What makes an instructor or class excellent?

[jadairiii]

Just as there are "loser instructors", there are "loser students", I had a cave class with one. This guy came into the class with the opinion "he knew everything", the class was merely a minor "obstacle" to being handed the card. The instructor (and intern) were amazing with their patience toward this student, I would have sent him home on day 2 (and he was a friend of mine). He totally refused to follow the simplest instructions, regardless of how the instructors instructed him to do the procedure, he would do it his way. He failed the class, then was bitter about it.

I also have direct knowledge of an instructor who signed up for a GUE Fundies class. Showed up for day 1 and 2, blew off the rest of the class, then complained to GUE about the instructor because he didn't pass the class.

So they do exist.

 

[boulderjohn]

Just as there are "loser instructors", there are "loser students",

Yes, there are exceptions.

When I was teaching in the mode where students were given physical books and told to complete the work, including the knowledge reviews, before arriving at class, we occasionally had students arrive who admittedly had not even looked at the books. They assumed I was going to teach everything in class anyway, so why bother? That wasn't going to happen, because the design of the class was for me to review the materials, identify confusions and misunderstandings, and amplify the material as needed. I sent them home to do the work that was supposed to have been done so they could start the class anew. I have no idea how many did that, since they would have been assigned to another instructor in the next scheduled class.

They learned this practice in school. I used to show how this work in staff development sessions. The short version of this is that they know that in the teacher's review for the test, the key issues on the test will be covered because the teacher does not want mass failures, so they could get what they needed to know to pass the test from that review.

 

[jadairiii]

Yes, there are exceptions.

That is why I always find statements using the terms "never" or "always" amusing.

The world is a bell curve, there are outliers, the far ends of the curve. Instructors that fail everyone, instructors that pass everyone, awesome students and...not so awesome students. Or I can go back to my days studying calculus and "limits", you can never get to the absolute, but you can get close!

 

[boulderjohn]

The world is a bell curve, there are outliers, the far ends of the curve. Instructors that fail everyone, instructors that pass everyone, awesome students and...not so awesome students

Bell curve thinking is problematic in instruction. The bell curve in theory describes the abilities of the overall general population. Here are some problems applying that thinking to education.

1. You rarely have a class that includes all of the general population. The lowest levels are not represented, and the higher the difficulty level of the class, the more that is true.
2. The curve represents general ability, not achievement. It does not include motivation, effort, etc.
3. It assumes the teacher is 100% ineffective; achievement depends totally upon student ability.
4. As I learned in my education classes, creating a bell curve result on an assessment requires manipulation of the test to create what is actually a false result. Norm-referenced tests that use the bell curve (like the SATs) regularly adjust questions to ensure a bell curve result. That is why it is laughable when people look at SAT results and say student performance has not improved. Those results will never show any real improvement because if students improve overall, the test is changed to keep the mean at about 500, with 3 standard deviations (100 points) above and below.
5. As applied in a classroom, it creates a grade distribution that compares the students to each other rather than to a standard. I remember one very frustrated teacher whose department gave the same final exam. One teacher did not have a single student get what would be normally considered a passing grade, but he curved the scores to that his top students got A's, even though their achievement was below the failing grades of the other teachers in the department.

The ideal of a well taught general education class is a J-curve, with spike at the low end reflecting students who essentially packed it in and didn't try and then showing a sharp rise for the students who responded well to instruction and met the class standards. In classes like scuba, the lower end students are usually not taking the class, so that part of the curve is usually missing.