@Canuckguy : I know their level of teaching has nothing to do with the flaws of testing. I was basically just saying that college instructors, many at least, certainly don’t care much about undergrads but so much and do not think it is worth challenging them at levels that supposedly reflect there abilities. I was making a point that highered seems not to truly care about the thing that it screens for. It is clearly better to give instruction and assessments that reinforce the idea that the students with high scores are for the most part, perfectly smart and do not have thinking skills they need to improve. It keeps everyone happily paying their tuition. Lots of colleges just admit and harbor talent and don’t do much more. I would argue that there are state U honors programs perhaps trying harder to challenge their better students than some elite publics and privates are with student bodies similar in caliber to those in said honors programs.
Bernie- I recognize that you are repeating the rant that has become very common on CC and in higher ed circles, but I don’t think your observations are correct- at least as it relates to professors in the Humanities.
Nobody is teaching Freshman Latin or “Anarchy and Totalitarianism” or “Mannerism and the Baroque” at a place like Yale or Swarthmore or Reed or Villanova because they don’t care about challenging their students.
It’s a nice narrative- but it’s not true.
@Bernie My D (and all of her friends) did not find that to be the case at Cornell, I often heard them discussing how difficult many of the classes were that they were taking. Made me think back to the opening convaction her Freshman year. Every student speaker said that at some point they were going to question whether they could do the work being asked, & assured them that they could, or they would not be there. Seemed to be true across both STEM & non-STEM majors.
@blossom & @csdad, @bernie12 and I were having a discussion about this. There are many schools high up in the rankings that have rigorous courses. There are a few other schools that are just as high up but may not offer the rigor of schools that are around them in the rankings. Interestingly, many of these schools are ones that game the USNews rankings most heavily (UChicago is a bit exceptional in being a rigorous school that has recently been very focused on climbing the rankings).
I would not put Cornell, Yale, Swarthmore, and Reed among those schools, BTW (don’t know enough about Villanova). If anything, Cornell is the opposite of a rankings-grubber, consistently admitting unhooked kids with lower scores over those with higher scores even in ED (presumably because they think they can do better).
@csdad : Cornell isn’t one I allude to lol. And yes, in general, Cornell is fine according to what I saw. I just wish they made their freshmen and sophomore level biology courses better (many were ALL multiple choice), but they likely suffer because of class size in that dept. Every other STEM discipline is pretty good and they also have good tiering to make up for when they can’t do that much with the “masses”. Also, Cornell is a very “practical” school meaning that, especially outside of STEM, they will emphasize teaching methods that are more hands on. That is naturally more intensive than most classes with low/mediocre reading loads and some writing assignments in between.
@blossom : I’m not talking about WHAT (never get this confused with “rigor”. I can teach a complicated topic and water down the demands…) they are teaching, I am more so talking about the workload and nature of grading. It always seemed as if the workload and the intensity of the grading could be higher in humanities. Also, what I talk about with instructors is partially true in STEM and the social sciences as well. There is a reason there has been much attention given to STEM changing its teaching methods. Sorry if I appear biased. I will admit that my best social science and humanities classes were vastly superior to many of my more average STEM classes (and the best ones were the best because they often used methods more commonly seen in social sciences and humanities) and I would say that part of the reason is because they were on the more demanding side of instructors and the format of course is superior. Usually discussion versus lecture. The problem is that many instructors seemed to have the format down, but the demands didn’t force people to engage the material that much and naturally students therefore chose to engage less. I suppose this could be the lesser of two evils when you consider that many STEM instructors demand the wrong type and level of engagement.
My D is still bemoaning the fact that the Anthropology class she took as an elective was the hardest class she ever had!
@csdad : Haha, that sounds like the intro. psyche instructors at Emory. Mine was notorious and literally had an even distribution across all letter ranges…the exams were multiple multiple choice no partial credit based on experimental underpinnings of biological psychology. He would go over the nuances of cases/experimental results in class and on the exam would appear the cases with changed most parameters so you would have to figure out how that would change the outcomes and circle ALL that apply. Only 25 questions and again no partial credit (you circle one too few or one too many, its a wrap). It was among the best multiple choice exams I’ve taken in terms of the types of thinking it demanded. I just wished there was partial credit.
Needless to say, my first exam did not go well lol. He used to be the only one extremely difficult one, but now apparently a relatively new faculty member is very tough as well so there is no way of escaping the teeth of that course. You can AP out of 1/2 of the psyche sequence, but then that leaves the majors to deal with that monster of a class. It is taught very well (the teacher I spoke of intensely uses Socratic method in a room with like 100 students-knows all names!), just very challenging. I felt bad for those taking both parts of the sequence at the same time not only because one was challenging, but on top of that, it doubled their research participation requirement. The class was a rude awakening for anyone trying to use the intro. psyche classes for an easy A. I would argue it was maybe as difficult as some of the general biology instructors and certainly more difficult than the easy section.
The contention is that professors don’t care about undergrads and therefore slack off on their teaching and don’t teach to a high enough standard. And I’m calling the BS police on this one.
You can’t compare the curriculum or the syllabus in a “rocks for jocks” or “physics for poets” class to their more intensive versions, designed for the kids concentrating in that discipline. But to claim that the standards are lower because the faculty doesn’t care enough about undergraduate instruction is what I’m objecting to- you clearly don’t understand the pedagogy and philosophy of a university in the US if you draw that conclusion.
^Mine had spent enormous amount of time in Paper Making class, the one that I warned her about knowing that any Art related class in college is crazy time consuming. She pulled an A, but that was her first and last Art class in college. It had no relation to her major (Zoology) or either of her minors (Music, Neuroscience), she just missed having art in her life after taking private lessons for her entire life. It was another “listen to your mother” moment, but she survived!!
In regard to STEM, there is a variety offered at intro level, as I mentioned before which means that pre-meds rarely take calc based Physics which is a must for engineers (and this is just one example, while many others are available in every science class). Surely, not all science classes are more difficult than non-science, no question about it. Gen. Chem class was one of the easiest D’s classes at college, she surely did not spend as much time/effort in it as in Paper Making class or in fact Honors English class where writing assignments were very easy, but it was whole ton of boring novels that she had to read and it was time consuming. Gen. Chem was by far easier and less time consuming than either of these 2.
@MiamiDAP Thank you for confirming gen. chem is easy lol. J/K, kind of I guess. I suppose it depends on the teacher, but no doubt at most schools, it is just studying (problems, reading) and then exams. There are not many formal assignments for the lecture portion. As for art and those majors. I’ve heard that they are very time intensive (in fact yesterday, a girl who I taught in my ochem tutorial section the past spring stopped by my lab to discuss the joy and frustrations of the art classes she was taking over the summer, including one sculpture class). I know things like architecture majors are notorious for their workload and the time students must spend. Again, usually more hands on disciplines and instruction is more intensive, but I think it is often more rewarding as well.
@blossom : For one, I don’t compare courses and sections that serve different purposes. I know much better than that (I compare ones with the same purpose side by side). And okay, fine, I am using hyperbole. I honestly should be more sympathetic, and be more honest about saying that I think instructors are constrained to certain norms that may not allow (perhaps in their minds-perhaps not-apparently there is often administrative pressure involved even beyond the departmental level) for them to challenge students at the level they want to. It may be more risk aversion than laziness. So that isn’t fair. In fact, I have read literature and books where faculty speak on their teaching and express how they want to do things at a certain level, but don’t necessarily do it they way because of the potential backlash and the politics involved in addressing the consequences of the backlash. It’s partially our (the students’) faults I guess. I got around to reading Dr. Patrick Allitt’s (sp?) book on teaching and it seemed that he was really trying, but he even admitted to relaxing grading standards. Mind you, to this day, he is still among the more rigorous history instructors at Emory. However, he did comment on and imply that instructors wanted to do more but had caved to certain norms much more so than he did. I am guessing I am wondering how these norms took over…Maybe challenging students at high levels is something most instructor aspire to do, but are rightfully afraid. This largely depends on institutional culture.
" Thank you for confirming gen. chem is easy lol. J/K, kind of I guess. I suppose it depends on the teacher, but no doubt at most schools, it is just studying (problems, reading) and then exams."
-Very much depends on many factors. On the intro class that student actually took (as I said a variety was available to my kid at her in-state public). On the science teacher at HS. On the Gen. Chem, prof. at college. On the student’s math background. For some it was not easy, they showed in the Supplemental Instruction sessions that my D. ran after she got this job. Again, the class that my kid took was NOT the most rigorous out of the intro Gen. Chem. offerings, it was perfectly enough for Medical School though, most likely was not enough for a Chemical Engineer.
What I am saying that it is great to have a variety of offers, it is not a good idea at all to have intro classes in science offered ONLY at the most rigorous level, it just do not fit everybody, only some. One wants to focus on Chem,.another on Math, third on Bio…and so forth. Architecture is unbelievably time consuming and you have to be good at many things, like math, physics, art and be a handy person, the one who can build those models, I have seen some, they are incredible and I cannot imagine that time it takes to do. But most Art classes are very time consuming anyway.
@MiamiDAP : Well, sounds like your D took the standard gen. chem that most people take (including chem majors at most schools 
). I think a lot of people can handle that class decently well with like an HS honors chemistry background and earn at least a B (maybe B- if the instructor is hard) in a traditional gen. chem curriculum. Many schools give chemical engineers an abbreviated gen. chem sequence (Georgia Tech does this for example) because they want them to get on with more advanced courses in the field (plus some issues, covered in most gen. chem 1 curricula are less relevant to them). Some schools just make them take gen. chem with the pre-healths unless of course they want to take an honors version if offered. It does vary. Some schools do tier more and make chemE folks take a 2 semester sequence specifically catering to them. Usually the most tiering for engineering folks at private schools comes from the physics and math department though. My main problem is with schools who don’t teach things like gen. chem with much intensity given the background of the students but then don’t offer hardly any of the options you mention other than to take organic which is a scary proposition for many students, even with AP credit.
Also, keep in mind, when I speak of rigor, I am not necessarily speaking of content (though sometimes that helps), I am mainly talking about the skill-sets emphasized in the class. Like a good gen. chem class wouldn’t necessarily have the absolute hardest content but would emphasize applications and problem solving skills that align with the students’ interests who are usually in the natural sciences. I think MIT has done a decent job at this by integrating problem sets and modules that emphasize biological applications from research or in medicine. At the same time, the exams are really not that hard (there other intro. classes are kind of a different story). However, the emphasis on thinking about the material in relevant contexts is noteworthy to me. I don’t think many gen. chem courses do this well. It’s almost always like: “here are these problem types that apply to basically nothing” (seriously, some of the methods and calculations emphasized are almost irrelevant without a context or application). If saw gen. chem materials, you would understand why many students never enjoy it. Better instructors successfully tie it to something cool and have problem sets and/or exams that stress the ability to handle the material such contexts. That’s all I mean when I criticize gen. chem. It and many intro. physics courses are just “bland”. I think biology has done a much better job at becoming modernized and emphasizing relevant applications, but maybe this is because they can, because more students feel comfortable learning biology within context, but lesser so the physical sciences and math (as in, adding context may be overwhelming).
This assumption was based on many past threads where you’ve made similar statements, combined with you talking about using test scores for screening elsewhere in the post.
You’ve brought up my engineering background a few times. Different engineers have a wide variety of personalities and styles of thinking, as do different IR majors. Engineers as a whole do not just see the world as a series of 1s and 0s. Many have positions that require strong skills outside of simple computational problem solving, such as communication. For example, a good portion of engineers go into tech sales, including meeting with potential customers and winning them over into buying the products, and do quite well in such positions. Many engineers eventually move into management positions, sometimes on executive/CEO type tracks that emphasize a different skill set than the earlier positions. Some engineers move on to spokesperson type positions, including politics. A small portion of engineers also have studied acting, and some do quite well at it. For example Aston Kutcher, Terri Hatcher, Rowan Atkinson, Dolph Lundgrun (Fulbright scholar at MIT), and various other well known actors have engineering degrees. Sure you can find correlations and trends about which majors are most likely to be “holistic thinkers”, but there are countless exceptions.
@pizzagirl I anticipated that from you. There is nothing to prevent someone to learn to think quantitatively, is there? I would value those who can do both, and have the wisdom to do so at the appropriate time and place, over school pedigree any day.
@bernie12 My reading between the lines is that you want courses and instructors that really teach students to think, correct? If so, I concur. I always find this obsession of elite colleges unhealthy. It seems like students want to be judged by the school they attend rather than by their actual skillset. What are they trying to hide?
@Data10 You cleared it up nicely. My answer would be yes on both counts. My interest all along is simply this: How to evaluate a job applicant objectively and without bias…that is all.
I’m in the business of evaluating job applicants. We’re not in the business of being objective-- and it’s naive to think that this is how large corporations operate. The bias that we need to overcome is a federal mandate- we can’t systematically exclude women or people born in India or folks who “look different” i.e a racial minority.
But other biases? I don’t like hiring people who majored in leisure studies. That’s perfectly legal and I don’t need to justify my bias to anyone. If we ever got a legal challenge that somehow we were behaving in a discriminatory fashion, I have every confidence that a side-by-side comparison of candidates would show that leisure studies majors do not perform as well on employment related tasks IN MY LINE OF BUSINESS (which is not recreation-based) than candidates with other majors. They don’t write as well (on average). They don’t compute as well (on average). As measured by other metrics- including a proprietary test we have developed which measures critical thinking skills and reading comprehension, they perform below the bar vs. other majors.
But I don’t NEED to justify my bias against any single leisure studies major. I can just look at the resume of a particular kid- who attended a large, comprehensive research university- and instead of majoring in history or economics or political science or engineering or applied math or computer science- all majors that this university has- this kid opted for leisure studies. As long as my bias doesn’t mean that we aren’t hiring African Americans or women or immigrants from China BECAUSE of my particular bias- there is no issue.
There is NOTHING objective about the hiring business. There are billions of people in the world- I need to craft a strategy to get the ones who meet our needs in the door and make sure they are successful while they are here. I get paid to do that in the most efficient way possible while still meeting other needs (i.e. We need people who speak Spanish. We need people who speak German. We need people with strong visual design skills for our web operations and we need people with exceptional speaking skills for our media relations team).
Got it?
@Canuckguy : That is exactly the point.
@blossom : The hiring practice stuff is honestly stuff that just makes sense. You either meet the desired traits and qualifications for a position or you don’t. Usually the ones for the initial screen are nicely laid out.
It just makes sense of course. Except when posters chime in with suggestions on how employers should ignore the name of the college on the resume and just focus on the major. Or just ignore the name on the resume and just focus on GPA. Or STOP considering GPA and just assume that every Comp Sci major is smart and hardworking. Or stop asking for SAT scores and just “know” that philosophy at Wittenberg is more rigorous than sociology at U Miami (believe me, we know).
I get that folks are defensive about their kids chances in the labor market these days- not just coming out of undergrad, but at every step of the way. But instead of LEARNING how real companies actually work, people like to fantasize that their kid is the one who is going to get from University of New Haven to the CEO’s seat at Goldman Sachs because he’s got a 4.0 in a STEM subject.
Could it happen? Of course. I could also lose the 25 lbs. I’ve been lugging around since my kids were born. Is it likely to happen? Don’t bet the farm on it.
Certainly. However, measuring how well graduates learned to think (in any mode or subject) is a lot harder than using common proxy measures like school name, GPA, and standardized test scores.
Well, of course. That’s why you have an interview. That’s how you evaluate their thinking ability - you might give them a case, or discuss a problem that they’ve solved before and how they went about doing so.
Except certain majors and certain grades can provide a quick proxy for critical thinking skills. A leisure studies major – or most ‘studies’ majors – are unlikely to be challenged in critical thinking. (Doesn’t mean that they don’t have great critical thinking skills, just that such majors generally don’t require them for all kinds of reasons, including a generally liberal grading policy.) OTOH, most folks who can pull a B in Organic Chem can handle tasks which requite spatial-temporal reasoning.