Skip to main content

Grade Inflation Strikes Louisiana

According to this post on USA Today, biology professor Dominique Homberger was removed from her courses mid-semester for grading too strictly. Homberger has taught at LSU for 30 years, is a full-professor, and has never received warnings or any other sort of intervention from the administration in the past. University's publish no guidelines on how many students should pass (or fail) a course in a given semester, nor are there established baselines for how much a passing student should learn. We rely on academic freedom and peer review: she has the freedom to set standards and devise methods; her peers are charged with reviewing her performance at various intervals (tenure, promotion, raises, etc.). This intervention by LSU administration undermines academic freedom and also undercuts the value of peer review.

Personally, I am opposed to instructional styles that fail to challenge students and I am also opposed to challenging students through trickery. Our task is to promote learning and to make knowledge available. As far as I can tell, with only the information provided in this article, Homberger was successful at those tasks.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Linen shirts for menJuly 31, 2012 at 1:19 AM

    That is exactly what I am lookng for!You have done a brilliant job. Your
    article is truly relevant to my study at this moment, and I am really
    happy to read it.Thanks for great share

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Internship Skills: Difficult Scenarios and Difficult People

Internship Skills: Difficult Scenarios and Difficult People For this exercise, we will take a look at difficult situations that can arise at work. --> Learning Objectives 1.      Pinpointing Your Triggers 2.      Recognize How Culture and Personality Influence Your Reactions 3.      Implement Healthy Conflict Resolution Strategies 4.      De-escalate Volatile Situations Pinpoint Your Triggers Discussion: What do you think your personal triggers are? What kinds of interactions have pushed your buttons in the past? Culture     Discussion: Where have you encountered cultural differences and conflicts in the past? What did you learn from them? Gender   Discussion: Where have you confronted gender differences in the past? How have you confronted them? Personality Discussion: Which personality type/s a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Temple Email Basics

This post really just applies to folks at Temple University. As a Temple student, your initial email address may be set up as a random series of letters and numbers, such as TUR93847@temple.edu. That makes it hard for recipients to know who they are receiving emails from. Here are three easy steps to make your emails easy to identify! 1. In your email, click on the settings option. Then choose the option "Accounts." Then, under "Send Email as," click on "edit info." If your account is linked to multiple addresses, be sure to choose the correct address. Finally, enter your name and click on "save changes." 2. Still in the settings, click on "General." Scroll down to "Signature." Fill in a signature that includes your first and last name. You can also add other contact information such as an email address, business phone, or social media handles. Click on the box at the bottom that reads "Insert ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Teaching Tools

I've added two new teaching tools to my regime this semester. 1. Skitch . Skitch is both a desktop application that lets you capture images easily, and a website that allows for easy image sharing . I'll use it this semester to capture images that we can discuss in class, and to take pictures of the blackboard at the end of class (to capture interesting brainstorming sessions). I can upload the pic via email, straight from my phone, and the students will have access right away. I can use the image capture software to circle parts of the reading, charts, graphs, etc. and bring those to the surface for discussion. 2. Slideshare . This program allows you to upload PowerPoint presentations to the Web. I uploaded all of my slides for the semester to one page where they can be accessed from any computer. It allows me to worry less about carrying the slides on a USB drive or having to upload them to the course Blackboard page, which sometimes doesn't open. It also makes fo...
4 comments
Read more