More on Columbia University’s Report on Educational Quality

My view of Columbia’s teacher college went down even further as I read their report on teachinng quality and course rigor.  I added this comment to the Chronicle of Higher Education.  It points out some serious flaws – so serious that I’m a little shocked.

“I want to add two more observations to what has already been said here.

The researchers asked faculty for participation and got a 31% participation rate.  Doesn’t sound exactly random, nor does it sound exactly representative.

More shocking to me is that the study used the syllabi readings to gauge the “amount of work” and the “amount of reading…(e.g. multiple comlex readings)…”

Once the researcher has seen all the written evaluations (that can easily be found online) that state things like “You don’t even have to do the readings to make an A.”, she might think twice before using the readings alone to conclude anything about learning – or to conclude that “Academically Adrift” is wrong when it comes to how little students are studying, or are leaning “complex” things.”