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24 comments:
Love these "Law of the Academy" posts Spiros.
Still bitter over getting passed over for the teaching award, huh?
It's ok; the bad teachers in our department think they're really great too.
Yeah, geesh... this claim is so wildly false its hard to think it was posted in earnest. In most departments I've been in (but not all), the most popular professor in the department was the one from whom the students often learned the most -- or, even if not the most, CERTAINLY not the least.
"Law of the Academy #7843"
Bad teachers, unable to diagnose their own ineffectiveness in the classroom, are notoriously poor evaluators of good teachers.
One reason why "law of the academy #7842" is so obviously not one is this: students vary significantly in their ability and willingness to give reliable feedback on teaching.
I've taught some exceptionally bright undergrads at a top 20 R1, and many of them have given very thoughtful, helpful feedback on my teaching. I've also taught some students in less rigorous institutions and found their feedback less insightful.
It's certainly true that one ought not infer good teaching from popularity. But the two aren't mutually exclusive, either.
Hmm...I'm guessing some of the posters here are popular teachers, maybe even very popular.
This is unbelievably stupid, and the sign of one who enjoys sophmoric contrarianism for its own sake and loves the cheap chuckles feelings of wisdom such commonplace inversions of reasoning guarantee in the dilettantes who read them..
Unless, that is, there is a shred of decent evidential support for the apparently moronic claim.
If there is, I'd love to see it.
Is the "popularity" in this supposed Law determined by student evaluations or, instead, by tracking students who take multiple courses a given professor offers?
Surely, there are better and worse ways to discern popularity. There are effective ways to get data on grade distributions, student grade expectations, and eliminate false positives when it comes time for departmental evaluations. And there are ways to conceive of popularity that are less connected to superficial aspects of student interest and more connected to their specific intellectual interests and skill development (opportunity over time to mentor students that take more than one course).
This very clearly applies in my department. Ditto the previous one.
Maybe the argument is something like this.
Not learning stuff is easy; students like things that are easy; therefore . . .
Also,
Learning stuff is really fucking hard. Students don't like things that are really fucking hard. Therefore . . .
This is unbelievably stupid, and the sign of one who enjoys sophmoric contrarianism for its own sake and loves the cheap chuckles feelings of wisdom such commonplace inversions of reasoning guarantee in the dilettantes who read them.
How does reading the post make one a dilettante?
Yeah, Anon 2:54, the reasoning does go something like that with respect to a very broad characterization students' feelings about learning. "Easiness" is an evaluative category on ratemyprofessors. People on the whole tend to like easy things that make them feel pretty good about themselves. People on the whole tend to dislike things that are difficult and challenge and/or make them feel uneasy about themselves.
It's not a rule of the Academy, but a rule of sorts about life/people/whatever. It still doesn't follow that an unpopular teacher is necessarily an effective one. An incompetent instructor, for instance, who provides no feedback, is unavailable, poorly organized (if organized at all), rude, etc., typically is also unpopular (at least at my institution). "Hard-ass" effective instructors do not have exclusive bragging rights when it comes to unpopularity. Effective instructors who go above and beyond in terms of attending to student needs while challenging them very often will bear the burden of popularity. It's a shame, I suppose, when that happens, given the Law that's been laid down. Heaven forbid that some instructors might be gifted teachers who are cherished by their colleagues and students!
WV: exist (really!) : )
or -- the most popular VAP is the one least likely to get the TT job...
Sorry, Glaucon: I should have said those who read posts like this _and chuckle knowingly with them_ are dilettantes.
As for ratemyprofessors.com, students are asked to rate instructors on many issues, including easiness. Then, ratemyprofessors uses easiness as a factor in the overall assessment of the instructor (students don't make that overall assessment based on their individual ones).
So the fact that 'easy' ratings on ratemyprofessors.com are correlated with overall high scorers is a function of the way the site is set up, not at all of the preferences for easiness on the part of any of the evaluators.
Finally, it's never clear to me what is meant by 'easiness' there. Suppose you had a professor who gave very high grades for mediocre work, but whose lectures were impossible to understand. Would _that_ be easy? What about a professor who is a tough grader but whose lectures are extremely clear, who leaves no doubt about what it will take to earn a high grade, and who gives students all the help necessary to ensure that students who want to do the work will succeed? Is that easier? Or harder? ratemyprofessors doesn't make it clear, so it's not clear what exactly this is meant to measure.
9:58,
Unless I'm confused about RMP (or about your claim), I think you are incorrect. The overall score at RMP seems to be a function of helpfulness and clarity; easiness is not used to calculate the overall quality score (or is there an overall quality number given by the rater?)
You are correct that the easiness scores must be the result of the use of varying standards, but I would guess the majority of raters would take the former of your two classes to be easier.
Funny, I thought Spiros was talking about profs with lots of groupies -- who take all their classes, follow them around, praise them to their fellows, etc. -- who reveal their philosophical ignorance in classes taught by other profs. I don't think anyone, even Spiros, takes RMP to be indicative of anything significant -- even humorous "law of the academy" blog posts.
Law #7842a
Unpopular professors always assume their lack of popularity is proof that they are really the best professor in the department.
I was voted mist popular girl at Filmore Junior High.
Will we see "Meta-laws of the Academy" in order to nomologize the comments here?
Just axin'.
Love these. Keep'em coming...
Those popular teachers are often fabulous entertainers, clown-like, which often passes for "engaging the students."
In general, philosophers should rely less on large lectures. See: http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/pseudoteaching/
It won't succeed as a matter of fact, that's exactly what I think.
It will not really have effect, I feel like this.
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