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Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

latimes.com

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Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#831

Post by andrepd »

kleiba2 wrote: post #28

I used to teach high school math. There was a big push for doing everything digitally. And admittedly, for some topics the use of technology in the classroom or at home can really be a benefit, for instance visualizations or interactive exercises. But having a digital device in class was the number one cause of distraction every time. For a lot of things, good old blackboards are just fine as are pen + paper exercise…

Agree with technology being over-used for the sake of it. A visualisation/exploration of some math concept in Desmos can be invaluable, infinitely better than fiddling with diagrams on paper. Solving a calculus exercise on an ipad instead of paper adds exactly zero value. A smart teacher will know to use the first but not the second.

I will just say whiteboard > blackboard. I get allergies just thinking about it x)

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#832

Post by LtWorf »

hunterpayne wrote: post #742
dmbche wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may, people write (with pens) slower than than can speak, and thus to take good notes you need to synthesize the material you are being explained. You need to understand what you're writing. Many people can type as fast/faster than they talk, and when typing it is possible to try and type verbatim what is being said. In this case, there is no understanding. (If you've ever taken a class not all that is said is p…

"Many people can type as fast/faster than they talk" No they can't. An amazing typist is 120 wpm. A slow speaker might be 150 wpm and fast talkers over 300 wpm.

Except you don't talk full speed like a california girl on speed during a lecture?

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#833

Post by hunterpayne »

nradov wrote: post #465
WarmWash wrote: post #159

Why do we have such an easy time accepting peoples intrinsic athletic ability and such a difficult time accepting people's intrinsic mental ability? To me this is a 1:1 comparison, but people lose their mind when I make the comparison. College isn't for everyone just like amateur league sport isn't for everyone. I feel like I am going to a minor league baseball game and seeing a shortstop on the field with the motor…

There's a huge difference in how much intrinsic athletic ability matters depending on the sport. It's a bigger factor in a sport like baseball or tennis where eyesight and coordination are so critical; you can only train those things to a limited extent. But for sports that rely more on strength and endurance than technical skill pretty much anyone has the potential to reach a high level of performance (not Olympic l…

Don't kid yourself. I can tell who is and isn't a good athlete from 50 yards away just by how they walk. Hard work matters, but its more about eliminating those with talent rather than allowing those without talent to compete favorably. Also, its a self reinforcing cycle. You have talent, you win, winning is fun, you work harder to win more, goto step 2.

PS The cutoff from HS to college sports is about as extreme as the jump to the pros...its less than 1% each time.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#834

Post by andrepd »

thot_experiment wrote: post #511
borski wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that just like students, teachers are not all created equal. My 3rd grade teacher wanted to fail me for “discipline” problems. In reality, she simply didn’t like me; I had no discipline complaints in other years. I had undiagnosed ADHD and was gifted. She did not know how to deal with that, and actively disliked me. Activist teachers are also a thing.

Crazy that such a load bearing job isn't better funded and more respected. Arguably the most important job in society and the level of respect, pay and to some extent training (at least a lot of places require a masters for what that's worth) is absolutely not commensurate with it's importance. I dropped out of high school for the same reason, I had a teacher that failed me for writing an essay in three different sty…

I think the problem is people prefer to solve immediate problems affecting themselves (or their close kin) rather than long-term or indirect improvements, and education is the long-term project if there ever was one: magically improve things tomorrow, and you will only start to see the effects in 20 years.

I don't know how it is in your place, but where I'm from governments have — at least for the last 15 years — governed exclusively with a max horizon of 4 years (the time until the next elections). Everything is quick-fixes or patches that kick the can down the road. It's very hard to convince people to care and vote for you if you promise to show results over the next generations, vs if you bump up pensions next year or something.

Basically, to give a different example, that's in essence why you the response to "traffic is abysmal" is "we will widen the urban highways cutting through the city" rather than "we will implement a plan to actually redesign our city away from car-exclusiveness".

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#835

Post by SkiFire13 »

ziofill wrote: post #708

I can’t help comparing this to the system I grew up in (Italy), which is vastly different and it seemingly produces very good graduates. University was free and there was no test for enrolling in STEM degrees, and you could retry exams every semester as much as you wanted to. But goddamit exams were HARD and if you weren’t prepared enough you would keep failing until you gave up. We weren’t entitled because we weren’…

This doesn't reflect my experience.

You still pay for university depending on your income (technically what's called ISEE), although this is usually capped at around ~3k€/year

There are still tests for enrolling in STEM degrees, most notably the TOLC-I test, especially for those degrees with limited numbers.

I have also never seen beer or wine taps in my university.

It is true however that some exams are generally hard and a lot of people fail them. Some are for good reasons, others because the professor is a dickhead. As always there is a lot of variability.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#836

Post by [deleted] »

zfnmxt wrote: post #816
try-working wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studied engineering in Sweden. One of our courses had an 80% failure rate. A world of difference from Harvard where the average grade is A.

This is not a good comparison. All the students at Harvard are all selected from the tail end of the distribution and are very capable. The students at Scandinavian universities are selected to a degree, but represent a far broader range of the distribution and correspondingly there's a broader range of exam results. Of course, other things are at play here (there is grade inflation at Harvard, the schools obviously…

[deleted]

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#837

Post by znpy »

ziofill wrote: post #708

I can’t help comparing this to the system I grew up in (Italy), which is vastly different and it seemingly produces very good graduates. University was free and there was no test for enrolling in STEM degrees, and you could retry exams every semester as much as you wanted to. But goddamit exams were HARD and if you weren’t prepared enough you would keep failing until you gave up. We weren’t entitled because we weren’…

Can confirm (italian here as well).

I took the cpu architecture and operating systems class exam about six or seven times. It was incredibly frustrating and demoralising at the time but looking back it made absolute sense and was completely worth it.

I’ve been living off the learning from that course for the last ten years.

And believe me when i say it’s definitely visible when you’re talking with somebody that took that course (or an equivalent one from a different university) and actually understood the topics.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#838

Post by znpy »

whateverboat wrote: post #815
ziofill wrote: post #708

I can’t help comparing this to the system I grew up in (Italy), which is vastly different and it seemingly produces very good graduates. University was free and there was no test for enrolling in STEM degrees, and you could retry exams every semester as much as you wanted to. But goddamit exams were HARD and if you weren’t prepared enough you would keep failing until you gave up. We weren’t entitled because we weren’…

I think the problems are deeper. The problems are at school level. The variance in the level of schooling in US is huge compared to Italy in my experience. This factor means that school exams are not a good indicator of competitiveness. Furthermore, the social systems in Italy mean that the failure is not that problematic especially for kids from poor backgrounds. And therefore, risk of depression etc was much lower.…

> The problems are at school level.

Imho the problems are even deeper: they’re at culture level.

But that’s where things get controversial, so i’ll hint at the problems and stop here.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#839

Post by zhivota »

My son is in 4th grade (nominally anyway, we homeschool so it doesn't really matter). He takes the MAP test periodically, which scores on a single scale for all grades. You can look up the percentile score for your student's grade, as well as where that score sits on the percentiles for all other grades.

He's ahead in some areas, having some skills from as far as 7th grade, but mostly he's more in the 5th grade band by now. His MAP test score is 50th percentile for 12th grade. This means, basically, he knows more math than 50% of 12th graders who take the MAP test.

This really blew my mind at first, but these kinds of single-scale tests are really valuable for this purpose. We should be reaching for a solid absolute standard, not grading everything on a curve and passing people who haven't demonstrated real mastery.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#840

Post by wizzwizz4 »

Auracle wrote: post #720
conartist6 wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not completely convinced that "ADHD" isn't just the natural state of kids who are bored most of the time.

I'm not sure if you have seen a kid with genuine bad ADHD then. Absolutely nothing will hold their attention.

Approximately nothing externally imposed will hold their attention, but ADHD hyperfocus is absolutely a thing: it's just hard to identify from the outside.
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