Some subscribers to Phys-L might be interested in a recent post
"Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities
#3" [Hake (2011c)]. The abstract reads:
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ABSTRACT: In response to "Changing the Culture of Science Education
at Research Universities" [Hake (2011a)], PhysLrnR's Bill Goffe wrote
(paraphrasing) "I agree that teaching should be more valued, but
economists Martin & Gillen (M&G) (2011) do a nice job in explaining
why this seems unlikely in the near future."
M&G observe that there's a thriving market for senior scholars in
higher education but not for world-class teachers. The reason for
this imbalance, they suggest, is that "potential employers of
professors have sufficient information to judge scholarly
productivity, but virtually no information that would allow them to
judge teaching productivity."
In commenting on M&G's article, "teaching postdoc" wrote:
(paraphrasing): "How do we know when a teacher is 'good'? Students
know if they like or dislike a teacher; if they enjoyed or did not
enjoy a course. But accurately assessment one's own progress is a
very difficult task, and there's no evidence that course evaluations
are meaningful. Really, one needs pre- and post-testing to
quantitatively compare student abilities at the beginning vs end of
the course. Almost no one actually does that. . . . . Scholarship is
measured in papers and citations. Teaching is not measured at all."
Regarding pre/post testing, Bill Goffe asked: ". . . . do any
physicists use their students' Force Concept Inventory (FCI) results
when on the job market?" As far as I know, the answer is (thankfully)
"NO." If pre/post testing were to be used for high-stakes summative
purposes, then Campbell's and Dunkenfeld's Laws (see the signature
quotes) would probably rear their ugly heads so as to distort and
corrupt the testing.
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Dukenfield's Law <http://bit.ly/bsRokM>: "If a thing is worth
winning, it's worth cheating for."
Campbell's Law <http://bit.ly/hMsyUr>: "The more any quantitative
social indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject
it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to
distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."
REFERENCES [URL's shortened by <http://bit.ly/> and accessed on 13 March 2011.]
Hake, R.R. 2011a. "Changing the Culture of Science Education at
Research Universities," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at
<http://bit.ly/eqw6ow>. Post of 4 Mar 2011 08:04:14-0800 to AERA-L,
Net-Gold, and PhysLrnR. The abstract and link to the complete post
were transmitted to various discussion lists and are also online on
my blog "Hake'sEdStuff" at <http://bit.ly/hnkAuJ> with a provision
for comments.
Hake, R.R. 2011b. "Changing the Culture of Science Education at
Research Universities #2," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at
<http://bit.ly/gZSf8W>. Post of 6 Mar 2011 15:16:50 -0800 to AERA-L &
Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were
transmitted to various discussion lists and are also online on my
blog "Hake'sEdStuff" at
<http://bit.ly/dYSgww> with a provision for comments.
Hake, R.R. 2011c. "Changing the Culture of Science Education at
Research Universities #3," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at
<http://bit.ly/gSNTGi>. Post of 12 Mar 2011 16:53:33-0800 to AERA-L &
Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were
transmitted to various discussion lists and are also online on my
blog "Hake'sEdStuff" at
<http://bit.ly/hmX5GL> with a provision for comments.