Mismatched Academic Expectations
BMJ
Students are afraid? Not when it comes to making their demands.
zzbu...@netscape.net
> http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/18/fearfactor
>
> Students are afraid? Not when it comes to making their demands.
Well, they're beginning to understand that the people who
understand writing invented Digital Books, Holograms, and On-Line
Publishing,
rather than Satellites. The people who understand AI invented GPS
and HDTV,
rather than GM. The people who understand computers invented
Laser Disks, Fiber Optics, Self-Replicating Machines, and USB,
rather than electronics. And the people who understand electronics
invented Blue Ray, Home Broadband, Atomic Clock Wristwaches,
Microwave Cooling,
and Rapid Prototyping, rather than Community College.
.
BMJ
>>
>> Students are afraid? Not when it comes to making their demands.
>
And that they're not such geniuses as they were led to believe in high
school. After all, they were probably told that there are no wrong
answers. So, if 1 + 1 = 3, it's because arithmetic is "evolving". Don't
laugh--that argument was used to justify poor spelling and sloppy grammar
while I was teaching. The kiddies were on the cutting edge of an evolving
language.
Does anybody actually believe this nonsense?
BMJ
> abbreviations via text messaging and online. Ivory tower English
> professors are probably dismayed at such mutilation of the language.
Unfortunately, some of those abbreviations and the associated terminology
are being adopted as official canon by such renowned sources as the Oxford
English Dictionary.
phil scott
> Perhaps they think human beings will evolve very quickly into
> telepaths, where oral communication is superfluous since telepaths can
> read minds directly. No need for oral communication anymore.
we are in deeep trouble...
My schooling was 40 years ago. most teachers had a pretty good clue..
judging
by whats coming out these days, and what I read in text books... the
teachers are
pretty short in that department... many reasons perhaps.. some
justifiable.
No time in ones life to know it all, and apprentice with the tools at
basic levels in order
to gain a functional understanding..so its theoretical understanding,
lacking practical application,
and not integrated one discipline to the next.
so we are having now... dis-integrated... systems... the interfaces
just barely considered, so that
even with functional sub systems, the agregate system has issues...
can a teacher learn all this broad spectrum enough to be a valuable
teacher? its a very tall order.
add in political correctness demands, and school kiddies arriving
clueless from high school with virtually
no work experience (no hands on apprentice requirements such as in
Germany)... we have the current
mess.
Phil scott
BMJ
> Perhaps they think human beings will evolve very quickly into
> telepaths, where oral communication is superfluous since telepaths can
> read minds directly. No need for oral communication anymore.
Considering some of the stuff my students submitted to me, I have my doubts
if they were communicating at all.
BMJ
You've identified much of the problem. I spent a lot of my time as an
instructor in classroom management.
I had groups where hardly anyone bothered paying attention, largely because
I suspect that they knew they were going to graduate anyway. (In one
group, about a third failed, mostly because they didn't do any work. Many
of them managed to get on the graduation list.)
In another course, one of my students decided to call someone on his
cellphone while I was busy lecturing at the chalkboard.
In one section of a CAD course I taught, one kid decided to surf porn sites
while I was demonstrating some of the software's features.
I spent around 20% of my course time teaching material that the students
should have learned in preceding courses. I suspect that the colleagues
in those courses didn't bother covering all the material in their courses
in the name of teaching what they did "well", pushing what was missing onto me.
During all of this, I had to contend with all sorts of academic politics,
much of which was concerned with keeping the kiddies happy and maintain the
institution's image.
>
>
> Phil scott
BMJ
> On Nov 21, 9:37 pm, BMJ <owlstretchingt...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I spent around 20% of my course time teaching material that the students
>> should have learned in preceding courses. I suspect that the colleagues
>> in those courses didn't bother covering all the material in their courses
>> in the name of teaching what they did "well", pushing what was missing onto me.
>
> homework as optional. Allegedly it's like the inmates running the
> asylum nowadays.
>
I was told that I didn't have to teach the entire course outline, so long
as the students learned it "well". That would make perfect sense if the
institution's policy was that nobody failed. The implication of that is
that one could enter a succeeding course completely unprepared, making that
course an extension. Worse yet is that one could graduate with a only
partial education.
Antonio Huerta
This all does not reflect badly on the kiddies -- this reflects badly
on you, for you made a bad choice of the colledge to work at.
BMJ
Crap. It reflected badly on the institution for letting in those organisms
as well as allowing them to do whatever they wanted.
I knew of one department head who expelled a pair of students only to be
told by the dean's office to let them stay. He had one real jerk who ran
rampant and was well-known for bullying staff and some of his fellow
students. The place gave him his diploma to not just shut him up but to
get him out as soon as possible.
I knew of another who was a complete milquetoast because he didn't want any
hassles, resulting in a department that eventually was in a state of
anarchy as his successors did nothing.
Eventually I adopted a mercenary attitude. I was simply there for a paycheque.
BMJ
> On Nov 22, 2:02 am, BMJ <owlstretchingt...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Eventually I adopted a mercenary attitude. I was simply there for a paycheque.
>
> high school or elementary school level, all mentioned that's been
> their attitude for quite awhile. They're just waiting for the day
> when they're allowed to get their full teachers pension. Whatever
> idealism they had about changing the world through kids, has been gone
> a long time ago.
Mine started dying within an hour or so of starting. During the
introductory in-service session, the new instructors were told that they
had to ensure that the students didn't have a "negative learning
experience". Things became more absurd after that.
Unfortunately, this rubbish has infested universities for the past few
years. TAs and, I understand, new profs have to go through something like
that as well. No wonder attending university becomes more costly each
year. All of this extra nonsense costs money and, thereby, increases
student tuition.
All of this fretting and fussing about teaching quality makes me wonder how
I managed to get my B. Sc. over 30 years ago when none of this was around.
phil scott
On this issue of 'covering the material'... here is my personal
experience. I am certifiably capable
at my wide range of skill sets, way more capable broad spectrum than
most, even in specialty areas..
thats my history.
yet... I take these sorts of classes and they go over my head mostly,
way too fast
to assimilate and no 'burning in the circuit' (repeated drilling)...
so i sit next to kiddies that 'get it instanttly'
but then later on the job, cant function in the area.
Most recently, it turned out that the instructor was a salesman, no
clue on electronics or controls and was just parrotting
what he understood of the poorly written training materials...he could
not program the device himself beyond its rudimenary
standard inputs... yet 'everyone else' got it.... turned out no one
else got it nation wide, we were the first advanced application...
they couldnt debug it... the factory hardware had irreconcileable bugs
and defects... took us 4 weeks to develop work arounds.
(50 zone HVAC electronic controls a modest job by those standards)
their approach to 'handling me' by the way was to smear me to my
client... only after their crap failed so obviously and the client
called in another guru did it become fully apparent to them that the
mfgr and his reps were lying.
btw ive recently gone though this with a major firms (from germany)
killer solids modeling software... with pipe routing for 1009 dollars
extra and a 'complete pipe libarry' for 500 dollars more.. a pipe
library that does not include thousands of the most common fittings
such as unions... and copper to steel adapters, and VALVES...no valves
at all...their solution..smear me extensively, lie, tell me that no
other customer that does piping has a problem.... calls to the their
corporate attorney failed until I threatened to picket their HQ for a
week.. now we are in settlement. amazing... also guess what? no
way to draw a hexagon! unless you do it the hard way with cords and
degrees and a circle..... fixed only in this latest version 22... go
figure...and this from a major player in large scale industrial cad
software. (their lesser retail version, 9,000 dollars)
getting back to my point.
.. the burn in aspects are entirely missing... also as I mentioned,
the
interface aspects... for instance with CAD if a person can draw the
lines, but has no clue about issues of tolerances
and how those change with wear, heating and cooling, vachining
variables, usage of the end product etc... the
design falls short or as we see in many cases is entirely non
functional...prime example clear to the top... the O ring
problem on the Challenger that exploded.
and its getting worse at warp speed... how we continue to function is
beyond me, or perhaps our balnce of trade is a demonstration of our
dysfunction.... I think its the remaining old farts, and a few very
bright kiddies that are keeping the mess afloat... the old farts will
be gone shortly however...wiht a dire shortage of apprentised kids to
take over.
Phil scott
>
> During all of this, I had to contend with all sorts of academic politics,
> much of which was concerned with keeping the kiddies happy and maintain the
> institution's image.
>
>
>
>
>
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phil scott
you got your B Sc by being in a 1% minority of dilligent, very bright
kidsif it was in physics or engineering... and a 2% minority or so if
was in the life sciences...and unless you were in the genius IQ range,
it wasnt easy,
as an aside what I hear from recrutiers 'why should we pay you 50
dollars an hour when we can get a fresh graduate for 25'... industry
has STILL not caught on..they hire cheap labor as they go broke due to
incompetnence in the US, then they offshore to china... idiocy and
corrruption govt and in management is at the core this scene...
incompetence and ruin of entire companys is rewarded.
there is a solution...free lance, and stay at the high end... though
that can have its issues as well..the high end goes obsolete fast, so
some trades back up works to keep me going...
due to the economy, the lowest end of my trades services is 50 dollars
an hour, was 75 to 126/hr last year..... and I get paid for travel and
a mark up on parts.... engineering , HVAC, and even advanced HVAC
controls (with no offers btw) in the 25 to 30 dollar an hour range...
in SF calif thats below the poverty line.
Phil scott
.
BMJ
<snip>
Unfortunately, one of the prevailing educational philosophies is that a
good teacher can teach anything to anybody. I've had enough experience
both as a student and an instructor to know that it's not the case.
I've had colleagues who had, supposedly, a good classroom technique but
whose knowledge on the subjects they were teaching could be written on the
back of a postage stamp.
One of my best profs drove us hard through his courses, expected a lot from
us, and set killer exams. I learned a lot from him and I remember much of
it today, over 15 years later. OK, so he was a bit abrasive at times, but
I placed a greater value on what I could learn from him.
As for those students who struggled, if their difficulties weren't apparent
to me, it was up to them to as for assistance. I couldn't do anything for
them if I didn't know what might be wrong.
<snip>
BMJ
> On Nov 22, 7:01 am, BMJ <owlstretchingt...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> morris croy wrote:
>>> On Nov 22, 2:02 am, BMJ <owlstretchingt...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> Eventually I adopted a mercenary attitude. I was simply there for a paycheque.
>>> Many people I know who are still in the teaching profession at the
>>> high school or elementary school level, all mentioned that's been
>>> their attitude for quite awhile. They're just waiting for the day
>>> when they're allowed to get their full teachers pension. Whatever
>>> idealism they had about changing the world through kids, has been gone
>>> a long time ago.
>> Mine started dying within an hour or so of starting. During the
>> introductory in-service session, the new instructors were told that they
>> had to ensure that the students didn't have a "negative learning
>> experience". Things became more absurd after that.
>>
>> Unfortunately, this rubbish has infested universities for the past few
>> years. TAs and, I understand, new profs have to go through something like
>> that as well. No wonder attending university becomes more costly each
>> year. All of this extra nonsense costs money and, thereby, increases
>> student tuition.
>>
>> All of this fretting and fussing about teaching quality makes me wonder how
>> I managed to get my B. Sc. over 30 years ago when none of this was around.
>
> you got your B Sc by being in a 1% minority of dilligent, very bright
> kidsif it was in physics or engineering...
I was hardly that. I barely finished in the top third of my graduating class.
and a 2% minority or so if
> was in the life sciences...and unless you were in the genius IQ range,
> it wasnt easy,
>
>
> as an aside what I hear from recrutiers 'why should we pay you 50
> dollars an hour when we can get a fresh graduate for 25'... industry
> has STILL not caught on..they hire cheap labor as they go broke due to
> incompetnence in the US, then they offshore to china... idiocy and
> corrruption govt and in management is at the core this scene...
> incompetence and ruin of entire companys is rewarded.
What companies really want is all one's knowledge and experience, along
with whatever wisdom was acquired along with it, for nothing. It's
supposed to be a gift, like passing a torch.
Uh-uh. I spent a lot of years learning what I know. I want a fair return
on my investment.
phil scott
>
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>
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i may be working on ways around that...trickeir flat rate quotes :)
I will meet the
letter of my contract. I will no longer get into all the freebie
education Ive been dishing out
free lo these many years like an idiot.
the union guys have known this for years...on the last controls
project I wanted to leave plastic
laminated accurate diagrams, and trouble shooting directons etc..the
union guy present adviced
against it, leaving only the mfgrs engirelty bogus 90 pages of
unfathomable crap...
his boss will get 125 dollars an hour each time the owner has problems
now.
** it seems a few of us borderline intelectual types want to
helpful... I think for me
I will still be helpful but on a flat rate.
I do notice these customers grilling me though extensively... with a
mix of intelligence and entirely
bogus notions.. my sales point so far has been intelligent/ accurate
answers... how to get around
that I dont know... perhaps the union tactic... or getting back to
then on that...with an email and quote
that doesnt get into the questions to any signficant level... and with
a lot of technical terms..
those are an honorable reply, just not a freebie education that can be
peddled.
Phil scott
P
BMJ
I largely stopped giving free advice. In most cases, the recipients
already know the answer they want to hear, so why bother.
>
> the union guys have known this for years...on the last controls
> project I wanted to leave plastic
> laminated accurate diagrams, and trouble shooting directons etc..the
> union guy present adviced
> against it, leaving only the mfgrs engirelty bogus 90 pages of
> unfathomable crap...
Maybe the manufacturer can make extra money off it.