A 'Moneyball' Approach to College(chronicle.com)
chronicle.com
A 'Moneyball' Approach to College
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Moneyball-Approach-to/130062/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
5 comments
I'm not sure you read the whole thing, because I did not get that vibe at all.
I see them trying two different things: using data in class to get the students to engage with and learn from each other; and using data in aggregate to predict how well students will do.
I don't see how your objection applies to getting students to engage with each other, so I'm going to skip it. I think you're objecting to the second thing. But I don't see it as "it's our fault the students are failing," I see it as "this student is in danger of failing, so we should help them." Blame is irrelevant. In small courses, professors already know who is in danger of not doing well. I think they're targeting larger class sizes where the professor is unable to look at a student and immediately recall their past performance.
You're correct that an unmotivated student will not learn. But even motivated students need help sometimes. Some students have not yet learned how to learn.
I see them trying two different things: using data in class to get the students to engage with and learn from each other; and using data in aggregate to predict how well students will do.
I don't see how your objection applies to getting students to engage with each other, so I'm going to skip it. I think you're objecting to the second thing. But I don't see it as "it's our fault the students are failing," I see it as "this student is in danger of failing, so we should help them." Blame is irrelevant. In small courses, professors already know who is in danger of not doing well. I think they're targeting larger class sizes where the professor is unable to look at a student and immediately recall their past performance.
You're correct that an unmotivated student will not learn. But even motivated students need help sometimes. Some students have not yet learned how to learn.
I suppose the core of my objection is the focus on technology being the solution to the problem of students not learning. It feels like it is really easy to fall into the trap of "Students who clicked 5 times instead of 4 when navigating to the back button were found to have performed marginally better within the 5th percentile, but significantly better overall."
The tools are all there and I agree that some good will come out of it. But without a motivation to learn something, I don't see these technologies as being a solution. More of an amplifier of a solution than anything else. Start ups focused around creating technology to measure students seem like a good way to make the above "quadruple click back button for success" scenario play out somehow.
The tools are all there and I agree that some good will come out of it. But without a motivation to learn something, I don't see these technologies as being a solution. More of an amplifier of a solution than anything else. Start ups focused around creating technology to measure students seem like a good way to make the above "quadruple click back button for success" scenario play out somehow.
Look at it this way: colleges can't control a student's internal motivation. But they can control how they structure class time, and how they intervene with troubled students. So they're focusing on what they can control instead of what they can't.
Although, I think that well-timed intervention can help students with motivation problems. Students tend to lose motivation when they're struggling and don't know how to improve.
Although, I think that well-timed intervention can help students with motivation problems. Students tend to lose motivation when they're struggling and don't know how to improve.
Very true. Much is already known about the rites/rituals/practices of successful students. It is a matter of giving timely feedback to encourage students to stay on course.
Ah, I was hoping that this article would be talking about ways for students to choose colleges more optimally. :(
Probably not exactly what you're looking for but there are some "long term pay off" rankings that are updated every now and then. The most recent I could find was from smartmoney.com with story at http://www.smartmoney.com/borrow/student-loans/colleges-that... and a(n annoying multipage) slide show with the top 5 in each category, Public, Private, Lib Arts, is here http://www.smartmoney.com/borrow/student-loans/colleges-that...
Of course more variables would be needed and how to weigh them would be different for each student, but from a Moneyball approach payback would probably be one of the strongest factors.
Of course more variables would be needed and how to weigh them would be different for each student, but from a Moneyball approach payback would probably be one of the strongest factors.
I think a bigger problem is that there should be more standardized transparency in selecting a major: there should be data on failure rates based on high school gpa levels, salary information, % of jobs that were directly related to the field of study - all in the hopes to empower students to make more informed decisions
But can you change a student's trajectory? The college has experimented with various intervention strategies, so far with mixed results. For example, early data showed students in general-education courses who log in on Day 1 of class succeed 21 percent more often than those who don't. So Rio Salado blasted welcome e-mails to students the night before courses began, encouraging them to log in.
That sounds dubious -- she's taking an indicator of class engagement, and hoping to improve class engagement by changing it. But hey, you never know what may help people. She should send out those emails to half the class, with the other half as a control group.
That sounds dubious -- she's taking an indicator of class engagement, and hoping to improve class engagement by changing it. But hey, you never know what may help people. She should send out those emails to half the class, with the other half as a control group.
As an online education teacher, I have noticed that classes with different age groups perform better. I have no way of influencing this outcome however.
If the students don't want to learn something, they aren't going to learn it. Period. They might cram for a test so they won't piss of their parents by seemingly pissing away their money, but that doesn't mean they will have actually gained anything from the classroom experience.