[engineer_22]

It seems to be a pervasive attitude.

Today a group of my colleagues received their grades on a linear algebra test. The class average was below the failing mark. One of my acquaintances remarked: "The professor is going to have to do something about these grades, they can't fail the whole class!"

Maybe it's the class that should do something about the grades...

[forgetbook]

It is trivially simple for an educator(edit: typo) to write a test that every student fails, curve the grades into a normal distribution, and place blame on students while showing a normal distribution of outcomes to administration.

Do you think that practice produces better learning?

[Gigachad]

This is why external standardised testing matters. Low grades could either mean bad teaching, a test too hard, or lazy students.

Standardised tests mean that if just one class does bad, it’s probably bad teaching, if the whole country does bad, it’s a more widespread issue. If any individual does bad, it’s their own issue.

[forgetbook]

Or, this is why evaluation other than rote testing matters.

In specific situations, professional testing is relevant. The Bar, the USMLE, etc. In many more situations, quality is driven by accomplishing goals and solving problems that are by definition nonstandard.

Every practicing physician and lawyer passed their professional exam, yet, some remain more effective than others. Standardized testing is a high-pass filter. You can enforce a minimum, but cannot evaluate maxima. In this situation, a whole class did bad on an exam they all took, and there is still no way to infer whether it was the students, the instruction, or both. Lots of energy spent, very little effective training and credentialing accomplished.

[hilbert42]

Despite my comments above, some examiners can be bastards. Deliberately setting examinations to fail students is counterproductive and demoralizing (sometimes to the extent that potentially good students leave the course).

In practice, examiners who do this are usually inexperienced and they soon learn to discontinue the practice for all the obvious readons. That's why in this instance I'd be inclined to think the students are at fault as this NYC prof has long and extensive experience (he'd have learned not to so long ago).

[forgetbook]

I don't mean to assume malice where incompetence will suffice. You're correct that its generally inexperienced instructors, and in this case was a very experienced instructor.

Is it possible then, that this very experienced instructor, experienced a difficult time adapting to teaching in a new setting, and failed to adapt their examination?

The solution likely isn't for pandemic students to be told they have experience they don't have, but the structure in place created a situation where an entire class experienced the fallout from their professor's failure. In this case, the professor was fired. In many more, students bear the same punishments (both to their academic records and actual learning), while inexperienced instructors are simply told to do better next time.

Why shouldn't students have the same option to do better next time?

[hilbert42]

Clearly, I'm not fully cognizant of all the details in this case so I can only comment in general terms and obviously they can be wrong if I've not access to sufficient information.

It's quite a while since I was at university and back then there would have been very little chance of a professor being fired that easy or on those grounds.

That said, back then, the system was very fair. Students were treated with respect and often given benefit of the doubt. There were appeals mechanisms in place if students failed and they could do so if they thought they had good reasons to appeal, and so on.

Looking in at much of academia these days I see a volatile, messy quixotic buisness and I'm glad I'm not there. (It's still not fully clear to me how things have gotten so off the rails in recent years.)

In direct answer to your question I'd repeat what I said above with respect to my university experience. The system should be fair and flexible and students should always be given a chance to do better next time.

[forgetbook]

I also don't mean to make this so big as to have you throw up your hands at it--that reaction is how systems fail.

There is still very little chance of tenured professors being fired. This exception occurs notably in the case of a longtime, but untenured instructor.

When you say the system should be fair and flexible, it really is as easy as giving students a chance to do better next time. If every student fails the final, let them retake the class and use the second grade in transcripts. If they're unable to retake, refund their tuition or give them a voucher for when they can schedule.

I'm restating other comments so you don't have to hunt them down because its a point worth making--students have no recourse against their colleges, the companies they aspire to move into, or the federal government barring declaration of bankruptcy on their loans. If we want a highly competent workforce, we need to help students train.

I'm glad your university experience worked out well, and aknowledging survivor bias in that and resisting the urge to say "glad its not me" can equip you to help future generations of students, a role that is filled by people who become your reports in your career and your children in your personal life.

[hilbert42]

"...students have no recourse against their colleges, the companies they aspire to move into, or the federal government barring declaration of bankruptcy on their loans."

I've quoted all that because each part is relevant.

1. Students had no recouse against the uni or colleges in my time either, it's just the system was fair and worked reasonably well. If the uni or colleges clamped down because you'd screwed up big-time then you could do nothing about it.

2. If you had a cadetship with a company etc. then you were essentially in it's hands, you had no recourse against it but there were rules as to how those arrangements were managed.

3. When I first went to university, fees were trivial when compared with today (I recall having to pay a little over $400. Some years later, the government made fees free and one got there solely on one's merit (there was no buying one's way in). Two decades later the government reversed the decision and the fees went up to tens of thousands of dollars overnight and students became indebted. That fucked the system up big-time.

4. My university time wasn't all plain sailing, there were many ups and downs but they were my fault or related to my situation, they were not the fault of the university.

5. The single biggest difference was that back then people didn't have the sense of entitlement that they do have today. One's situation was what one made it, no one owed one a living and one was responsible for oneself. One either put up with life or one changed it. As that was the accepted norm there was far less trouble and volatility associated with education back then as compared to now.

Also, it was not the norm for everyone to go to university, only a small percentage of the population did so.

[fsckboy]

your comment incorporates so much ... fail

>It is trivially simple for an educator to write a test that

while it is not trivial to write any test, it is trivial to have the test cover the material that was taught and not the material that wasn't, and that's how tests are written

> every student fails, curve the grades into a normal distribution,

then the bulk of students didn't fail under the normal meaning of grading on a curve (unless you clarify, do you mean the students had a normal distribution of "learning some material", but even the highest cohort didn't learn enough of the material to constitute getting credit for having taken the class?

> and place blame on students while showing a normal distribution of outcomes to administration.

what blame would there be to place on students if a normal distribution is shown to the administration? unless as above, all the students are failed and blamed for failure?

> Do you think that practice produces better learning?

testing students on material taught produces better learning, yes. Grading on a curve is more fair to students than not grading on a curve, as it simplifies the task for the professor to write the exam by better smooths any unevenness in the relative difficulty of the questions across different material.

[forgetbook]

I'll imply numbering:

1] Tests are written in many different ways. There is no regulatory body controlling pedagogy across institution at the college level. At best you can assume an invisible hand of the market for hiring graduates influencing student enrollment decisions, and you'll be introducing too many confounding variables to continue a productive discussion of individual tests.

2] I mean the bulk of students fail the test before the curve is applied. If even the highest cohort didn't learn enough material to constitute getting credit, I would hope they are not simply curved into a passing grade relative to each other and passed along. I would hope they are able to retake the course, learn the material, and demonstrate that learning.

3] The blame for poor performance necessitating grading on a curve to avoid bulk-of-class failure being placed on students for failing to learn, rather than an educator failing to teach.

4] Testing is not what produces learning. Testing attempts to measure competence. Receiving feedback from testing enables students to use the measurements in their learning, but the data point 'we all failed' hardly seems useful. // Grading on a curve evaluates student performance relative to each other. Grading without a curve evaluates student performance relative to the test. You can argue either is more fair if you want, but simplifying the task of the professor writing the exam is hopefully not the goal of college education. Hopefully the goal is to train students into highly competent graduates, who can perform across uneven difficulty in different material.

(edit: testing attempts to measure learning -> testing attempts to measure competence)

[hilbert42]

"At best you can assume an invisible hand of the market for hiring graduates influencing student enrollment decisions"

Yes it's done that and more. For instance, in many universities humanities courses have taken a hit because they're not as lucrative financially in either students numbers or in other ways. My profession is technical but I'm not in favor of nuking the humanities (especially so core subjects, history, philosophy, languages etc.).

What's really been lost from university education is the once-important notion of learning for its own sake—and of student life—the spirit of Gaudeamus igitur. Those notions were there but dying during my time quite some decades ago, today they've been completely subsumed or swallowed up by financial considerations. That, I think, is a shame.

In an era where financial considerations dominate, the whole issue of grades, passing examinations is crucially important because it's coupled more tightly than ever to one's livelihood than in the past. Hence, it's little wonder we're now seeing these issues looming much larger in students' minds than ever they've done in the past.

(In my time student protested and demonstrated and often did so violently (anti-Vietnam war rallies, 1968 student riots etc.) but from my recollection there was none of the angst about courses/grades that there is here today (except of course for usual level of time immemorial complaints that have always been part of the background noise of universities.)

[forgetbook]

Forgive me for being suspicious of any invisible hand based argument.

I hope you'll be glad to hear that in my time, learning for its own sake is/was still seen as important, in humanities as much as any other area.

Freedom from the domination of financial considerations may be based more on individual conditions than systemic ones. There were certainly students worried about money in the 70's--it sounds like many of them are more accurately described as would-be students who simply didn't have the opportunity to attend at all. I do not fault today's would-be students who do have that opportunity for seeing their performance as tightly coupled to their livelihood.

(edit: to clarify, suspicion of an invisible hand argument means "if we can't articulate the cause, how are we purporting to know the effect?")

[hilbert42]

"Forgive me for being suspicious of any invisible hand based argument."

So am I, it's generally wheeled out in the absence of any other sufficiently-developed argument or alternatively as shorthand for one that's too hard to articulate. You're right, if we can't articulate the cause then we've little hope of moving forward.

I also don't fault today's students who consider their studies tightly coupled to their llivelihood, especially so in fields such as engineering.

Whilst I'm glad to hear that learning for its own sake is still seen as important the demise of humanities subjects at many universities in recent years doesn't overfill me with confidence that it will remain so.

[cafard]

Damn near fifty years ago, I had a multivariate calculus teacher who thought it was amusing to provide tests where the curve peaked about 49%. I was lazy and neglectful of doing the homework problems, so I don't blame him for my own performance. But it didn't seem like a good way to run a class.

I should say that he did not curve on 50% and grade on 90%: I think that a 50% was probably a B- or a C. But it was a while ago.

[hilbert42]

"provide tests where the curve peaked about 49%"

Fucking smart Alec, he'd have deserved it if students had let his tires down.

The only possible saving grace would have been if he'd demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that multivariate calculus would provide the means to get such precision, ipso facto the class results (complete with workings out). Even then, it's a ratshit idea of the worst order.

[forgetbook]

It is/can be entertaining to be a smart Alec. Many people in higher education roles view themselves as researchers, and teaching (not just students, but the work of teaching itself), as beneath them.

[hilbert42]

"...work of teaching itself), as beneath them."

Smart Alec yes—so long as no one's hurt. It's easy to understand how teaching is considered beneath them as it's distraction. It seems to me that a possible (or partial) way of ameliorating the problem would be to teach students from the outset that the principal role of a university is educate and that if they which to do research under the auspices of a university then they must expect disruption as routine.

Whilst I understand that being disrupted is irritating, the fact that they consider teaching beneath them seems shortsighted. I am not a teacher but on ocassions I've had to teach and I quickly discovered that there's nothing to hone one's own knowledge more than to teach. When teaching in front of a class, 'knowledge' that one's thinks one's clear about in one's mind quickly distills into either actual knowledge or embarrassing garbage.

One wonders then why teaching isn't more highly valued with this lot (whenever I've had to teach I've considered it a privilege and it boosted my ego to boot—especially when in debate with intelligent students who ask interesting questions—some of which yours truly couldn't answer).

[pydry]

>Maybe it's the class that should do something about the grades...

Why?