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According to Molly Worthen's article in The New York Times, The Misguided Drive to Measure 'Learning Outcomes':
"[...] In 2018, more and more university administrators want campuswide, quantifiable data that reveal what skills students are learning. Their desire has fed a bureaucratic behemoth known as learning outcomes assessment. This elaborate, expensive, supposedly data-driven analysis seeks to translate the subtleties of the classroom into PowerPoint slides packed with statistics — in the hope of deflecting the charge that students pay too much for degrees that mean too little. [...]"
But apparently, there is little to show for tons of money and effort expended to gather data on what students are really learning or adapting curricula to their actual needs.
Mr. Erik Gilbert, a professor of history at Arkansas State University, who has criticized the methods, said to the author: 'Maybe all your students have full-time jobs, but that's something you can't fix, even though that's really the core problem. Instead, you're expected to find some small problem, like students don't understand historical chronology, so you might add a reading to address that. You're supposed to make something up every semester, then write up a narrative.'
As Frank Furedi, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, told the author about the situation in Britain: 'It's a bit like the old Soviet Union. You speak two languages. You do a performance for the sake of the auditors, but in reality, you carry on.'
As the author puts it: 'If we describe college courses as mainly delivery mechanisms for skills to please a future employer [...] We end up using the language of the capitalist marketplace and speak to our students as customers rather than fellow thinkers. They deserve better. [...] Producing thoughtful, talented graduates is not a matter of focusing on market-ready skills. It's about giving students an opportunity that most of them will never have again in their lives: the chance for serious exploration of complicated intellectual problems, the gift of time in an institution where curiosity and discovery are the source of meaning.'
A lengthy read, but worthwhile. Are we preparing current students better than in the past or are we simply siphoning money out of them? Yesteryear, a degree was a sure bet to a better life, nowadays, it doesn't mean as much. Are the education methods lacking or is the surplus of graduates to blame for useless degrees?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @11:20PM (8 children)
It is very complicated task to measure the performance of an engineer and so far all the measures to do so have made building bridges and other large structures worse. Let engineer associations test themselves without adding a bunch of stupid overhead that adds negative value (like durability, safety, etc.). Same with doctors and other professionals. Don't speak about what you don't know.
Good luck with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @11:33PM (7 children)
Actually, this is what all professions do. You must not be one of them. Professions are made up of practitioners who possess specialized expertise, say on engineering or law, or medicine or education. So when it comes to establishing standards of practice, the only people with the knowledge to set standards and evaluate practitioners are the professionals themselves. Who do you think writes building codes and safety regulations? Who do you think runs the Medical schools?
So to claim that common people could comprehend what teachers do, let alone evaluate it, is insulting, because most common people are stupid and have no idea what they are talking about. They should be engaged in politics, where their lack of expertise will not be noticeable. And administrators: These are traitors of the worst sort, if they were teachers and left to profession to become managers, and now use their knowledge to serve the enemies of education. Sort of like doctors, or psychologists, who use their professional knowledge to assist torture programs, or assist with experiments in the death camps.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @12:11AM (1 child)
Lawyers and administrators or MBAs, respectively.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @12:40AM
Wrong. Dead wrong. In the case of safety, literally dead wrong. The engineers write the codes, the lawyers try to find ways around them, the administrators try to ignore them. Doctors run medicals schools! The only one who can teach someone to be a doctor, is another doctor. Legislators do no have the expertise to formulate regulations like this, so they should defer to the experts. If they do not, this is a sign of corruption. BTW, MBAs are not professionals, business is not a profession, since it requires no professional expertise. Just look at Trump! No expertise at all, that one!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @12:26AM (4 children)
While professionals do have input, building codes and health standards are definitively *not* set or enforced by associations or their membership. Same for many other professional fields. That would kinda be like having the fox guard the hen-house. Or teachers thinking their profession shouldn't have measurable standards. Professional associations like to think they make all their own rules but at the end of the day it is the government that allows associations to self-govern and only up to a point.
Yeah, I'm just going to leave that here as a reminder of your thought process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @12:42AM
You are one of them, eh? I have seen your type before! An unruly student, a midget mighty buzzard, kind of kid we used to be allowed to paddle. Well, no educational excellence for you!!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 02 2018, @03:28AM (2 children)
So, what you are saying is, that the NEC doesn't employ any electricians? There are no electricians in the staff? Interesting . . . so, basically, a bunch of lawyers, politicians, and consumer advocates, and maybe a couple community organizers, decide how electrical work should be done? That explains why electrical boxes are usually finished in paisly, nature, and abstract designs. And, don't forget the floral prints!! Soon, we should see cartoon prints on those boxes from the Simpsons, and other popular shows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @07:41AM (1 child)
Shut up, Runaway, as a lowly technican, you are required to follow code. You have no idea how it is arrived at. And that is as it should be, since you have no education, and are not too bright, and you obviously do not know when to object to your superiors, or you would not have served in the USA Navy. Bastards! I mean, shelling innocent children, in Veracruz?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @03:00PM
Lowlifes like yourself shouldn't be entitled to an opinion.