The problem with Science Education (and American Education in general)

[ydoaPs]

It's pretty well known that America has a problem with science education. Not many countries elect people to their Congressional science committees that believe that Evolution and Climate Change are false.

 

Science education (like the rest of the American system) is "teaching to the test", so instead of teaching how to figure out general approaches, they are taught specific equations for each type of problem. There's no problem solving in the solving of physics problems. Students aren't taught how to do science, they're taught how to memorize equations and swap out the numbers. Instead of being given the basic equations and being taught how to derive what they need, they're given pre-made equations molded for specific types of examples. So, given a novel type of problem (which they should be able to easily derive) many students will be completely lost because their crutch equations don't work.

 

This problem is completely pervasive in American education not just in science. The students aren't taught critical thinking. They're taught how to identify nouns, pronouns, adjective, and verbs, but they're not taught how to identify logic in sentences and how they fit together with other sentences logically. They're not taught how to tell if once sentence follows from another. Logic, for most people, is completely untouched until college (if they even get it there).

 

As for the credence you can have in a sentence given an argument, that's even worse. Even at the college level, most people don't know you need probability to determine the relation of the actual content's likelihood rather than just the form.

 

Students aren't taught about psychological biases and how to look out for them.

 

And we wonder why the American public is so easily manipulated and swindled by con-men.

[CharonY]

I do not think that this is more or less a general problem and not endemic to the US. There are, unfortunately quite a few reason why the system is like that. One simple reason is that people are obsessed with metrics. If you want comparable measures for GPA or equivalent, lots of semi-standardized exams are the way to go.

Just as a comparison:
in the former German system it was insofar different as students had to pass certain exams but were generally not graded. Most graded exams were oral and basically in discussion with one or several Profs. The advantage is that you have to be able to use your knowledge in a discussion. Downsides were cries (sometimes justified) of foul play favoritism and subjectivity. Now the system has switched to a bachelor/master system with more exams and the quality in students is really declining.

 

There is politics to blame, as universities (and politicians) love to flaunt grades, or the desire of politics to put more people into colleges. This is by itself not a bad idea, but then one should re-evaluate the reason behind grading. Is it, to have a cut-off to select out bad students? I.e. identifying and promoting a kind of intellectual elite by giving them titles and denying them to others? In that case mass-education has an issue because it means you are taking money from many students who are not likely to make it, anyway (here is where I really liked that fact that German Unis were practically free for students).
Is the goal to provide anyone the best education that they can benefit from (but then why exams in the first place?). Universities have to balance these schizophrenic goals to some extent and I really do not know the final answer to that.

 

Part of it is also the student's fault. If asked, most would prefer engaging lessons where they have to think, apply their knowledge, have exams that make them thing, etc. However, in truth this usually leads to half of the class failing and students being dissatisfied. Critical thinking and applying knowledge is simply hard work and not easy (as compared to memorizing). And quite frankly, it is extremely unlikely that you can engage and interest students in all topics. You will always have some that are good in a certain area, but at best average in others. It is just a matter how much they like a particular subject. But if good students see bad grades (for whatever reasons) they get discouraged. It is easier to make an exam that just requires a bit of memorization since it appears to be much fairer than other kinds of evaluation.

I know faculty that tried really engaging lessons, where memorization is insufficient to get by. And guess what the result is? Half of class failed and the student evaluations were abysmal. Since they were not tenured yet, they did not try it again.

 

This leads to the other part that is to blame: faculty. Now for that you have to know that the average faculty has a lot of responsibilities. You have to create lectures/courses, engage in research, lead your own lab, compete successfully for grants and fulfill faculty duties. Realistically there is hardly any time to that. Each hour of lesson requires several of preparation. Unless you only have fantastic people in your lab you will spend a lot of time figuring out what went wrong the second you were not watching. Unless you are a micromanager, of course. In that case it is probably your fault that nothing works out. You do not only have to do science, but also lead and mentor your people (if you want your lab to be sustainable, unless you area already established, then you could do whatever). In some cases you have to deal with breakdowns of postdocs and students (yepp, lots of fun). And then you have to worry about money. Constantly. If just one of the things is weak during your tenure-track, you may be denied tenure. This does not mean that your job got less cozy, it means you are out of job and generally have a hard time finding a new one (unless you enjoy competing with fresh hotshots that are a decade younger than you).

In addition, many enthusiastic young faculty have been crushed under the combined amount of disinterest and lethargy of an average undergrad course. Under these conditions, it is understandable that most junior faculty prefer to play it safe. And that means providing simple questions with simple answers that do need not or little interpretation.
Does it create the best and brightest? No. Most of us reserve that part of the training (and effort) to those that come into our labs. This is also the reason why grad students see a sudden shift in their learning from undergrad to grad studies.
Just my 2 cents, of course (also subject to change, as always).

Edited February 27, 2013 by CharonY

[Bill Angel]

I was a graduate student in chemical physics 30 years ago, so I'm uncertain as to

whether my insights about education from that period would still be of relevance. But someone else's would be. It's worth checking out the article titled Popular Misconceptions about the Feynman Lectures on Physics

Also,here is a picture of Feynman with the undergraduate Cal Tech students.

[iNow]

The nature of education itself is changing, though. Youtube, wikipedia, coursera, kham academy... open courseware from MIT and Harvard and other institutions. We have 11 year old girls in Pakistan becoming experts in particle physics.

 

Surely the (absolutely present) problems you cite in the US system are going to soon be a thing of the past, and the true challenge before us is how to better access aptitudes and skills and in a way that is meaningful to employers.

 

It's no longer relevant how many years you've spent in school or what degree you have. What is relevant is what you know and can act on and what skills you have. That IMO is an assessment problem, not an education problem (even though there remains a lot of work to be done on focusing learning to each students needs and desires).

[Ringer]

There are a few things that I feel bring about a large amount of the problems. One is inadequate knowledge of administrators at all levels of schooling. For example administrators will add expectations or new ways of doing things without removing older methods. My wife is a teacher and they just instituted a new method of classroom strategies, full with new lesson plans and evaluations. Yet the old method lesson plans and evaluations are still done for no known reason. This seems to compound educators problems with actually taking time to find teaching strategies that work well, and make putting in the extra work next to impossible. My wife has to make 4 different types of lessons with different methods, but she's only allowed to use the most current one.

 

Another problem is many teachers are far from adequately prepared to really handle the subject they teach. I have met an extremely disturbing amount of science educators that scoff at evolution, use homeopathic medicine, etc. This I have no idea what the reasons could possibly be to teach a subject if you don't know or understand what the basic principles are.

 

Then there is always the fact that there are always students who just don't care. Especially for the non-tenured, or public school, teacher this can cause unbelievable problems. If your class is doing badly your whole school loses and lay-off are sometimes mandatory. After funding is cut already, if the classes are still doing badly the funding is cut even more. Obviously it creates a self propagating machine of bad education, it causes pressure on the teachers, again a lot of this pressure is from administrators, to make sure the classes get better grades and due better on the standardized tests. Not by way of educating them to better understand, but making curves the push the lower grades much higher and focusing on how to create students who know how tests are set up. If you've ever studied for the SAT or GRE you know that those aren't so much about trying to learn a subject other than how SAT or GRE tests are set up.

[overtone]

The problem of general American ignorance, heedlessness, and intellectual incapability, is not limited to science and (even more strikingly) math.

It's just harder to hide, in those fields. We have, for example, probably a majority of Americans holding the opinion that further cutting of rich people's personal income taxes would "create jobs" in the current US industrial economy - demonstrating a striking failure of the American educational system in history, politics, and economics. (Climate change denial and creationism both have better evidence and arguments opposing more difficult theories and complex circumstances than that opinion.) But this failure is easier to obscure, ignore.

If we look to others for ideas on what to do, how to improve things, a couple of points: the best childhood education is found where the most intelligent and well-educated people in the community are often and respectably employed as teachers of children; teaching of children incorporates high levels of activity, doing things, and physically as well as mentally; teaching is personal, with a teacher reacting to the student in real time using the full resources of human communication (not on the phone, by mail, or on a screen); the children learning have food they like, adequate rest, and a lot of time to play; the children also have solitude, peace and quiet, and a chance to do their own work at their own pace and whim; the role of such adult bureaucratic conveniences as standardized tests and similar imposed regimentation not related to child learning is minimized.

If we look to ourselves, in the US, for ideas on how to improve things, a couple of points: the strong and even violent anti-intellectual bias of American culture at every level needs public acknowledgment, for its strengths as well as its weaknesses; along that line, a cultural separation of ignorance, anti-intellectual attitude, and stupidity would be great if some genius of public communication could accomplish it (the notion that ignorant people are therefore stupid, the inculcated reaction against acknowledging personal ignorance from its implications of personal stupidity and claims of knowledge for their implications of personal superiority, is my nomination for the single biggest roadblock to raising the general level of physical information and awareness in the US); education is intrinsic to raising children and cannot be separated from it, so factors such as dental health and lead poisoning and threat of violence and diet and playgrounds and parks and books in the home and school distance and start times and racial bigotry and all the rest are part and parcel (i.e. cutting the hours and facilities at the public libraries while buying more standardized testing in the schools is dysfunction itself).

Surely the (absolutely present) problems you cite in the US system are
going to soon be a thing of the past, and the true challenge before us
is how to better access aptitudes and skills and in a way that is
meaningful to employers.

The probem of assessment dominating inculcation, credentials replacing capabilities, the Potempkin schooling facade absorbing all the resources while shop class is canceled along with recess time, is as easily exacerbated as ameliorated by expensive new technology aimed at automating education.

Education is not job training, and children cannot pay for it. Employers who want educated employees are just going to have to make a choice: educate their employees as adults, or pay taxes and otherwise invest in the community to have others educate them as children.

Edited February 28, 2013 by overtone

[swansont]

One issue is the swaths of the US where science is considered the enemy because it conflicts with certain ideologies. Success is going to be limited when the prevailing attitude is that the material is wrong, and not understanding the material is acceptable. There are "academic freedom" initiatives to allow teaching of things like creationism, and/or allow students to get the science wrong but not be penalized, because they have the "academic freedom" to not learn the material.

 

Then there's the attitude that being scientifically illiterate is not only OK, but something in which one can take pride. That opinions are just as good as facts.

Described by Asimov:

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

 

Society as a whole does not value science, so it's not surprising that science education is not a priority.

[Bill Angel]

Then there's the attitude that being scientifically illiterate is not only OK, but something in which one can take pride. That opinions are just as good as facts.

Described by Asimov: Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'

 

Society as a whole does not value science, so it's not surprising that science education is not a priority.

One area of public attitudes towards science that may deviate from that assessment is in the area of health care. There are a number of medically oriented internet sites at which people query members of the user community for information about medical treatments for various diseases. For the afflictions I am personally most familiar with (psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis), fellow sufferers are looking for information on what courses of treatments have proven to be most successful. Science is based on "peer group review", and for these sufferers their peer group is other persons that are afflicted with their disease.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Bill Angel

[Athena]

It's pretty well known that America has a problem with science education. Not many countries elect people to their Congressional science committees that believe that Evolution and Climate Change are false.

 

Science education (like the rest of the American system) is "teaching to the test", so instead of teaching how to figure out general approaches, they are taught specific equations for each type of problem. There's no problem solving in the solving of physics problems. Students aren't taught how to do science, they're taught how to memorize equations and swap out the numbers. Instead of being given the basic equations and being taught how to derive what they need, they're given pre-made equations molded for specific types of examples. So, given a novel type of problem (which they should be able to easily derive) many students will be completely lost because their crutch equations don't work.

 

This problem is completely pervasive in American education not just in science. The students aren't taught critical thinking. They're taught how to identify nouns, pronouns, adjective, and verbs, but they're not taught how to identify logic in sentences and how they fit together with other sentences logically. They're not taught how to tell if once sentence follows from another. Logic, for most people, is completely untouched until college (if they even get it there).

 

As for the credence you can have in a sentence given an argument, that's even worse. Even at the college level, most people don't know you need probability to determine the relation of the actual content's likelihood rather than just the form.

 

Students aren't taught about psychological biases and how to look out for them.

 

And we wonder why the American public is so easily manipulated and swindled by con-men.

 

This was not always true. Education was more focused on what you say is important before the 1958 National Defense Education Act. I painfully remember hating diagramming sentences. I didn't have a clue why this was important, until I began studying the education issue and learned what it has to do with teaching logic.

 

I think Swanspont is talking about the 2012 Texas Republican agenda to prevent education in the higher order thinking skills. Their argument is teaching children to think for themselves, disrupts parental authority. Of course this goes with Texas insisting creationism be taught along with evolution theory, as equally valid science.

 

As for the health care issue, our medical system has failed us. Doctors are ignoring information about wheat causing people with psoriasis and athritis trouble. We learn of this from each other, and it is not being non scientific. Either giving up wheat resolves these health problems or it does not, and each one of us can find this out for ourselves by adjusting our diets. Then we tell our doctors we are experiencing major improvement and we get a blank stare. Unless this is what the doctor was taught, s/he finds it hard to believe and unfortunately does not investigate information and make an independent decision.. Education since 1958, has created dependence on "experts" instead of preparing everyone for independent thinking, as was said in the OP. This is when we switched from education for independent thinking, to "group think" and reliance on authority. This is good for the rapid advancement of technology, but it is not good for a democracy that requires a mass that can think independently. It is not good for our future as it kills innovation.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Athena

[swansont]

One area of public attitudes towards science that may deviate from that assessment is in the area of health care. There are a number of medically oriented internet sites at which people query members of the user community for information about medical treatments for various diseases. For the afflictions I am personally most familiar with (psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis), fellow sufferers are looking for information on what courses of treatments have proven to be most successful. Science is based on "peer group review", and for these sufferers their peer group is other persons that are afflicted with their disease.

 

Well, there is a larger attitude of "this is useless, until it actually applies to me" out there, manifesting itself in more than science education. OTOH, people seem willing to embrace quack cures and a lack of science literacy means they can't tell the difference., so the internet is not a replacement for legitimate education. Take the anti-vax/autism crowd, for instance. The fit the profile of looking on the internet for peers, but they come to the conclusion they want to hear, rather than the one supported by rigorous scientific analysis.

 

I think Swanspont is talking about the 2012 Texas Republican agenda to prevent education in the higher order thinking skills. Their argument is teaching children to think for themselves, disrupts parental authority. Of course this goes with Texas insisting creationism be taught along with evolution theory, as equally valid science.

 

That may apply, but it was an Oklahoma bill (which, I believe, died in the senate) focused on academic freedom, and implied scientifically wrong answers could not be marked off if they were based on strongly held beliefs of the student.

[Athena]

Well, there is a larger attitude of "this is useless, until it actually applies to me" out there, manifesting itself in more than science education. OTOH, people seem willing to embrace quack cures and a lack of science literacy means they can't tell the difference., so the internet is not a replacement for legitimate education. Take the anti-vax/autism crowd, for instance. The fit the profile of looking on the internet for peers, but they come to the conclusion they want to hear, rather than the one supported by rigorous scientific analysis.

 

 

That may apply, but it was an Oklahoma bill (which, I believe, died in the senate) focused on academic freedom, and implied scientifically wrong answers could not be marked off if they were based on strongly held beliefs of the student.

I don't remeber anything about an Oaklahoma case, but there are plenty of them going on in Texas.

 

https://www.au.org/church-state/september-2010-church-state/au-bulletin/texas-educator-loses-court-fight-over

 

The fight is going on in Louisiana. I have Christian friends and they ah, have some interesting ideas about how God works. Like one prayed to God to make a computer work, because she didn't know the steps to take to get the results she wanted. These folks seriously believe a God can violate the laws of nature and please them on the condition they are His good children. And they are politically organizing to promote their beliefs through education.

 

http://www.wwltv.com/news/opinion/Louisiana-students-must-learn-evolution-186187302.html

 

Right now this young man is getting all the media in the fight agains teaching creationism.

 

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-fighting-creeping-creationism/

Edited March 3, 2013 by Athena

[swansont]

I don't remeber anything about an Oaklahoma case, but there are plenty of them going on in Texas.

 

HB 1674

 

http://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=HB%201674

 

From the summary:

 

"No student will be penalized because the student subscribes to a particular position on scientific theories."

[CarbonCopy]

If it wasn't for the titles, I would have thought you were talking about the Indian education system ! So, I guess it's a global problem.

IMO it's much easier to teach the facts and the 'products of Science' rather that the actual science itself. But, unfortunately, facts are not Science and hence, actual science gets left out in education. Things like critical analysis, scientific temper and scientific method cannot be tested through a written exam, so the system does not go through the trouble to test these things.

But, we are seeing a revolution with digital teaching, though it will take some time for youtube, khanacademy, etc to reach school. Though, I see a much greater movement towards this kind of digital education in US than in other parts of the world like India, where I live.

[overtone]

Ran across an intriguing take on this issue, from author Susan Cain in the book "Quiet".

 

She points out that extroverted people are less often drawn to, or good at, intellectual pursuits in general and science in particular - and the US, being a country founded by nomads and "men of action", is predictably and by direct rigorous measure a country unusually (even uniquely) dominated by extroverts.

 

The introverts stayed home, the extroverts set sail across the Atlantic, basically. The bonny ship the Diamond did not go fishing for the whale with a crew of contemplative analyzers and inveterate bookworms.

 

Our entire educational system is set up and run to be comfortable for extroverts, foster extroversion, meet the needs of people for whom the concept of the nerd is not a wierd cultural artifact but an aspect of reality (a reality the Chinese, say, do not share).

 

So change to our educational system that abets instruction in science would not be comfortable change for most Americans.

Edited March 24, 2013 by overtone

[swansont]

Ran across an intriguing take on this issue, from author Susan Cain in the book "Quiet".

 

She points out that extroverted people are less often drawn to, or good at, intellectual pursuits in general and science in particular - and the US, being a country founded by nomads and "men of action", is predictably and by direct rigorous measure a country unusually (even uniquely) dominated by extroverts.

 

The introverts stayed home, the extroverts set sail across the Atlantic, basically. The bonny ship the Diamond did not go fishing for the whale with a crew of contemplative analyzers and inveterate bookworms.

 

Our entire educational system is set up and run to be comfortable for extroverts, foster extroversion, meet the needs of people for whom the concept of the nerd is not a wierd cultural artifact but an aspect of reality (a reality the Chinese, say, do not share).

 

So change to our educational system that abets instruction in science would not be comfortable change for most Americans.

 

But it's the nerds who excel, in terms of academic achievement, in the US system.

[overtone]

 

But it's the nerds who excel, in terms of academic achievement, in the US system.

Why "but"?

 

It's the introverts who excel academically in any system. In the US they are excelling despite a system designed for other kinds of people - so misfit are they that they have a category name, a term for the odd little group they make on the margin of the main show. Excelling in academic achievement is a special, sideline, sort of personal hobby or quirk, in the American school.

 

That's a bit odd, eh?

 

The guess is that not all who could, not even all who would excel, will buck the system and choose to marginalize themselves in that fashion. And of course the influence of the special group set apart from the rest of the students is less than it would be were they the central body of a system designed for their abilities and approach.

[swansont]

Why "but"?

 

It's the introverts who excel academically in any system. In the US they are excelling despite a system designed for other kinds of people - so misfit are they that they have a category name, a term for the odd little group they make on the margin of the main show. Excelling in academic achievement is a special, sideline, sort of personal hobby or quirk, in the American school.

 

That's a bit odd, eh?

It seems to me that it's at odds with the claim that the system is set up for the extroverts.

[overtone]

It seems to me that it's at odds with the claim that the system is set up for the extroverts

How so?

 

Are you assuming the US school system fosters and rewards academic excellence in science? That would be at odds with the thread OP.

 

(btw: by "set up", a problematic term, I mean in reality arranged and operated, actually run. The declared goals, official pronouncements, ostensible desires even, of those doing the setting up and supposed running, are not assumed to be either clear and competently derived or successfully implemented. )

Edited March 25, 2013 by overtone

[CharonY]

In that case one should carefully define what one means with academic excellence. It is not terribly hard to excel in a system that is geared towards memorization, for example. One of the points OP argues (in my interpretation) is that the metrics we use to define academic excellence is woefully lacking.

That being said, regardless whether such a system really accurately gauges academic excellence (and I believe most would argue it does not), I do not see how extroverts benefit from the system. The ability to memorize things is probably not necessarily controlled by either outlook. Extroverts may get gratification from good grades (and the positive feedback it may cause), introverts may be motivated by a given mental challenge all by itself. While it may be true that the US society may frown upon introversion, the academic setting often caters towards them. I would be surprised if in academia the ratio of introverts would not be higher than the population average.

 

If we talk about post-graduation excellence, obviously either extreme may be detrimental. Though chances are that the extreme extroverts have a higher chance of landing a job as they are more likely to expose themselves to others and have a better network.

[overtone]

That being said, regardless whether such a system really accurately

gauges academic excellence (and I believe most would argue it does not),

I do not see how extroverts benefit from the system.

In US schools, extroverts have more fun, more friends, higher status, better contacts for their future adult life, less depression, fewer health problems, lower odds of being bullied, in general a much better suited experience,

 

then the nerds and geeks and loners and feebs and bookworms and wallflowers and foureyes and so forth. (Note: four generations of names. This situation is not new).

 

They play well with others. They earn high and positive evaluations on social skills. They are the "popular" kids.

 

It seems to me that many Americans take that as some kind of universal human condition.

 

That US schools are set up and run primarily rewarding, fostering, nurturing, promoting in general, academic excellence in science, in ->anyone<- whether extroverted or introverted, cannot be presumed. The argument made (in passing, an example in the middle of the book) by Susan Cain, which intrigues me, is that by primarily rewarding and catering to extroverts, being dominated by the values and viewpoints of the extroverted personalities so unusually predominant in the US population, US education shortchanges not just introverts but the intellectual realms in which introverts have advantage by nature.

 

Science is one of them. Hence, in part, the ubiquitous failure of US schools to teach science well. Or math. Or literature. Or philosophy. Or music other than marching and brass bands, in which the US genuinely excels. And so forth.

Edited March 25, 2013 by overtone

[Genecks]

I do not think that this is more or less a general problem and not endemic to the US. There are, unfortunately quite a few reason why the system is like that. One simple reason is that people are obsessed with metrics. If you want comparable measures for GPA or equivalent, lots of semi-standardized exams are the way to go.

Just as a comparison:

in the former German system it was insofar different as students had to pass certain exams but were generally not graded. Most graded exams were oral and basically in discussion with one or several Profs. The advantage is that you have to be able to use your knowledge in a discussion. Downsides were cries (sometimes justified) of foul play favoritism and subjectivity. Now the system has switched to a bachelor/master system with more exams and the quality in students is really declining.

 

There is politics to blame, as universities (and politicians) love to flaunt grades, or the desire of politics to put more people into colleges. This is by itself not a bad idea, but then one should re-evaluate the reason behind grading. Is it, to have a cut-off to select out bad students? I.e. identifying and promoting a kind of intellectual elite by giving them titles and denying them to others? In that case mass-education has an issue because it means you are taking money from many students who are not likely to make it, anyway (here is where I really liked that fact that German Unis were practically free for students).

Is the goal to provide anyone the best education that they can benefit from (but then why exams in the first place?). Universities have to balance these schizophrenic goals to some extent and I really do not know the final answer to that.

 

There is nothing wrong with teaching to the test, as long as the teaching is to master the test. Where instructors fail is teaching people how to master the material. Also, there is a level of elitism involved, thus a barrier to entry into particular trades. People who deny this claim are frauds. Some instructors do teach students to master the material, while other instructors cannot teach people to master the material. I like to recall Organic Chemistry II as my favorite example: There were clearly students who had already mastered or become skilled in understanding organic chemistry, thus they were able to excel where other students were not. I believe one comment from the organic chemistry instructor I had was that there should be two kinds of organic chemistry courses: one for pre-meds/bio and the other for chemistry/eng. majors. The reason for this is because the curves for grades were not curves with normal distributions: they were bi-modal. As such, there were mostly people who understand the material; few who kinda understood the material; and most who did not understand the material.

 

The proof is in the statistics. The thing that is not collected in the statistics is the chemistry background and whether or not the students have already studied or mastered the material in some way ahead of time. As such, the classroom teach to the test system had become unfair. The students in the course, however, as slaves of the course. Those who know what's going on will excel and push down the grades of the others. As such, the necessity for a curve (all the time) in such a course shows that the educators have not mastered the ability to teach others how to master the material, thus mastering the material is theoretically impossible for all students given that all students are motivated to master the material.

 

I can recall, however, a quiz at the beginning of one of my classes, cellular biology (200-level), where the instructor gave us quizzes during the first week. This was to test our current knowledge and get an understand for the class' intelligence, thus affecting the level of education, quizzes, and examination difficulty given. However, as it was transparent to me what they were up to, I may have biased my results. As such, students may be keen to lying on any pre-liminary exam/quiz in order to make the course easier, as pre-meds simply want a higher GPA.

 

Part of it is also the student's fault.

 

 

Uh, the students are determined by their previous experiences, whereby instructors often do not collect the statistics in order to determine what further level of education the students need in order to master the material of the course by each consecutive testing period...

 

I have yet to come across an instructor who will give students the exams and quizzes from the semester before, simply change little aspects so things look different but are solved the same, and then have students take the exams and quizzes that are similar (but different from past exams) but solved exactly the same way... Sure, things can be out of their original order, as in what problems come first and whatnot... but what is the real difference if students can solve the problems?

 

Given such a paradigm and where students are taught generalizations to abstract from throughout the classroom discussions, I don't see why students should not be able to master the material and exams, as they would have been given well enough priming. Only the apathetic students will be left behind. Those with a work ethic will be allowed to move on, and as they've mastered the critical thinking involved, they've mastered the material. Everybody wins except those without a work ethic.

 

I've dealt with instructors who "tried" doing such a thing, but when it came to their exams and quizzes, they were very much different and not of the same layout (and I don't mean that the problems, despite similarities and contrasts, were re-arranged throughout the pages) as their alleged past exams and quizzes. *rolls eyes*

 

It's too bad students don't generate a class-action lawsuit and sue educators for misrepresentation.

 

If asked, most would prefer engaging lessons where they have to think, apply their knowledge, have exams that make them thing, etc. However, in truth this usually leads to half of the class failing and students being dissatisfied. Critical thinking and applying knowledge is simply hard work and not easy (as compared to memorizing).

 

I do not mind critical thinking. What I do mind, however, are instructors who lack knowledge in cognitive science, thinking they understand how to teach students to critically think in the instructor's subject when they really suck due to their knowledge of educational psychology, and the whole aspect of "critical thinking" being missed throughout the coursework education. Truth is, many educators continue to study educational psychology and how to better it for their particular classroom and coursework. However, they seem to lack understanding how to understand enough cognitive psychology in order analyze their material (omg, critical thinking at work!), generalize it, and find ways to abstract from it; then taking that same level of thinking and showing students how to have that level of thinking. I believe many educators fail to really look for basic fundamentals and generalizations in the material they teach, building blocks and simplest levels of knowledge to memorize, so that these memorized generalities can be abstracted from. And the reason is because these alleged masters of their field suck at understanding how to teach their field to others, despite being paid quite well and understanding the material quite well, to break it down to simpler terms for things to be abstracted...

 

These people seem little more than autistic when they cannot find a simpler way to teach people so that abstraction (part of critical thinking) can occur.

 

And quite frankly, it is extremely unlikely that you can engage and interest students in all topics. You will always have some that are good in a certain area, but at best average in others. It is just a matter how much they like a particular subject. But if good students see bad grades (for whatever reasons) they get discouraged.

 

I will agree.

 

It is easier to make an exam that just requires a bit of memorization since it appears to be much fairer than other kinds of evaluation.

I know faculty that tried really engaging lessons, where memorization is insufficient to get by. And guess what the result is? Half of class failed and the student evaluations were abysmal. Since they were not tenured yet, they did not try it again.

 

Then the individual failed to properly understand how to social engineer the students to master the level of material required. Again, the instructors are poor at understanding the cognitive science involved and bringing the critical thinking knowledge out of the students.

 

This leads to the other part that is to blame: faculty. Now for that you have to know that the average faculty has a lot of responsibilities. You have to create lectures/courses, engage in research, lead your own lab, compete successfully for grants and fulfill faculty duties. Realistically there is hardly any time to that. Each hour of lesson requires several of preparation.

 

I will agree. However, there is something to be said about presentations: A good one will never need to be re-written and it can be used over and over again. I find that some of the best instructors do not change their material, especially when the classroom grades are good and in line with what the instructor wants the students to master. If the instructor cannot teach, then the instructor should not teach. As such, the instructor would become little more than a grant writer and bench monkey. There are plenty of other individuals who can be paid indirectly from student tuition and teach at a higher quality.

 

Unless you only have fantastic people in your lab you will spend a lot of time figuring out what went wrong the second you were not watching. Unless you are a micromanager, of course. In that case it is probably your fault that nothing works out. You do not only have to do science, but also lead and mentor your people (if you want your lab to be sustainable, unless you area already established, then you could do whatever). In some cases you have to deal with breakdowns of postdocs and students (yepp, lots of fun). And then you have to worry about money. Constantly. If just one of the things is weak during your tenure-track, you may be denied tenure. This does not mean that your job got less cozy, it means you are out of job and generally have a hard time finding a new one (unless you enjoy competing with fresh hotshots that are a decade younger than you).

 

In addition, many enthusiastic young faculty have been crushed under the combined amount of disinterest and lethargy of an average undergrad course. Under these conditions, it is understandable that most junior faculty prefer to play it safe. And that means providing simple questions with simple answers that do need not or little interpretation.

Does it create the best and brightest? No. Most of us reserve that part of the training (and effort) to those that come into our labs. This is also the reason why grad students see a sudden shift in their learning from undergrad to grad studies.

Just my 2 cents, of course (also subject to change, as always).

 

 

The simple answer is to pay people to be instructors and leave the other science to those who do the science and get the money for it. There are some people who do not mind being instructors, as long as they get eventual tenure.

 

 

ALSO IN THIS THREAD: Critical thinking needs to be defined, which many educators do not do.

 

Oh, yes, there is definitely a way to describe critical thinking. In many ways it involves abstraction from generalizations, which have become memorized. So, duh, you have to memorize something during the course. However, many instructors fail to bring their view of "critical thinking" into a science.

 

For instance, when I was in Organic Chemistry II, I had found ways to generalize various organic chemicals by using "R" rather than other carbon-chain branches. I found in doing so, I was able to simplify various reaction mechanisms. However, the instructor never covered such, despite thinking she was teaching us critical thinking. What a fool. When I had attempted to argue with her about critical thinking, she became extremely annoyed and angered at me. It just shows that there needs to be instructors who are there to teach the material.

 

I can also recall being at my community college as of late to take a class. A student came up to the instructor to ask how to study the material, and the instructor said she wouldn't teach the student how to study. At the instructor saying that, I turned my head. The instructor froze for a moment, because I had noticed she was doing something that she shouldn't be doing as an instructor: Not teaching. I got into it with that instructor, and a bunch of admin-figures started ganging up on me real quick once they noticed I had my bachelors, because I started to point out the problems with my old comm. college to the students. Admins and directors got really ticked.

 

It is true that there are times when all you can do is memorize something in a course, such as a particular bone or name of an organism. However, in chemistry, physics, and math, there are definitely things you can memorize, thus allowing an individual to have generalizations, whereby they can abstract from those generalizations. The trick is in finding what things to have students memorize, thus generalize from in order to abstract. And there is also a reverse engineering process involved, such as retrosynthesis.

 

I think where I ended up messing up in organic chemistry was the workload and the amount of memorization that was required. Furthermore, the exams were of a ridonkulous length. The ability to understand the critical thinking involved was mastered... the memorization of large amounts of material and other chemicals as catalysts, bases, acids, etc. was not. So, in a sense, mastering the course became mastering a large knowledge of the reagents to have already been memorized, and I found that many of the students who did well were working in chem labs already...

 

Excuse any typos or mistakes, as I've been up for over 24 hours.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Genecks