subsequent more advanced courses in a sequence are subjected to downward pressure when it comes to teaching more rigorous or advanced topics because the students suck so badly (because of the lack of rigor in early courses). A cluster of poor students can be surprisingly good at stymieing course progress. Many professors have to perform research and would rather placate the students with good grades instead of wasting their research time, which is vital to maintaining their careers (Teaching is secondary at research universities no matter what administration tells you) . The can gets kicked down the road, and mediocrity matriculates.
- Lafcadio 12y ago
  Couldn't care less* <3
  - nights192 12y ago
    I believe the term 'could care less' is largely facetious- "I could care less... but it would be extremely difficult," tends to be the implication; don't understand why you found it necessary to correct him. edit: Added clarification.
    - Lafcadio 12y ago
      Eh, I think it's just a common mistake, and I corrected them because it's a pet peeve of mine, not because I think it is a big deal. Your line of thinking is not new to me though, and if "could care less" is sarcastic then I would argue it is particularly ineffective sarcasm (see: http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html).
      - ColinWright 12y ago
        It's no longer a common mistake, it's now become an idiom in some dialectic variations. As such it cannot be broken down into its constituent parts and analyzed for meaning, it has to be understood as an atomic utterance. It's a little like "The proof is in the pudding." The original was "The proof (test) of the pudding is in the eating," but it got shortened, possibly by mistake, possibly by laziness. And so it is with "I could(n't) care less." It's like sandpaper on my brain, but that's how linguistics works. The more you study language, the more you realize it can't possibly work.
        balabaster 12y ago
        The more you study language, the more you realize that none of it makes sense. It's a wonder how any of us English speakers understand what each other are talking about. I think the trick is to only look deep enough to gauge the sentiment of the presenter and no further. If you look too deeply, the whole thing falls to pieces.
        mnarayan01 12y ago
        Generally I agree with this approach, but this case seems similar (though obviously not in the safety aspects) to "flammable" versus "inflammable". Obviously you can't really stop actual usage, but I know this used to always confuse me when I was younger, so I'm disinclined to criticize people who yell "Stop!".
dagw 12y ago
If the lecturer is solely responsible for the final grade then there isn't necessarily any correlation between how bad the lecturer is and if you pass or fail. One of the worst lecturers I had at university (thought the course he was teaching was way beneath him and basically didn't give a fuck) also gave such extremely easy tests that basically everybody passed almost despite themselves.
amyjess 12y ago
I've had terrible professors who were ridiculously easy, though. Like one guy I didn't learn a thing from, because he constantly mumbled and wrote in really tiny print on the whiteboard... yet the class before each test, he'd discuss every single test question in detail and tell us the answers. A friend of mine had him for something else, and at one point after delivering a graded test, he said "if you didn't like your grade, give your test back to me and I'll give you more points". My friend, who got a 95, decided to give it back out of sheer curiosity and got back a 98. Edit: Hey, I have another story about this dude: another friend of mine had him for a class. This friend is legally blind, so he once asked for more time to take the test since it takes him longer to read everything. A perfectly reasonable request: it's even listed on the form of accomodations offered by the university's Disability Services. Well, when the professor filled out the form, he granted my friend literally every single disability accomodation the university offered. He ended up with dozens of accomodations he didn't even ask for
- kelukelugames 12y ago
  This is called bribing the students. Many terrible professors do it and it works extremely well.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- kazinator 12y ago
  That's awful. The right way to do it is "if you don't agree with your grade, give me your paper and I will look at it more carefully. Of course I'm not just going to look at the question you're contending, but all of them. Your grade may go up, but it also may go down. Do you wish to wager?" A very good high school math teacher of mine did this. I think he did not get very many takers; the students were never confident that they would not lose more undeserved marks in the other question to more than offset any gain.
  - s_baby 12y ago
    What's so great about this strategy? When a teacher does this to me I assume he/she is more interested in doing his research instead of leading a class.

strathmeyer 12y ago

Yeah, or even... good students are better at identifying bad professors. Some of my professors were leaders in their field but couldn't teach a class worth anything. I can see why the smart students would get good grades in those classes. Why wouldn't the rest of us be able to tell that they were a bad professor??

cantankerous 12y ago

True in theory, but not true in practice. Terrible lecturers find ways to rationalize the poor grades of their students (i.e. externalize the blame) and curve grades to get kids to pass the class. Especially bad lecturers will give the bulk of students high grades to preclude complaints. For their part, poor students could care less about what they learn, instead focusing on passing or getting a good letter grade. In poor programs, subsequent more advanced courses in a sequence are subjected to downward pressure when it comes to teaching more rigorous or advanced topics because the students suck so badly (because of the lack of rigor in early courses). A cluster of poor students can be surprisingly good at stymieing course progress. Many professors have to perform research and would rather placate the students with good grades instead of wasting their research time, which is vital to maintaining their careers (Teaching is secondary at research universities no matter what administration tells you) . The can gets kicked down the road, and mediocrity matriculates.

Lafcadio 12y ago
Couldn't care less* <3
- nights192 12y ago
  I believe the term 'could care less' is largely facetious- "I could care less... but it would be extremely difficult," tends to be the implication; don't understand why you found it necessary to correct him. edit: Added clarification.
  - Lafcadio 12y ago
    Eh, I think it's just a common mistake, and I corrected them because it's a pet peeve of mine, not because I think it is a big deal. Your line of thinking is not new to me though, and if "could care less" is sarcastic then I would argue it is particularly ineffective sarcasm (see: http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html).
    - ColinWright 12y ago
      It's no longer a common mistake, it's now become an idiom in some dialectic variations. As such it cannot be broken down into its constituent parts and analyzed for meaning, it has to be understood as an atomic utterance. It's a little like "The proof is in the pudding." The original was "The proof (test) of the pudding is in the eating," but it got shortened, possibly by mistake, possibly by laziness. And so it is with "I could(n't) care less." It's like sandpaper on my brain, but that's how linguistics works. The more you study language, the more you realize it can't possibly work.
      - balabaster 12y ago
        The more you study language, the more you realize that none of it makes sense. It's a wonder how any of us English speakers understand what each other are talking about. I think the trick is to only look deep enough to gauge the sentiment of the presenter and no further. If you look too deeply, the whole thing falls to pieces.
      - mnarayan01 12y ago
        Generally I agree with this approach, but this case seems similar (though obviously not in the safety aspects) to "flammable" versus "inflammable". Obviously you can't really stop actual usage, but I know this used to always confuse me when I was younger, so I'm disinclined to criticize people who yell "Stop!".

dagw 12y ago

If the lecturer is solely responsible for the final grade then there isn't necessarily any correlation between how bad the lecturer is and if you pass or fail. One of the worst lecturers I had at university (thought the course he was teaching was way beneath him and basically didn't give a fuck) also gave such extremely easy tests that basically everybody passed almost despite themselves.

amyjess 12y ago

I've had terrible professors who were ridiculously easy, though. Like one guy I didn't learn a thing from, because he constantly mumbled and wrote in really tiny print on the whiteboard... yet the class before each test, he'd discuss every single test question in detail and tell us the answers. A friend of mine had him for something else, and at one point after delivering a graded test, he said "if you didn't like your grade, give your test back to me and I'll give you more points". My friend, who got a 95, decided to give it back out of sheer curiosity and got back a 98. Edit: Hey, I have another story about this dude: another friend of mine had him for a class. This friend is legally blind, so he once asked for more time to take the test since it takes him longer to read everything. A perfectly reasonable request: it's even listed on the form of accomodations offered by the university's Disability Services. Well, when the professor filled out the form, he granted my friend literally every single disability accomodation the university offered. He ended up with dozens of accomodations he didn't even ask for

kelukelugames 12y ago
This is called bribing the students. Many terrible professors do it and it works extremely well.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
kazinator 12y ago
That's awful. The right way to do it is "if you don't agree with your grade, give me your paper and I will look at it more carefully. Of course I'm not just going to look at the question you're contending, but all of them. Your grade may go up, but it also may go down. Do you wish to wager?" A very good high school math teacher of mine did this. I think he did not get very many takers; the students were never confident that they would not lose more undeserved marks in the other question to more than offset any gain.
- s_baby 12y ago
  What's so great about this strategy? When a teacher does this to me I assume he/she is more interested in doing his research instead of leading a class.