NYU Professor fired for making a class "too hard".

I suppose the answer is resources, but why not have non-student evaluators determine performance?

 

that’s what we do. We are NOT allowed to use student evals for anything even annual evals & profs do not have to make them available to anyone. We got here after years of hearing about gender biases, gaming & various forms of dysfunctional behavior. As head of the P&T committee I have to assign fac to sit in on other fac classes, review their materials etc & write a report.

 

Clearly you are not in medicine. We don’t get extra accommodations during go time. It’s not a popularity contest it’s a real world situation. Most folks can’t hack it. We have enough folks that can hack it without being “inclusive” and lowering expectations and standards for those that can’t.

 

Like doc, we use peer evaluators as well. It takes time, but I think it’s important. The Nobel laureate physicist turned uber education researcher Carl Weiman has constructed an inventory for assessment of teaching, which is basically a check box: did the teacher include evidence based practices or not? I think this helps alleviate the resource demand as well as reduces subjective noise among evaluators.

https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/bspm/DUMC/Wieman2.pdf

 

What a load of crap. Tell me super doc, how then do you explain the thousands of those who have learning differences in medicine? All the surgeons, ER workers, ambulance drivers and other first responders? While we're at it, what about trial lawyers in extreme pressure situations? And CEO's? You don't have a freakin' clue what you're talking about because your blinded by your self-importance. Ever heard of hyper-focus with ADHD people? Of course you haven't, because you're clearly ignorant of how these brains work. "Go time" is often where these people function best and what draws them to fast-paced environments. So spare me with your "those who can't during go time" and and "lowering expectations" excrement.

 

Bro having 30 extra minutes because you have dyslexia, or comprehension issues during a fucking exam in medical school, a board exam or orgo exam have nothing to do with treating patients.

 

Liberalism is a disease. I never said that people with learning “differences” were not capable I said that in these situations they should not be given extra accommodations.

 

Interesting comments. I do not buy the whole lazy generational thing tho.

Personally, I stayed as far away from physical sciences as possible, just absolutely no interest. I do wish they had these prof evals around when I was a student tho.

 

Dumb it down, I got it.

 

Depends on the reason for the accommodation and the field.

My niece graduated first in her class with a Masters from Duke. Has a brain AVM that has caused her dominant hand to deform, dramatically impacting her ability to type, which is how they were required to take exams. Duke gave her some extra test time to offset her disability. She’s now flying through an early career as a young exec with a Fortune 50 company that wouldn’t likely have happened without the accommodation, which had nothing to do with her ability to think, analyze, negotiate, communicate or relate to people personally and assess situations.

Really not about liberalism or conservatism as much as you want it to be. Plenty of people in this world can make significant contributions if we don’t put (or make them perform with) a box around them, and no one is saying someone in the ER should get extra time to sew up a patient who is bleeding out or to diagnose whether someone has simple hiccups or is stroking out.

 

Never go full douche.

 

To me it’s like saying well I want to be a navy seal but I have one arm and can’t swim. Do we change the rules or do we make navy seals? Life isn’t fair. Some folks aren’t that bright (see Blings post). I’d rather know my docs are the best and brightest. I call that old school conservativism.

 

As is stupidity, narrow-mindedness and intolerance.

B.S. You said giving students with disabilities was a ridiculous concept because in the real world - you know, when it's "go time" in your muzak soaked office, you don't get extra time to sort out emergencies. Thus, you said, those students "just don't belong". Why? Because according to you, they're incapable of stepping up.

You also said "we have enough folks that can hack it without being "inclusive" and lowering expectations and standards for those who can't. Where I come from, saying those who can't hack it, is the same exact thing as saying they are not capable. Btw, in what world is being inclusive to people who process information differently, equate to lowering expectations and standards? Maga-world? What an utterly ignorant and shitty thing to say.

Again, to the original point - you comparing what you do in the admittedly rare emergency, to a young kid entering dental school who needs a little extra time on an exam because he or she has ADHD or is dyslexic, is a disingenuous comparison.

 

Ridiculous. Who said anything close to that? Try rereading the last sentence of my post you quoted.

You’re extrapolating extreme examples of clearly unqualified candidates for someone who may have a slight physical or learning challenge in academia that has absolutely no relation to their ultimate ability to do the job at hand, like my niece, for which they may be granted a little extra time given their circumstances.

 

I guess I should have dumbed down my post, because you didn't get it.

 

There's carefully considerate dialogue and then there's this.

 

504's do not apply in college.

 

Do you think NYU does the same? If so, why fire him if his non-student evals are great?

 

Thanks for sharing this. Like evaluating an improvised musical performance, evaluating teaching is problematic. There is plenty of research identifying indicators of teaching success. To quantify teaching success, though, raises doubt. This portion of the article was compelling:

But we were not successful in creating an inventory that was appropriate for use in all undergraduate STEM courses: It does not work for instructional labs, project-based courses, or seminars (which are largely student driven). We found these courses so idiosyncratic in their goals and practices that we could not characterize them in a meaningful way or evaluate their relative educational effectiveness.

I would suggest that much of good teaching is student driven and that the teaching of many subjects comes with idiosyncrasies. I'm in agreement with you and doc that peer evaluation, when valid, can be of value. The members of my dept were encouraged to arrange for peers to observe our teaching, but it never got off the ground. There is far too much egotism and insecurity throughout our department for this to take place w/o specific admin mandate. The culture does not exist.

Just this morning I "evaluated" a student teacher. Teaching a 6th grade music class is quite different from teaching undergraduate music theory or conducting a college large ensemble. In either case, though, any observation (a more apt word that eval) feedback would necessarily be qualitative and encourage reflection on the part of the instructor.

 

You wrote that they do not belong. Liberalism is not a disease. Where do you get such nonsense?