Apple Apple Pie
My knitting blog is now located at the Needle Exchange!
PostSecret: Science Edition
I’ve been reading about Pathological Science recently, and I think it would be hilarious if there were a version of PostSecret for scientists. It would be things like “I invented 20 participants” or “I told 12 orphans they were stutterers and now they are reclusive 60-year-olds.” Actually, that last one isn’t funny. But the whole idea in general would be scandalous and hilarious, until you realized that these people have destroyed science! It would go on for a few months and then someone would lose their tenure.
Adorable Kitchen Clutter
You know how sometimes you just don’t want to press down the bacon yourself, and you wish you had a cast iron piglet to do it for you? Bacon Press, via BB-Blog.
The Origin of the Samoyed
The Samoyed dog takes its name from the Samoyedic peoples of Siberia. An alternate name for the breed, especially in Europe, is Bjelkier. These nomadic reindeer herders bred the fluffy, white, smiling dogs to help with the herding, to pull sleds when they moved, and to keep their owners warm at night by sleeping on top of them.
This is depressing on 500 levels
‘Entitled’ students expect better grades for effort: study, by Shannon Proudfoot, Monday, November 10, 2008
Most university students believe that if they’re “trying hard,” a professor should reconsider their grade. One-third say that if they attend most of the classes for a course, they deserve at least a B, while almost one-quarter “think poorly” of professors who don’t reply to e-mails the same day they’re sent. Those are among the revelations in a newly published study examining students’ sense of academic entitlement, or the mentality that enrolling in post-secondary education is akin to shopping in a store where the customer is always right.
Ms. Greenberger’s study reveals that students who are academically entitled are more likely to engage in academic cheating, exploit others, shirk hard work and display “narcissistic orientation.”
Technology may encourage some of this demanding student behaviour because e-mail is quick, provides easy access to professors and opens the door to a less formal and respectful tone, Ms. Greenberger says. “In-person communication obliges you to look the person in the eye as you’re about to say, ‘You really ought to give me a B because I came to most of the classes.’” she says. “Try saying that face-to-face.”
The “consumer revolution” has also convinced some students that universities and professors are service providers, [Gil Troy] says. Both he and Ms. Greenberger believe anonymous student course evaluations have fuelled this and left some professors capitulating to student pressure because evaluations can be tied to tenure and advancement. “It’s kind of like, ‘OK, you’ve done your grading of my work, now I’m going to grade you,’” Mr. Troy says. “And it’s often grading you as a performer.”
Facts and figures:
If I have completed most of the reading for a class, I deserve a B in that course — 40.7% agree
If I have attended most of the classes for a course, I deserve at least a grade of B — 34.1% agree
Professors who won’t let me take my exams at another time because of my personal plans (e.g. a vacation) are too strict - 29.9% agree
I would think poorly of a professor who didn’t respond the same day to an e-mail I sent - 23.5% agree
I am the only TA in the course I’m currently TAing, and I have noticed some of these behaviours. I can tell you that it’s not just the profs who are stressed out by this. I feel like if I were to reply to every email the students send me, I would be on email ALL DAY. I have had to send out emails to the students pleading for them to make their own decisions for common sense questions. Do I really need to tell them whether or not they can use Wikipedia as a reference in a university-level course?