Re: [Phys-L] Indicators of quality teaching (Was:MOOC: Edx Offers Mechanics course by Prof.Walter Lewin)

[Marty Weiss <martweiss@comcast.net>]

The surrounding neighborhoods are filled with these businesses, many of which move to larger quarters or are bought out by larger companies for the patents they acquire.  Many professors start their own business when they retire or during their tenure or consult for others.  They can pull in the most promising students to work for them.   Other universities have the same type of things going on.  I am just a bit more familiar with this particular one.  

I'm very leery of this word... "gain".   One person's gain is anothers mediocrity.   I am very proud of a student who might struggle with a D for the first two quarters and then progress to a C+ for the final grade.  Is his gain less than the student who started with a "B" and ended up the top student?  I would say the first student gained more even though the grades may not show it.
Suppose the best student lazed his way through the first half of the year with low B's then started working and got the A which comes naturally for him.  Contrast with the first student I described above with D's and then worked his butt off to get a high C.  There are a lot of intangibles that tests cannot consider, but in real life we cannot use them to "measure" gain.    

On Jun 21, 2013, at 5:12 PM, Philip Keller wrote:

> BC said:
>
> Plenty of successful start ups from drop outs, also.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> The media glamorizes the successful drop-outs. Steve Jobs didn't need no stinkin' degree -- why do you?  But consider the odds.  What % of MIT grads develop successful businesses (and not just "start-ups", a phrase which seems to give credit for winning just by starting the race)?  And what % of drop-outs do the same?  And how many orders of magnitude separate those two figures?
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