There is a great book on this topic by Jeff Schmidt called Disciplined Minds: http://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-Professiona...
Here's a review: http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html
Why Your Professors Suck
11–20 of 59 posts
Re: Why Your Professors Suck
#12In my experience, cynical bad students are usually douche bags that think they are too good for the world and that university is just a bunch of crap. A small ammount of them is really intelligent. The most part of it are people who think too highly of themselves.
Really, I couldn't disagree more that doing assignments, reading books and studying end up "closing" one's mind. From my point of view, there's no such thing as "useless knowledge". Granted that you don't learn everything you need to be successful in college, but IMO college is not there to make you successful and give you heaps and piles of money. That is not the point.
One thing got me thinking: If you really don't respect the university "system" that munch, why devoting your life to it?
Re: Why Your Professors Suck
#13The truly good student is the one who signs up for the class with the goal of mastering the material being taught as well as possible. The 'good' student in this example cares more about gaming the signaling mechanism than actually learning the material - this is why he'll spend his time arguing with the TA over a handful of points on his problem set than spending that time going over the material again. The 'cynical…
The 'good' student belives that the signaling mechanism and the understanding of the material is the same thing, they're identical. For those students nothing exists beyond (the signals of) good marks. So in a way they don't really game.
Re: Why Your Professors Suck
#14As a physics postdoc who is thinking of switching careers, I definitely sympathise with this article. And I agree with almost everything about it, except this line: Success as a faculty member requires one thing above all else: a good reputation in your field. And all I really disagree with is the wording - a good reputation does not mean a reputation for excellence. A good reputation means agreeable, means suitably…
As a practicing (bio)chemist, I am usually somewhat cynical about philosophy professors, but what this guy says is spot on. Perhaps this is a self-serving agreement, since I was definitely one of these "good bad students".
In my experience, yes, including your minor clarification on the word 'good', the full description applies equally to chemistry as philosophy (presumably). But then that makes one wonder: Why are we entrusting this system with taxpayer resources to produce science?
Secondly, "But the university doesn't need to exert any pressure, because it's already filtered out the people who would need to be pressured..." What does this mean for controversial topics, like climate science, where political decisions are made based on 'consensus'?
"But the climate science community doesn't need to exert any pressure to conform to the accepted model, because it's already filtered out the people who would need to be pressured to accept it"?
Equally valid, to replace "climate science" with "cancer research", eg.
Re: Why Your Professors Suck
#15According to his description, his "good" students are sycophants, and no one likes those.
Re: Why Your Professors Suck
#16The structural problem he mentioned at the end is this: students are not customers. Had they been customers, who could instantly stop paying this professor because they think he's boring and doesn't deliver, you'd see a completely different picture. It wouldn't be about grades and diplomas anymore. It would be about acquiring knowledge and skills that students can later apply. If they decide this professor cannot teach them, for whatever reason, they would stop paying. If they decide it takes too long - they would stop paying and find a better path or drop it.
What you currently have is a system in which professors feel superior for some reason. And they are not punished financially if some students fail. So the best way to incentivize this system in which professors actually serve their students is to apply market mechanisms to teaching.
Re: Why Your Professors Suck
#17The truly good student is the one who signs up for the class with the goal of mastering the material being taught as well as possible. The 'good' student in this example cares more about gaming the signaling mechanism than actually learning the material - this is why he'll spend his time arguing with the TA over a handful of points on his problem set than spending that time going over the material again. The 'cynical…
The 'good' student belives that the signaling mechanism and the understanding of the material is the same thing, they're identical. For those students nothing exists beyond (the signals of) good marks. So in a way they don't really game.
I find it difficult to imagine that anyone would actually believe the two are equivalent, but maybe I've just been hanging around HN-types too much.
Re: Why Your Professors Suck
#18The structural problem he mentioned at the end is this: students are not customers. Had they been customers, who could instantly stop paying this professor because they think he's boring and doesn't deliver, you'd see a completely different picture. It wouldn't be about grades and diplomas anymore. It would be about acquiring knowledge and skills that students can later apply. If they decide this professor cannot tea…
Previous experience with applying market mechanisms to teaching is that it results in grade inflation. Everyone pays for the biggest, best credential money can buy, and quality drops for everyone.
We need a more thought-out solution than "the magic of markets".
Re: Why Your Professors Suck
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 'good' student belives that the signaling mechanism and the understanding of the material is the same thing, they're identical. For those students nothing exists beyond (the signals of) good marks. So in a way they don't really game.
I find it difficult to imagine that anyone would actually believe the two are equivalent, but maybe I've just been hanging around HN-types too much.
I'm engaged to a "good student". She was damn well and fully aware, her entire life, that the signalling mechanism is very different from actually learning useful material.
As a two grad-student couple, we have mutual academic envy. I envy that she finds it easy to memorize large sums of material and pander to the system. She envies that I find it easy to acquire an intuition for the material I really care about. I envy that she's "saving the world" as an ecologist. She envies that I can make a good living out of my field.
Welp.
Re: Why Your Professors Suck
#20The structural problem he mentioned at the end is this: students are not customers. Had they been customers, who could instantly stop paying this professor because they think he's boring and doesn't deliver, you'd see a completely different picture. It wouldn't be about grades and diplomas anymore. It would be about acquiring knowledge and skills that students can later apply. If they decide this professor cannot tea…
Previous experience with applying market mechanisms to teaching is that it results in grade inflation. Everyone pays for the biggest, best credential money can buy, and quality drops for everyone. We need a more thought-out solution than "the magic of markets".
So if it results in grade inflation, why not abolish grades? When graduates are hired, why don't you look at their actual skills and knowledge? Teacher's job should be to teach and give feedback, so that students can correct themselves. It is employer's job to assess them.