May I have a quick rant please?

[Cycling Naturalist]

there is a distinction made between formative and summative assessment. I'm referring to summative.

Empirical summative or iterative summative?

 

[Canrider]

Dammit, not now, I'm grading papers!

 

[SamNichols]

Maybe she meant pre-Hastings?

I'm not sure that those marginal comments ever got back to your students, unless you handed them back in person. Ah, just remembered: there is a distinction made between formative and summative assessment. I'm referring to summative.

This would be another bugbear of mine: The assignment that doesn't affect your grade in any way, shape or form, provided you do it.

I remember those:
"Right this isn't formal, so you don't need to do it, but ou have to do it, as if you don't then you can't get your degree."
My Professor used to hate all that jazz, and if it wasn't handed in, then he just ticked submitted anyway. I mean, if it doesn't count, then why should it count?

Obviously, since I was an undergrad things have changed - as a postgrad I now have to do a 'reflective learning journal':
"What's that?"
"It's whatever you want it to be"
"Then how is it graded?"
"By how good it is..."
"Surely it's as good as I want it to be"
"No..."

Crazy. Those feedback sheets are ridiculous - students do the work, so the university keeps it on file:
"Can't we have it back?"
"No, we need it on file"
"Will you ever look it again."
"Probably not."
"So why do you need it on file, and can't you just keep a photocopy of it?"
"No, we need the original..."
"Why?"
"No idea..."
And - now a new rule: We have to hand in 2 paper copies and an electronic copy. Why on Earth do they need three copies, and why do we need to pay to print it out twice, when they have an electronic copy? Can't we give in one and the electronic copy, and they print out the other one? Or even, god forbid, they could photocopy the original. Or, we could just hand it in electronically and save the money for printing (5p a sheet on campus). I love the academic life, but not the bureaucratic hoops that go with it.

And finally, a recent email stated that I could pick up the reading for a visiting professor's seminar next week - it stated pick up Friday. The random secretary (I say 'random' as they don't do anything, they just get paid to sit there and wait for students to come and see them - the school secretary is too busy to talk to anyone at all) then entered into the following conversation:
"Can i pick up the reading for the interdisciplinary master class please?"
"You can pick it up tomorrow afternoon"
"We were emailed by the school secretary to say pick it up from last Friday"
"Perhaps they meant tomorrow"
"No, tomorrow is thursday, and it was last week, why would they say from Friday, when they mean next Thursday?"
"I don't know..."

The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing, and to be honest the left hand doesn't care.

 

[wafflycat]

This might be something new, or it might be something peculiar to the Northern Isles. From personal experience, at both York and Uppsala I always got my essays back with marginalia and corrections from whoever had marked them - sometimes with a feedback form as well!

Aye, same here and I've never studied at either of those, but certainly it's what I found in Newcastle & more recently, at the UEA in Norwich. Indeed when handing in work, it had to be set out on the page to leave enough space for the marker to make comments as he/she wished - and there was always a feedback form. Oh and yes - same with OU course I did.

 

[Arch]

Maybe she meant pre-Hastings?

I'm not sure that those marginal comments ever got back to your students, unless you handed them back in person. Ah, just remembered: there is a distinction made between formative and summative assessment. I'm referring to summative.

This would be another bugbear of mine: The assignment that doesn't affect your grade in any way, shape or form, provided you do it.

Ah, yes well, they've never let me loose on anything but formative. Thank god, I agonise enough over those.

I can see the point of formative stuff. Otherwise, all you ever do is do stuff in order to pass exams. Formative stuff lets you learn from your mistakes (assuming you take the trouble to learn from them of course.) Which is why the feedback matters.

I'd just like to say, we have the best admin staff here at York. They all manage to know us all, and are really nice people as well... I've never been made to feel I'm jumping through hoops for them (higher authorities perhaps, but never the Department staff).

 

[Kirstie]

We'd be stuffed without our administrators and academic related staff. They don't sit about all day - they do all kinds of stuff relating to committees and decision making. It always makes me laugh when you get these egotistical legend in your own mind style academics who think they can treat the administrators like crap. Pretty much the only way you can get anything done in a university is get an administrator on your side because they know how the system works and can pull strings for you.

btw Sam they should have given you some parameters for your reflective journal particularly if they're going to assess it.

 

[SamNichols]

We'd be stuffed without our administrators and academic related staff. They don't sit about all day - they do all kinds of stuff relating to committees and decision making. It always makes me laugh when you get these egotistical legend in your own mind style academics who think they can treat the administrators like crap. Pretty much the only way you can get anything done in a university is get an administrator on your side because they know how the system works and can pull strings for you.

btw Sam they should have given you some parameters for your reflective journal particularly if they're going to assess it.

I don't believe that they can be treated like crap. But, to most in universities (both academics and administrative staff), they don't seem to understand that good communication is key between the two groups. Relationships break down between the two groups because of a lack of communication. I don't mind the bureaucratic hoops too much, they are the unfortunate reality of modern academic life but, if we have to go through them all the time, then plase communicate properly why we need to do them. I have just been through the mill at a university where there is a regular changeover at the top end of the administrative staff - they bring in new parameters so fast that noone can find their feet, and nobody knows why anyone is doing anything anymore. The examples I gave earlier are extreme - the reading thing was an example of someone blatantly miscommunicating; the handing in example is to show an example of when nobody knows particularly for what reason a bureaucratic hoop is there for (random plagiarism checks, I suppose, in the example of the electronic hand in); the learning journal thing is too ridiculous to even start - I have literally know idea what it's there for and what I'm meant to be doing with it: our programme leader, who thought of the bloody thing doesn't know what it's there for.
The problem with bureaucracy is that it eventually becomes a self-sustaining reality: we think up processes for reasons known to the people on top, they don't communicate it to the staff properly, the staff follow it through but don't know why, and then the senior management changes, someone asks: 'why is this being done', people say: 'who knows?', new procedure comes in and it all starts again.
My problem isn't with academic related staff, I absolutely adore them - it's with the academic climate in relation to bureaucracy and the senior management: we, as a sector, regularly get senior managers from the private sector now - none of whom understand academic life and bring in new procedures for whatever reason that get people riled.

 

[Kirstie]

Yes that's all sounding very familiar.
The problem with many universities is that they are chronically underfunded, everyone is stretched to the limit, nobody is really accountable and so they hide behind and blame the bureaucracy. Generally speaking academics aren't managers and aren't particularly practical (there are some notable exceptions), and so organization (hence communication) normally isn't their strong point. Also, the administrators are trying to deal with multiple students and courses and so they can get confused. The start of term is a terrible time for everyone who is on university staff so that's another reason why there's disorganization: everyone is just overwhelmed. I don't work on a term system at the OU but all of my external colleagues do and everyone goes very quiet at this time of year because of the pressure.

However not being able to explain the purpose and function of a learning activity (such as your journal) is absolutely unforgiveable. The course leader probably read somewhere that one of these is 'A Good Thing' but never thought it through properly. I agree that is thoroughly crap and unprofessional and can understand why you're pissed off about it.

PS An added bonus of being a lecturer at this time of year, particularly if you have giant undergrad courses of 200+, is that every time you go in a classroom with the little darlings, they breathe all their germs all over you. So for the first 5 weeks of term you are struggling with some digusting hybrid cold/flu infection from the far corners of the globe. The upside of this is that after a few years you have the immune system of an ox.

 

[Tetedelacourse]

Yes that's all sounding very familiar.
The problem with many universities is that they are chronically underfunded, everyone is stretched to the limit, nobody is really accountable and so they hide behind and blame the bureaucracy. Generally speaking academics aren't managers and aren't particularly practical (there are some notable exceptions), and so organization (hence communication) normally isn't their strong point. Also, the administrators are trying to deal with multiple students and courses and so they can get confused. The start of term is a terrible time for everyone who is on university staff so that's another reason why there's disorganization: everyone is just overwhelmed. I don't work on a term system at the OU but all of my external colleagues do and everyone goes very quiet at this time of year because of the pressure.

However not being able to explain the purpose and function of a learning activity (such as your journal) is absolutely unforgiveable. The course leader probably read somewhere that one of these is 'A Good Thing' but never thought it through properly. I agree that is thoroughly crap and unprofessional and can understand why you're pissed off about it.

PS An added bonus of being a lecturer at this time of year, particularly if you have giant undergrad courses of 200+, is that every time you go in a classroom with the little darlings, they breathe all their germs all over you. So for the first 5 weeks of term you are struggling with some digusting hybrid cold/flu infection from the far corners of the globe. The upside of this is that after a few years you have the immune system of an ox.[/QUOTE]

Not a brilliant year for you then.

 

[andy_wrx]

The upside of this is that after a few years you have the immune system of an ox.

The downside of that is developing bluetongue or foot-and-mouth

 

[Tetedelacourse]

Oi Brown stop stealing other folks' ideas!

 

[Kirstie]

Despite being a very competent (and qualified) university teacher I absolutely loathe classroom teaching which is why I now work at the open university. Because of govt policy regarding student numbers, particularly in business subjects I teach, class sizes have grown exponentially with no subsequent investment in support for teaching staff. Frequently it's about crowd control, not teaching - I watched the quality of my interaction with the students decline massively as class size increased. It's not proper teaching IMO.

At least at the OU students want to be there and our staff/student ratio is something like 1:12 as opposed to 1:60 or higher. You can actually teach them properly and design meaningful activities for them to ensure they really learn, which is far more satisfying.

And I avoid the germs too...

 

[Canrider]

the learning journal thing is too ridiculous to even start - I have literally know idea what it's there for and what I'm meant to be doing with it: our programme leader, who thought of the bloody thing doesn't know what it's there for.

Well, that *is* unfortunate. The usual point of keeping a reflective journal is to make the process of 'learning from your mistakes' more concrete. Essentially people always do reflect on their behaviour, their work, etc. in an ad hoc manner, as a matter of course. The reason for keeping a journal of these reflections is to make the process of reflecting and revisiting choices and decisions you've made in the past and their effects on your learning process more salient in your mind.

Yes, it's entirely possible we may do something similar.

 

[simon l& and a half]

Err... anti-American sentiment isn't racist - it's xenophobic. American isn't a race, you can be a black American, a jewish American. They're not showing a dislike of Americans because of race, but because of nationality. It can also be described as jingoism, but not racism.

think again. The original post made the point that the person was American. In response a number of people then gave us the benefit of their insight into 'Americans'. That is a response born of prejudice. And prejudice against (or, perhaps, for) a group of people on the grounds of some defining characteristic which is independent of their individual opinions, behaviour and such like is racism. Don't give me the little game which says that you can't be racist in respect of the French, Sikhs, Jews or whatever because they're not defined by the colour of their skin and the shape of their nose.

 

[SamNichols]

think again. The original post made the point that the person was American. In response a number of people then gave us the benefit of their insight into 'Americans'. That is a response born of prejudice. And prejudice against (or, perhaps, for) a group of people on the grounds of some defining characteristic which is independent of their individual opinions, behaviour and such like is racism. Don't give me the little game which says that you can't be racist in respect of the French, Sikhs, Jews or whatever because they're not defined by the colour of their skin and the shape of their nose.

Is race to you a biological concept, or a socially built one? Either way, 'America' is a nationality, not a race. We could of course say it's jingoism as opposed to xenophobia, but the defining characteristic that people are choosing here is nationality. Either way, I don't agree with the sentiment being stated, but it's certainly not racism. I am 1/4 French, and a great deal of my family are French - anti-French sentiment is far more common in this country than anti-American sentiment, but it's not racist. In fact, it's nigh on impossible to state that America is racially based, just as it is in French culture, as the ethnographic data would have multiple groupings for 'race'.

It's more terminological than anything else, as building prejudice in any way is deeply divisive to society as a whole, but it's important that we use terminology correctly - not to do so, however salient your point is, undermines it in the eyes of all readers. I am currently disturbed by the way that the terminology 'porn' is used in the media, particularly around the visual arts - as in 'Torture porn' in relation to horror movies and the new one 'autopsy porn' in relation to silent witness (as seen in today's Guardian).