Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

inspired by the 'is this fair post?' i was wondering what you all considered to be some horrible mistakes made by your professors in class. it doesn't have to be about grading.


my example is very similar to the 'is this fair post?'


My sophmore year my ethics professor wanted to have an extra credit assignment. the median grade in the class was something like 50 so this extra credit assignment wasn't really optional since the class had no curve. it was supposed to be a way to shift all the grades up a few % points so that the class got a decent grade distribution.


this is how the extra credit assignment was to be scored. the amount of extra credit available to each individual was:

(100-MINtestscore%)/2

so if your lowest test score was a 20% and you got a 90% on your extra credit that was equal to 36 points of extra credit ((100-20)/2 * .9).

this however wasn't exactly a very good method from a 'fairness' perspective. this is because it didn't give people who had lower averages the chance at more extra credit (his obvious intention) it gave students who bombed one test a chance at more points.

basically, the test taker with the higher variance was favored. if you still don't get it, two people could have a 75% in the class (which was actually higher than the highest grade in that class) and have a different amount of extra credit available. or even more drastically, someone could have 75% in the class and have more available to him than someone who currently had a 65%. and the only reason why the 75% guy has more extra credit available to him is because he is LESS consistent. which i couldn't see why a grader would want that build into his class.

Re: Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

the principal of my town's high school walked in on one of the shop teachers doing a 10th grader.

Re: Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

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the principal of my town's high school walked in on one of the shop teachers doing a 10th grader.

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sure beats my story.

Re: Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

This post, and a lot of the college related posts I see, seems pretty stupid. You go to college to earn good grades and learn things. If you're doing this, you'll place high in your class and have a chance to meet your goals. If you aren't, you'll find something to complain about instead of improving yourself. That's more or less college in a nutshell these days.

NT

Re: Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

One professor make a mistake when she expected me to do an assignment on the first night. Not a stupid ‘whats your favorite tv show’ or ‘why are you taking this class’ assignment either. I dropped that class like it was hot.

Re: Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

Worst mistake made by professors? How about not learning to speak english correctly? My most horrid classes were with foreign born profs with thick accents and/or an inability to project there voices.

Re: Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

How about art professor slicing finger off in paper cutter? Oops.

Re: Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

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Worst mistake made by professors? How about not learning to speak english correctly? My most horrid classes were with foreign born profs with thick accents and/or an inability to project there voices.

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Sorry, I just had to point this out. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

I don't think it's productive to agonize over or debate a prof's grading prolicy. It's like when playing a certain game that I won't mention: To be a good player, you have to adapt your playing style based on the texture of your tablee. You have to take the professor's grading style, and adapt to it.For instance, You might do the math and determine that throwing an exam can give you a higher expected grade for the course because it qualifies you for extra credit.

Re: Worst mistakes made by the professor in the classroom.
 

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Worst mistake made by professors? How about not learning to speak english correctly? My most horrid classes were with foreign born profs with thick accents and/or an inability to project there voices.

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on topic and a pretty good zing. i am assuming you are talking about how the thread title is worded pretty awkwardly. i have a bad habit of doing that. i think i have this problem where i just skim what i am reading/typing and frequently make those type of errors. i am pretty sure i am not dyslexic since i don't have any problem with math(its my field) as most dyslexics do.

anyway, i make a lot of typos on 2+2 since i am rarely not doing something else also when i post.


in reference to your OP. non native speakers can be really tough. i think if you are a physics or math major you get used to it pretty fast since you are exposed to a lot of foriegn professors and grad students early. depending on what school you go to of course, you could probably have more non fluent speakers than fluent speakers in your undergraduate physics career at some schools.

edit: maybe you didn't intend a zing now that i think about it. maybe i am just to self conscious about my grammar :S