Time for Educationpalooza!

What, according to the comments on RateMyProfessor.com, should a professor do to win the favor of students? Slate provides a convenient summary:

Don't play favorites, yet don't deny students extra credit or a second chance on a paper or test. Don't "get sidetracked by boring crap." Don't refer to yourself in the third person. Don't ever call on students. Don't be "mean," "hateful," or "ambiguous." Don't take attendance. Don't be "high on Viagra and full of yourself." Don't be "distractingly spastic." Very important: Don't talk about stuff in class and then put other stuff on the test. Most important: Don't give low grades. Do show slides. Do offer easy assignments. Do crack jokes and "provide a fun teaching atmosphere." Do show up at your office hours. Do give A's on all group projects. Do walk your dog around campus. Do resemble a celebrity of some sort. Finally, try your best to be "awesome."

What should college students be learning? Slate's symposium features several scholars' answers. My favorites are by Princeton's K. Anthony Appiah--learn to "evaluate mathematical models or statistical arguments", and see a bit of the world--and Berkeley's Alison Gopnik--make students attempt real research.

What should students who want to be engineers do? Insist on better teaching.

Finally, what personnel policy is shared by the Catholic Church and the New York City public schools?

Comments

[Jake]

This is done in all the urban areas of the US. It is a major problem for our society.

Because principals and other school administration officials belong to the Teamsters Union, they cannot not be fired either.

So where are these incompetent teachers, principals and other school administration officials sent? They are almost always sent to schools with the highest percentage of minority students. Thus minority students cannot receive an education that will enable them to escape poverty.

Tenure rules are a major cause of poverty in America and will remain so as long as the Democrats stand in the way of school vouchers.

[Jake]

"Slate provides a convenient summary"

Yes this is a formula for being popular with students while they are in school. But these students will forget those professors within five years.

The professors they will remember are the professors with high expectations who challenged them and made them work for their grades.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

'Finally, what personnel policy is shared by the Catholic Church and the New York City public schools?'

Passing off deadwood is common in all government agencies except the military. It's also the case in large corporations with protected minorities who can't be fired without opening the company to discrimination lawsuits.

[Rodney A Stanton]

You understand why I voted for Arnie's props (75 - 77) two weeks ago. In Cal our per student spending has been growing almost 10% a year (doubling every 6 years) and yet the # of 12th grade students who can come close to being able to figure the square root of 156 or who can come close to quoting the Declaration of Independence has been falling for 45 years. I blame the NEA and AFT.
Dont get me started on what used to be gramar school grammar. They all what to know where ya going to or where you at? OY!

[John B. Chilton]

My dean puts far greater stock in what students say about faculty in the exit survey we require of all graduating students. The cream rises to the top.

As regards pass the lemon, it happens in the Episcopal Church as well.

[Chris Rogers]

"The professors they will remember are the professors with high expectations who challenged them and made them work for their grades."

This strikes me as being absolutely true, even though I'm just in my first semester... the easy professors are mostly forgettable.

[Jo macDougal]

Teachers's unions have destroyed public education in America. No wonder home schooling has been growing so fast the last 3 decades.

[Markvmkyo]

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