tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post2420129005039972435..comments2024-03-18T16:39:23.054-04:00Comments on Chemjobber: Where have you seen 'gatekeeping'? Chemjobberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15932113680515602275noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-75815593771355088812015-07-13T23:22:14.859-04:002015-07-13T23:22:14.859-04:00I have heard of a 50%+ flunk rate in a senior engi...I have heard of a 50%+ flunk rate in a senior engineering capstone course at a R1 university. I sat in on the course on intro day and it was clear to me that the instructor's lack of capacity in the language of instruction was going to be a problem for the students. When the instructor can't even convey meeting times for a course coherently, how can said instructor be expected to be able to discuss STEM topics of some complexity? The course to my certain knowledge ended in a massive number of student complaints (which were covered up). Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-26592516074937630712015-07-13T23:05:11.746-04:002015-07-13T23:05:11.746-04:00Did they act that way to limit the number of preme...Did they act that way to limit the number of premedical students or just to spite them? At my college, many Biology professors explicitly said they will make a class harder just because there are a lot of premed students and they won't write a recommendation letter for a premed student. This is a big reason why I felt I received better education from disciplines outside the sciences.Bum Rap Rhinynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-11974674291251132642015-07-13T23:01:29.604-04:002015-07-13T23:01:29.604-04:00"STEM classes are not just for STEM jobs"..."STEM classes are not just for STEM jobs"<br /><br />Yep, I see lots of non-majors clamoring to take physical chemistry. /sarcasmChemjobberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15932113680515602275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-76263058387013281402015-07-13T22:55:40.952-04:002015-07-13T22:55:40.952-04:00"But as we all know, actually coaxing more of..."But as we all know, actually coaxing more of the public into science fields as a career is maybe not the best idea given the current state of the industry/job market. And then there's the logistics of having bigger upper-level classes as Thoreau pointed out."<br /> <br />So what you're saying is we should weed out students because there are not enough jobs/opportunities in a particular field and because it would make upper-level classes have lower class sizes. That's a terrible reason to weed out students especially at the higher education level. Students should be naturally weeded out based on abilities and self-discipline NOT because you want to teach less students or want less people to pursue a certain career (STEM classes are not just for STEM jobs).Bum Rap Rhinynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-81618614603116489822015-01-07T20:08:19.138-05:002015-01-07T20:08:19.138-05:00In chemistry, I've always gotten the feeling t...In chemistry, I've always gotten the feeling that students weed themselves out. Chemistry has always been a very involved and complicated subject and not everyone has the drive or desire to learn it. I rarely observed professors trying to make exams hard to deliberately "weed out." Usually hard exams were an result of an overly excited exam author trying to design questions that were most interesting to them, or ineptitude or indifference on the professors part. When I was at MIT, I definitely noticed that teaching wasn't a priority for the faculty there and it shows in the low number of chemistry BS awarded each year. My advisor flat out told me that when he was a grad student he was trying to win the "best grad student" award not the "teaching award" and that teaching wasn't important and I should focus on my research. Go figure. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-44105754722590683052015-01-06T15:25:45.741-05:002015-01-06T15:25:45.741-05:00I wonder if the students lawyer father ultimately ...I wonder if the students lawyer father ultimately ended up defending him in subsequent malpractice suits.<br /><br />I like to comment "This was not due to the students inability to learn so much as their inability to do the learning." and wonder if for many people if there should be compulsory military or other services after high school like in some countries to allow maturity and different perspectives growth so when they do go to college and select a major they would be better up to the challenge whether they encounter wee out courses/profs or not Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-72855774697470570852015-01-06T13:13:43.860-05:002015-01-06T13:13:43.860-05:00I had an advisor that told my spouse that she shou...I had an advisor that told my spouse that she should weed out the weaker students because those are the ones who will give you a bad review. "Don't try to save them." In reality, she totally goes out of her way to help students, extending office hours way beyond their scheduled time. Turns out the advisor from Berkeley was correct - they give you bad reviews.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-15789422575572421852015-01-05T16:38:01.694-05:002015-01-05T16:38:01.694-05:00My experience as a grad student at Illinois was th...My experience as a grad student at Illinois was that the main job of both professors and grad students was to do research, and there was little accountability for teaching performance by either profs or TA's. My labmate did not take his TA responsibilities seriously at all - he was in the habit of ending what was supposed to be a 50-minute class after about 15 minutes, and there were no real consequences for him other than a brief scolding when he was caught. I don't think this was unique to Illinois - undergrad teaching is an afterthought at pretty much any big research university. I'm glad I went to a small undergrad where the professors are there because they want to teach, rather than a place where people who would rather not teach are forced to do it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-35021648022358033022015-01-02T23:46:07.755-05:002015-01-02T23:46:07.755-05:00I believe my class of chem majors started with 98 ...I believe my class of chem majors started with 98 or something. 46 or so graduated four years later. Quite a few dropped after freshmen chem, largely due that class or calc. And I graduated in 2014.<br /><br />That being said, lots of kids did it to themselves. People get into a class they find hard, that they could probably do if they worked a bit, then just ditch it. I've seen it in many majors with various classes. They assume they can't do it. There were totally kids who were barking up the wrong tree, but there were kids who probably could learn this stuff and just didn't think so, or didn't want to work. Whoever said you're your own gatekeeper is right.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-76776494419266512652015-01-02T18:22:07.731-05:002015-01-02T18:22:07.731-05:00hah! The Paper Chasehah! The Paper ChaseTiger Chemnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-77966213412454620362014-12-31T13:15:20.523-05:002014-12-31T13:15:20.523-05:00As an undergraduate, I always observed professors ...As an undergraduate, I always observed professors that would bend over backwards for students. Really, they went out of their way to help. That said, as one of the top students who also did research with one of the professors and TA-ed as an undergrad for many others; they commonly understood that many of the courses would cause students to drop thereby creating a natural gatekeeper. Let me be clear, they always wanted the students to do their best but they understood human nature and therefore were not surprised by attrition rates in certain courses. This was not due to the students inability to learn so much as their inability to do the learning.<br /><br />In my first year of graduate school, a very well respected natural products chemist who thoroughly loved teaching undergraduate organic chemistry determined that the course had failed entirely. He had been teaching for 25 years and the class had technically failed. As a first year TA for the classes and labs, I can attest that the class had failed. They were horrible. When the dean said he couldn't fail a whole class, he countered with how can you pass anyone who hasn't learnt the material. The dean said figure it out or we'll do it for you. He countered with I've figured it out and if you change my grades I will never teach another undergraduate course again. He never taught another undergraduate course again. He was well funded though and his research was top notch.<br /><br />The other extreme happened with my graduate advisor. One student in his class wanted to go to medical school and could only muster a C in the class. The student complained to the department chair and the dean, both of whom set down with my professor to see if there was something amiss. After going over everything, they agreed with him up until the point the students lawyer father filed lawsuit paperwork. The student was given an A and the filing was pulled. This was the point that changed my decision to ever go into academia. This was also the point that my graduate advisor quit trying. He kind of said fuck it. <br /><br />Mostly though, students are their own gatekeepers. They don't realize that they need to learn the information, and no amount of fancy classroom BS is ever going to correct for that. It might get a student interested and they will then put in the work; but outside of that it is BS.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-7281956034237117772014-12-31T11:30:10.548-05:002014-12-31T11:30:10.548-05:00I think for every professor that is determined to ...I think for every professor that is determined to weed out students/curve hard/cut down on grade inflation, there is another prof in the same Dept who wants to just set an easy curve to keep the students (quietly) happy & their teaching evaluations scores high. As such, it all averages out...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-65935115234697023292014-12-31T11:03:48.856-05:002014-12-31T11:03:48.856-05:00True, but the weeding process can't be that su...True, but the weeding process can't be that successful, given a significant number of incompetent people still manage to find their way into graduate school. Captaingraphenenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-60455890528617082562014-12-31T09:53:14.310-05:002014-12-31T09:53:14.310-05:00In my big public state school, most of the science...In my big public state school, most of the science majors I come across are pre-meds who need to take Gen Chem & Organic Chem as part of the pre-med requirements. I think that (unofficially) a degree of weeding out does take place to try and discourage the students who can't be trusted to hold a Buchner funnel without breaking it, let alone diagnose a (future) patient. Having TAed and graded many "creative" structural & mechanistic exam answers, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the concept of weeding out students for that purpose.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-23583419289587931032014-12-31T09:17:29.429-05:002014-12-31T09:17:29.429-05:00I had the privilege of earning my doctorate from U... I had the privilege of earning my doctorate from UC Davis, and thus had the... erm... privilege of TAing there as well. I am originally not from California, and the diversity of backgrounds you see there was truly amazing to me. A large portion of the students are commuters; many of the students attended a JuCo beforehand; and an even larger portion of the students (in the first year chem classes) are in their first few months of being in the US. On top of that, UC Davis is attended by many high-achieving students who are in the exact same entry-level class as those mentioned previously. (There is a honors chem class, but it is so small in comparison to the total number of students enrolled in entry level chemistry that you almost forget it exists) There are typically around 3500 students at any one time taking entry level chemistry at UCD, so making exceptions for a few students isn't really a luxury that we were afforded. We had draconian rules because it was simply the only way to maintain order with that many students. I never saw the purpose of the system to weed out students, I saw it as a way to bring some sort of structure to a class that, due to the number of students enrolled and the varying ability of the instructors, was chaotic at best. (edited and copied from my post on Just Like Cooking)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-9681286496414015912014-12-30T20:38:26.120-05:002014-12-30T20:38:26.120-05:00I recall at the big state university that I attend...I recall at the big state university that I attended 30+ years ago that certain freshman/sophomore courses were of the 'weed out' variety, though I don't believe the instructors/professors ever uttered those exact words in class. Certainly it was common knowledge that some percentage of students (20%? 30%?) wouldn't pass these classes. It wasn't just chemistry; it was calculus, physics and biology, too.<br />I suspect that the university medical school and engineering school counted on these introductory courses to do some culling, particularly to screen out the students who just aren't cut out for studying scientific subjects, whatever the reasons might be, be they difficulty comprehending information, or difficulty concentrating, or being motivated to get to class on time.<br />I don't recall the chemistry department really wanting to flunk out students; in fact they seemed to want as many chemistry majors as possible. It's just that at my university, 90+% of the students in freshman or sophomore chemistry classes were either pre-med, or pre-pharmacy, or engineering students. Only a small minority were aiming to be chemists. Even most chemistry majors were pre-med, IIRC.<br />Interestingly, I was motivated by the 'weed out' mentality to work hard in these classes, since I was determined not be one of the culled. Also, at that time I didn't feel that this was an unfair policy, since it was also clear that if a person worked hard, they could do well.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-81656662151753680502014-12-30T17:12:37.512-05:002014-12-30T17:12:37.512-05:00I concur with the "not following instructions...I concur with the "not following instructions" issue. Labs especially are generally passable if you follow instructions. Those who do not pass are not paying attention, unprepared, and not starting things early enough. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-22305738679269044282014-12-30T16:17:54.751-05:002014-12-30T16:17:54.751-05:00Surely there are other places on the internet to h...Surely there are other places on the internet to have this kind of (non)-discussion. Chemjobberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15932113680515602275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-21048437687408854152014-12-30T16:14:13.615-05:002014-12-30T16:14:13.615-05:00@Anonymous 3:32: I'm pretty offended that you...@Anonymous 3:32: I'm pretty offended that you're unwilling to say anything negative about any female, but you have no problem saying negative things about men, and will in fact change the details of a negative story so that it sounds like it is referring to a man. If there is to be equality among all people, why can't we accept that positive and negative things can be said about any person regardless of their gender? The original poster was referring to firsthand anecdotes, not making gender-based generalizations.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-55280722432306373982014-12-30T15:58:00.595-05:002014-12-30T15:58:00.595-05:00@Anonymous December 30, 2014 at 3:32 PM "I e...@Anonymous December 30, 2014 at 3:32 PM "I either avoid mentioning the gender of the problem student/colleague/etc. or use a generic masculine."<br /><br />Why not go one step further and deny the problem exists at all? Captaingraphenenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-76681312427294425232014-12-30T15:54:49.964-05:002014-12-30T15:54:49.964-05:00A lot of introductory courses grade on a curve (ba...A lot of introductory courses grade on a curve (based on mean & standard deviation). I've heard instructors claim that this is so it evens out if they make the test too hard, or evens out differences in instructors for the same course. Others do it so they can make the test ridiculously hard to scare students, because scaring students "will make them work harder to succeed". No matter the class average in terms of %, it is a C so tests can be way harder than what is actually expected of students. <br /><br />In my opinion though, grading on a curve also has problems. For one, it assumes that student demographics are the same each term. A high performing student in a class of low performing peers will appear to be a better student than the same high performing student in a class of high performing peers. The class average for low-performing students might be lower based on %, but on a curve, the letter grade assigned to the mean grade would still be the same. Additionally, grading on a curve assures that the bottom performers will fail the course, regardless of their performance on an absolute scale. Believe it or not, some departments have grading policies that ensure the bottom x% of students receive F grades. I have explicitly heard from faculty that giving out "F" grades is doing them a favor, because it prevents them from moving forward. The faculty rarely turns the mirror on themselves to ask "What could I do differently in my teaching to encourage students to work hard, learn more, and pass according to the expectations I have?"<br /><br />Scaring students by telling them things like "The bottom 10% will fail", or "a third of you will drop this class", etc may be motivation for some, but it can make others just give up from the beginning. Motivation is tricky. If you really want to reduce failure rates, it's better to say things like "Your grade is based on the quality of work you submit." "Your exams demonstrate to me how well you understand the material you're expected to have learned", "Nobody has to fail". Set standards & if students meet those standards then they pass, if they don't they fail. If they fail, they need to take responsibility for that grade. They shouldn't be able to place the blame on the instructor, and if the instructor has been encouraging and helpful, it's much harder to place the blame on them.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-87791802788975254902014-12-30T15:44:09.406-05:002014-12-30T15:44:09.406-05:00Recalling undergrad, there were large differences ...Recalling undergrad, there were large differences between departments at my institution (a mid-size public university). <br /><br />General chemistry courses weren't particularly challenging, but increased in difficulty as one went along. Organic probably serving as a "weeding out," phase - though this was never explicitly stated and, if you were willing to put in a reasonable amount of work, wasn't terribly difficult. After the organic courses (inorganic, physical, etc.) the difficulty of the course depended entirely on who taught it (an experience that also held true for graduate school).<br /><br />In contrast the biology department at my undergraduate institution clearly used introductory courses to gatekeep, and after that point the courses were incredibly (shockingly so, in my opinion) easy. Introductory biology was nearly impossible to get a good grade in unless one spent an inordinate amount of time studying - and this was due almost entirely to how the exams were written and administered. This was true of several professors though, and even over the course of a few years - which is why I say that it was likely an unwritten policy of the department. The exams were patterned to weed out students based on, apparently, eidetic memory or ridiculous amount of time studying (e.g. whether or not you were able to recall, on test day, a specific counter-example to a general rule exactly as stated in the textbook). After those courses though, it was difficult - without studying much at all - not to do well in a course on, for example, genetics.<br /><br />I do wonder if part of the reason for this was the large medical school attached to the university - there were a LOT of "pre-med," students. For those students, biology was often perceived as the "easier," major than chemistry (neuroscience was also popular amongst freshmen), resulting in a ton of freshmen taking biology courses who really weren't that interested in biology itself. <br /><br />Not sure that gatekeeping is necessarily a bad thing - and it's definitely necessary to some extent. But it can also go too far (a ~30% attrition rate in an introductory biology course).<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-20521173890106217432014-12-30T15:32:17.732-05:002014-12-30T15:32:17.732-05:00Exchanges like this are why, in my negative anecdo...Exchanges like this are why, in my negative anecdotes, I either avoid mentioning the gender of the problem student/colleague/etc. or use a generic masculine. For all of the problems with generic masculine language, using masculine pronouns for problem students won't lead to the detour we're seeing here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-62373611818862201282014-12-30T15:23:25.126-05:002014-12-30T15:23:25.126-05:00Sounds like specific anecdotes about people who in...Sounds like specific anecdotes about people who in this case happened to be female. Why is there anything wrong with telling those anecdotes? When speaking English and talking about specific people, it is a standard practice to use gendered pronouns.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964719845369935777.post-49100500775355691212014-12-30T15:09:10.498-05:002014-12-30T15:09:10.498-05:00it says "i have personally heard" and th...it says "i have personally heard" and then uses quotation marks. Perhaps the comments were about a women, thus the pronoun. Now if you want to debate the original maker of the statement(s) as being sexist go at it, but are you honestly arguing the person writing the comment should have de-gendered them?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com