Should students profit off my classes?

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2012/02/should-students-profit-off-my-classes.html

by cwan • 14 years ago

36 64 14 years ago

I think the professor's idea is actually a fantastic solution to the problem (i.e. find the mistakes in the available note sets and write the tests accordingly). I can't really see an ethical basis for banning note-sharing (after all, if the class is worth anything, they should be teaching you facts).

kahawe4• 14 years ago

> find the mistakes in the available note sets and write the tests accordingly

Really great... instead of focusing on enabling students and focusing on teaching them the really important fundamentals and making sure they understood those through exams, let's just frakk with them in a really petty way (likely by musing over petty small technicalities) and put them in their place, helpless little pups that they are!

corin_2• 14 years ago

Exams are about testing what the students have learned, not about teaching them. This sounds like a great way to sort the students who actually decided to learn something from the students you preferred to memorise some notes they bought rather than learning the subject matter.

bradleyjg• 14 years ago

The professor in question is a law professor, specifically he deals with securities law.

Nitpicky detail are what that area of law is all about! A newly minted securities lawyer will spend his first few years proofing corporate filings (e.g. an offering document) for the tiniest of mistakes, some of which could cost the client millions of dollars if not found.

While it might not be the greatest tactic for professors in general, it is a great idea for this particular professor.

brador2• 14 years ago

Does the university a professor went to then also have a case against the professor "selling" what he learnt by teaching others? How far up the chain do we go?

kahawe4• 14 years ago

Flame-y tone aside, I cannot help but feel exactly like this:

> Zounds, Herr Professor Doktor, you seem to be setting a new level of pettiness and arrogance. You don't seem to object to your getting a doubtless hefty paycheck resting on huge tuition rates, nor do I recall any quibbles from you to the costs of textbooks. Gods forbid that any student earn a few bucks from his diligent note-taking!

What I do with MY notes should be nothing but MY business, as simple as that. We are talking university here, people. Students should be MORE than old enough to be able to decide for themselves which way of learning works best for them. I do not need some facetious, bored prof patronizing me on how I want to study and ultimately pass the exams.

> campuses are taking new steps to limit what students can do with their class notes

And this is completely beyond me as well. Even if I could obtain exact 1:1 replicas of all slides used in each lecture plus thorough notes, I still do not get a degree from whatever university they came from and keep in mind that a lot of the HUGE names are releasing course material for free anyway.

This whole thing just seems really petty. And don't forget, some students learn a lot better by listening, others learn better by writing it down and others learn best researching on their own and taking thorough, well-structured notes can be a difficult job if you want to follow class and discussions equally well at the same time. Why shouldn't you allow both of those learning types to benefit? Don't we want our students to actually become team-players and independent, autonomous?

davidu2• 14 years ago

Maybe I read a different blog post. In my reading, I am pretty sure the professor agrees with you.

kahawe4• 14 years ago

Up to the point where he reveals that...

> And then I'll write exam questions testing on those very same mistakes. If we all did that, the market would dry up pretty quick.

...he actually DOES oppose it obviously and wants to stop it.

freehunter• 14 years ago

>keep in mind that a lot of the HUGE names are releasing course material for free anyway.

One of my professors this semester refuses to provide his slides on Blackboard. When someone asked him why, he said he didn't want people stealing them and handing them out to people who did not come to class. Basically, if you want the slides, you have to be in class for that day and take notes. He proceeded to make the person feel bad for wanting to take the teacher's "hard work".

What he didn't mention is that McGraw-Hill provides them on their website for every student enrolled anyway, and "his" slides came on a DVD from the teacher's edition of the textbook.

rflrob• 14 years ago

>>You don't seem to object to your getting a doubtless hefty paycheck resting on huge tuition rates

I disagree with this assertion that his paycheck is particularly hefty. Professor Bainbridge earned $263k in 2008 (I can't seem to get sites with newer data to work)[1]. Could a highly trained lawyer focusing on the public corporation law be earning more or less than that on the job market? I don't disagree that he's quite well off, but if money was his primary focus, he could be in a much, much better financial position.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/06/05/...

patio114• 14 years ago

If there is a "hacker mentality", teachers tend to have the opposite of that: given a maze and a cheese, any route to the cheese more efficient than the one the teacher suggests is morally suspect. I've had more than one discussion that devolved into "The journey to the cheese is the real reward!" said by someone who was essentially fetishizing the particular contours of the maze rather than the journey.

(More broadly I think most conceptions of education where "Hide the knowledge from the students" is an acceptable operating principle are probably borked. Exceptions to be awarded if you're teaching nuclear engineering or Charms and skipping ahead a few chapters can result in the lab vanishing in a fireball.)

There is, for example, a well-trodden path in elementary schools of assigning "busywork", which is essentially a classroom management technique whereby you purposely assign work which has zero or negative marginal educational value such that your faster students do not run out of things to do before the class period ends, so that you can focus your efforts on slower students or class discipline problems. I remember a few incidents where I was chastened for dealing with busywork too efficiently. (e.g. "Draw 10 flags of the world." "Can we pick the countries?" "Sure." "Libya, Japan, Ireland, France, Italy, umm, can I use an encyclopedia for a moment?" "Why those countr... PATRICK." "Yes ma'am?" "That's CHEATING. All the other students will do lots more work." "Happy to suggest better flags for them too, ma'am.")

brador2• 14 years ago

Yup, same thing all around the world. Teachers have "off" days too where they do the same thing. Crossword puzzle is a common one they keep in the backdraw just in case they don't feel like teaching that day.

It's one reason I'm pro electronic teaching aids like Khan Academy - more suitable learning, at the kids level and less "human downtime".

karamazov• 14 years ago

To be fair, on occasion the journey is the real reward - e.g. learning to do arithmetic versus using a calculator. This is a global maximum vs. local maximum problem.

Unfortunately, it's extremely rare for a teacher to use this argument for the right reason; much more often they're doing exactly what you describe.

blahedo2• 14 years ago

Two comments:

1) There are good teachers and there are bad teachers. Please don't tar all teachers with the same brush. (I know you said "tend" not "all" but every other part of this post implied a broad brush.)

2) Sometimes we really do need to teach process. If I wait until the programs are complicated and the algorithms can't be held in your head to teach test cases and documentation and encapsulation for the first time, then they're hard. If I step my students through the design process on something simple like is_equal_to or even get_x, then they can start to build good habits so they're ready when they need them. "But I can just write this method and know it's correct just by looking at it." "Well, I should hope so. Fortunately, that's not the point here."

tptacek5• 14 years ago

If you're teaching the process, teach the process. Don't set up a project with a clear objective, force students to rigidly follow exactly the steps you yourself took to get to that objective, and assume the process transfers to the students through osmosis.

This is a sore point with me; I'm in a minor conflict with one of my 7th grader's over an assignment he aced in which he's being dinged for (bogus) process faults.

What's worse is, my 7th grader has generally excellent teachers. I don't buy that this is a "good teacher / bad teacher" issue. I think it's a methodological flaw common to all standard secondary schooling programs.

yequalsx11• 14 years ago

You have what appears to me a bias against teachers. I find this curious given one of your products.

I personally think that bingo is a worthless activity but I don't thrust this opinion on other teachers. Personalities come into play with teaching. I could never make a bingo activity work in my class because it is antithetical to my personality. But some people do make it work. And with 30 people in a class is it reasonable to believe that all 30 will enjoy the activity or find merit in it?

I sometimes hide knowledge from my students because I want them to see it for themselves. Do you know how hard it is to get someone to understand that -4^2 is -16 and not 16? I can say this fact ad nauseam and it just doesn't click until a person sees it. They have to be guided into understanding this. Me telling them it is so and explaining it doesn't work.

At any rate it seems you have a bias against teachers. Have you taught much? When was the last time you were in a classroom?

JacobAldridge• 14 years ago

Wait - I thought -4^2 was 16 not -16. But then the 2^3^4 discussion here lost me as well.

patio114• 14 years ago

I am occasionally critical of every profession I've ever been a member of, including software developers (get me started on how well we understand the typical user someday), salarymen (get me started on... anything), translator (get me started on professional ethics), research assistant (get me started on code quality in an academic setting), and while I don't have a specific complaint about "seasonal order entry operator" if you give me a minute I can probably come up with one. I'm not even a very negative person -- I actually like teaching quite a lot. If it isn't obvious, pick a different set of two comments from me to generalize from and you'd assume that I'm a rabid fanatic about it.

Do you really want to play the "you're only allowed to have opinions on pedagogy if you're a real teacher" game?

tptacek5• 14 years ago

This is the second time in 2 weeks someone has chimed in on an HN thread to change a discussion from "something involving education" to "whether Patrick McKenzie has a bias against teachers".

If you disagree with a thought someone expresses on HN, address a comment to the thought. Redirecting the discussion towards the motives of the commenters isn't simply uncivil; it's boring. No. Worse. Hygroscopically boring. It sucks all the juice out of the whole thread.

I am partly irritated by this because I know Patrick does not have a vendetta against teachers. I am partly irritated because I know the "bias" Patrick is displaying here is a hacker trope: if you interviewed 100 hackers, 95 of them would say the same thing about secondary education. But I'm mostly irritated because it's a clear example of a superficial argument. "Hacker vs. teachers". Who could possibly care? He's not biased against teaching... but if he was, so what? In what sense would the thread possibly be different?

blacksmythe2• 14 years ago

  >> Have you taught much? When was the last time you were in a classroom?

I have spend at least 20 years in classrooms as a student. I think this qualifies me to have an opinion on what teaching methods I found effective, and observed to be effective with others.

I don't believe that having been a teacher is a requirement in order to have come to valid conclusions.

droithomme2• 14 years ago

I must say your chosen example is a bit poor since the precedence of unary negation vis a vis the binary exponent operator is arbitrary and varies according to the arbitrarily selected rule system selected for the task at hand.

Promoting one arbitrary choice over all others as if it is natural, obvious and correct is clearly the source of difficulties explaining to students. When I have taught this topic, I cover precedence rules as being arbitrary and show a chart of the rule system in play for western math textbooks. This clears up confusion, or rather prevents it from occurring in the first place.

dctoedt• 14 years ago

> ... given a maze and a cheese, any route to the cheese more efficient than the one the teacher suggests is morally suspect.

Somewhat off-topic: The peer-instruction (PI) movement just launched an online community [1]. This semester I've started using a variation on PI in the law-school course I teach (advanced contract drafting and -review). It seems to be working well, and the students really like it.

"The PI technique relies on the power of the 'flipped classroom.' Information transfer (i.e., a teacher transferring knowledge to students) takes place in advance, typically through online lectures. In short, students study before rather than after class. ¶ As a result, the classroom becomes a place for active learning, questions, and discussion. Instructors spend their time addressing students' difficulties rather than lecturing. ¶ While originally developed for Mazur's introductory physics courses, PI is now used across multiple disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities."

Of course, this all presupposes that the students will actually do the reading in advance, which is not always a given with 3Ls ....

[1] http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-releases/peer-...

sachingulaya• 14 years ago

I wrote about it in my app to startupworkaway but I was chastised for programming a solution to a 'math challenge' in the 9th grade. The challenge was to take the numbers 1 4 7 9 and the operators ( ) * / + - and using each number exactly once formulate expressions that equal 1 to 100. So 1+4+7+9=21, etc.

I wrote a bash script to do it for me and came to class with every possible answer printed out. I was disqualified for 'cheating'.

lambda• 14 years ago

Or, you know, the professor could just post notes themselves online, cutting out the middle man. Some people learn better from a live class. Some learn better from offline notes that they can peruse at their leisure. Why not cater to both?

n_coats2• 14 years ago

I believe the emphasis should be on the professor to take responsibility and change his curriculum/exams each semester. If professors did this effectively, the issue of note sharing between semesters could be dramatically reduced.

Students are paying a lot of money for education these days. Is it to much to ask that professors provide fresh and original content as opposed to printing off the same powerpoint presentation or case study for five straight years?

It's simple, make your class exciting and captivating and students will retain more while enjoying it. Those are my personal experiences and opinions of course :)

easp• 14 years ago

This strikes me as hopelessly naive on a number of fronts.

Good professors spend years refining their lectures and they change things year to year, but many of those changes are evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.

Reducing all education to a simple transaction where money is traded for knowledge is overly simplistic and invites poor conculusions. Even if it were that simple, there is an inherent and significant asymmetry of information that stands in the way of an efficient market.

Further, for some professors, at least, money isn't the only reward they get from teaching. They may like interacting with students, they may feel their own understanding of the subject is improved by teaching it to others, and the dynamic of the classroom provides valuable insight that helps them improve how they teach the next batch of students.

The professor may feel, and have evidence to back it up, that students who don't come to lectures, on average, learn the material less well than those who do. There could be a lot of reasons for this, but at least some of them likely relate to the classroom experience, the enthusiasm of the professor, his or her ability to read the room and dwell a little longer on a point that half the students may be baffled by. Their lectures could have a lot of deliberate redundancy about key concepts that isn't captured in notes.

You can argue that the student should be free to choose whether or not to avail themselves of these advantages, but your comment and so many other comments in threads like these, suggest that many students don't even realize what they might be missing.

I'm utterly convinced that our education system, from kindergarden through graduate school and beyond is ripe for significant changes, but I'm mindful of what can be lost in major disruptions, particularly if people are ignorant of the value of the things they are sweeping aside.

n_coats2• 14 years ago

That's exactly my point. Students remember the content and the professors from those who took pride in their work and made class exciting and interesting. I acknowledge that the process is evolutionary, but from a personal stance, I have had professors who have gone beyond the information or examples listed in their resources to expose up to date examples which created the ability to relate and better understand.

As I said, and you conversely reiterated, if the professor makes class exciting, captivating and relevant, students will enjoy coming to class more times than not.

These professors aren't the ones having to worry about students notes being redistributed.

I do agree that our education is ripe for significant change as well... on all fronts.

"Particularly if people are ignorant of the value of the things they are sweeping aside." ??? Just as many other industries are being reshaped due to technology and innovation, the same goes for education. Grade "A" content and self learning material are more accessible now than ever. A teacher is no longer necessary to learn.

imjoel• 14 years ago

On what basis would a university have any say about what a student does with her notes? I can't think of one--legal, moral or ethical.

I certainly hope this doesn't become something more universities waste their time on, because this is ludicrous.

(edit: typo)

danielford• 14 years ago

One of my guiding principles as a college teacher is to never make rules I can't enforce. This clearly falls under that category. Even if I was concerned about this, there's nothing I can do about it. If a student wants to sell her notes to one of these companies all she has to do is not write her name on them, and I'll never know who did it. Prohibiting it would just make me look like a moron who doesn't understand the limits of his own authority.

yequalsx11• 14 years ago

The orientation for new faculty ought to consist solely of your first sentence. Too many of my colleagues don't seem to understand this.

j45• 14 years ago

For many students, the purpose of education is achieving a profit in a career / job.

A student is as much entitled to their interpretation of education (His or her her notes) as the prof is entitled to force students to purchase their lab manuals and textbooks.

Saying you own a set of notes is saying you own knowledge.

No one owns knowledge in education. They teach it. Study it. Learn it. Share it. Write about it.

This isn't a question of economics, or IP. It's the principle. As a professor, few are teaching anything new, or novel, or something they invented.

Many are teaching concepts that have been around for many years. Most profs hate teaching because it cuts into their time to do what they're best at (and don't get to teach enough about) -- their research.

edgesrazor• 14 years ago

I agree with the mountain out of a molehill argument. There's an easy solution to this - if the profs don't like this, sell their own notes on the site for the minimum amount.

Most of these sites let you name your own price. Set the price insanely low and donate the proceeds to the university or a charity.

shareme• 14 years ago

I miss the days when most of the tests were all bluebook essays including science, computer science, history, etc.

You youngsters have it too easy...

newbusox• 14 years ago

I worked with/at TakeNote, which is Cornell's commercial note taking service and dealt with this often. Notwithstanding "ethical" reasons, this is very odd to me. I think the California law cited that seems to ban the selling of class notes, and any public schools whose student policies similarly ban resale, raise colorable First Amendment issues. I know there is extant case law at least in some jurisdiction that says that your notes are your notes, presuming that they are not verbatim transcripts of the lecture. This is the case even if the lecture itself and material is protected by copyright.

Should students profit off my classes?

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