What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[dsheinem]

And she's specified that she's another one of those "a C is for work that meets the requirements, an A is for blowing me away" graders. Ugh.

Sounds like a good teacher! You should welcome the opportunity to meet a new challenge and thank your lucky stars you have an educator who asks you to push to improve yourself! Anyone who lets students coast by with mediocre work and inflates their grades to quell conflict or inflate their reputation is not really a teacher you want, even if you think you do.

[MrPopo]

And she's specified that she's another one of those "a C is for work that meets the requirements, an A is for blowing me away" graders. Ugh.

Sounds like a good teacher! You should welcome the opportunity to meet a new challenge and thank your lucky stars you have an educator who asks you to push to improve yourself! Anyone who lets students coast by with mediocre work and inflates their grades to quell conflict or inflate their reputation is not really a teacher you want, even if you think you do.

Since when are you such a ball buster Dave? I thought you were one of the cool teachers.

[Luke]

thank your lucky stars

Good to know that it's not just myself and my Grandmother that still use that phrase.


Speaking of educators, only two out of eleven kids in my wife's Summer school passed. Not having kids, and since I've never gone to Summer school, I never really thought about it.

I'm sure it changes from state to state, and although my wife loves to work with kids, it doesn't seem like Summer school works. She said something close to "80% are going to fail" the first day.

My wife is frequently "Teacher of the Year", and is a spokeswoman for progressive education. She also has pressure on her with the "no child left behind" initiative (which is and isn't in place...google it). To put it bluntly, she doesn't give a hoot about pass/fail percentages. "If the state wants me to pass these students, I'd have to take the test for them".

Not sure how to phrase this, but it seems like standardized tests are flawed by design. Plus we also have test sheets that ask about your ethnicity and sex. Why? It doesn't change the score.

This is an exaggeration, but is pretty close to how terrible and misleading answers on state tests for THIRD GRADERS:

Q) 4 x 4 =


1) 12
2) 16
3) Could be over 16 due to variables
4) Could be under 16 due to variables
5) None of the above
6) Answers 2, 3, and 4 are acceptable

The state tests are terrible.

Not saying tests should be easy and that kids should phone it in, but children who use English as a second language should not be penalized by tests that are "designed" for the "average student".

Not giving the students a break either, as it balls my fist every time someone uses the excuse "I'm really smart, but I'm not a good test taker". The main issue is the phrasing of the questions as these tests don't "click" with students who are learning a foreign language.



Yo Dish! Please chime in with your thoughts on standardized testing. And as a Professor, do you have a board that reviews your exams? Do you need a format other than your syllabus? Are there any Wookies on Endors?

[BoringSupreez]

And she's specified that she's another one of those "a C is for work that meets the requirements, an A is for blowing me away" graders. Ugh.

Sounds like a good teacher! You should welcome the opportunity to meet a new challenge and thank your lucky stars you have an educator who asks you to push to improve yourself! Anyone who lets students coast by with mediocre work and inflates their grades to quell conflict or inflate their reputation is not really a teacher you want, even if you think you do.

Since when are you such a ball buster Dave? I thought you were one of the cool teachers.

You what though? To be honest, two of the classes I hated the most were the ones I learned the most from. It just sucks while I'm doing them.

[nullPointer]

And she's specified that she's another one of those "a C is for work that meets the requirements, an A is for blowing me away" graders. Ugh.

Sounds like a good teacher! You should welcome the opportunity to meet a new challenge and thank your lucky stars you have an educator who asks you to push to improve yourself! Anyone who lets students coast by with mediocre work and inflates their grades to quell conflict or inflate their reputation is not really a teacher you want, even if you think you do.

Actually I'd be curious to hear a professor's view on group assignments? Surely it's no secrecy among faculty that these are widely despised among students, and further that these assignments usually boil down to one person (maybe two) actually doing the work while everyone else simply rides along on their coattails? This last bit of course is anecdotal, but the story does seem to be replicated for pretty much anyone I've ever talked to about it. There is of course the angle that, "this prepares one for how real-life projects work," but ... no. I work in team based software development, and while it's true that under ideal circumstances each member of the team works on tasks that contribute to a cohesive result, those tasks are always assigned on an individual basis through a project manager. So I dunno, group projects in school always seemed to be unfairly monitored from that perspective. In hindsight it might have been very beneficial if we had been given proper project management tools and techniques to work with, but that would also assume a proper top down project management structure.

At any rate I'm deep in rambling territory here. TL:DR: What does a distinguished educator such as your self think of class assigned group work?

[dsheinem]

What does a distinguished educator such as your self think of class assigned group work?

I teach both classes in which I use group work as a substantial part of the coursework and also classes where I use no group work at all (or only for a small portion of the grade) - it is very much course dependent. I teach in Communication Studies, and the vast majority of the students in my classes have taken coursework specifically addressing group dynamics and best practices, so I find that the problems are usually minimal if there are any. That's not to say that there aren't still instances of one or two people in a group doing a majority of the work, but on the whole those cases seem less common in my department than they might be in others.

[Thierry Henry]

I'm not a huge fan of resellers. Some of them tend to get under my skin.

There's one in particular on one of our local gaming forums, that tries to pass himself off as a "retro gamer" and posts his stuff in the various collection threads ("what did you add to your collection", etc).
Those gaming items are then rather unsubtly usually mentioned in other parts of the forum as well, and are also, without fail, listed that very same day (at rather inflated prices) on one of our auction sites.

So basically advertising his wares whilst masquerading as one of the guys.

[nullPointer]

I teach both classes in which I use group work as a substantial part of the coursework and also classes where I use no group work at all (or only for a small portion of the grade) - it is very much course dependent. I teach in Communication Studies, and the vast majority of the students in my classes have taken coursework specifically addressing group dynamics and best practices, so I find that the problems are usually minimal if there are any. That's not to say that there aren't still instances of one or two people in a group doing a majority of the work, but on the whole those cases seem less common in my department than they might be in others.

Thanks Dave! It's always interesting to "see behind the curtain" so to speak.

[Jagosaurus]

Smile:
Alright! My Southern Live Oak Trees are thriving through this hot Texas summer. I have two young oaks planted last year & they almost didn't make it due to being transported & planted during the summer. Happy to see them doing well 13 months later. Many hours of watering & trimming to get them here!

My front yard oak is now roughly 7 foot tall. The back oak is roughly 8.5 feet. They looked like Charlie Brown trees with brown leaves last year

Front:


Notice the tree line, my back yard backs up to a protected nature reserve cool view IMO. Thinking of plating a Magnolia Tree out back as well. Keep the Southern theme going.
Back:


The oldest known Live Oak is 1500 years old. Crazy they can grow to this!!!

[Ack]

I remember going into a class in college and being told that no matter what are grades were, the professor intended to fail half the class. There were 9 of us, so he said he would pass 5 and fail 4 based on the order of our grades regardless of how well we did.