I would like to point out a mathematical experiment. Let us say you have 6 classes a week for 15 weeks. And that each class has one quiz a week. For some ungodly reason, the instructor has only one question, which can be answered only with numbers, simple mathematical symbols, and the letters A through J. Now, let us say that you are required to have a device to answer this, and this device costs 20 dollars. How long (in 15-week semesters) does this take to break even, comparing to .02$ paper sheets?
Eleven Semesters.
And it costs more than 20$. And the fucking things requires you to register each semeszter with the company who makes them. There’s a fee for registering.
12 bucks.
Fucking assholes. I am now being forced to pay this out to subsidize some lazy-ass professors time, so they don’t have to spend an hour grading papers. And I am so pissed.
The only good thing is that one instructor (a lecturer) perked up when I mentioned I was unhapopy with it, and asked me to write a letter or essay about my thoughts. He was friends with some guy who was one the committee which was looking at the things, so hopefully they will decide it just doesn’t make sense.
He’s refering to a “clicker.” I’m sure there is a more technical term, but it is a wireless or infrared device that allows a lecture-hall full of students to provide instantaneous feedback during a lecture via a pop-quiz, etc.
Granted, there are many very poor implementations of clickers, including apparently for this professor, but there is a growing body of evidence supporting their value in pedagogy for large lectures. Ideally, clicker questions will be interspersed often throughout lectures to both reinforce important points by forcing students to engage their brains rather than just have facts thrown at them and allow instructors to instantaneously evaluate the effectiveness of a given lecture to address a given topic.
I think it’s folly to grade people on clicker responses (or at least not make the grading extremely liberal), but in this example your professor sucks at using the technology. The underlying technology is a valuable one.
Thank you for the clarification, threemae. For a moment there, I thought students were being forced to subsidize the professor’s Scan-Tron machine or something like that.
Meh. I’d say college students get more ripped off having to buy the professor’s textbook in order to satiate his ego. Or getting offered 5% of its purchase price when the bookstore wants to buy it back for the next sucker.
In class surveys (lets you know if the students are getting it, or even if they know what it is).
In class pop quizzes (which also serves to reward attendance).
They are relatively new, so many faculty are still figuring out how to work them into their curriculum.
Come back to me when you’ve got a mortgage and you get hit with your first “supplemental” property tax bill - all those bullshit college fees will seem like some beautiful dream.
You’re complaining about paying 20 bucks plus 12 each semester for a clicker? I’m guessing you’re one of the ones with FA that pays for your books otherwise you’d have something real to complain about.
I would guess that by the time one qualifies for a mortgage one would have a substantially higher income than the average college student; your comparison doesn’t hold up. Besides that, the OP wasn’t talking about mortgages.
When you’re being fleeced by having to buy 80-200 dollar books per class every semester, without the ability to re-sell them or buy used ones then you have a bigger problem than having to buy a $20 remote.
Nope, the OP was bitching about having to pay for shit they didn’t think was “fair”. So the comparison does hold up. And no shit they weren’t talking about mortgages. What’s your point? I hate spending money on stuff that I find unnecessary, too. Welcome to the world of adults.
The fact that it’s not the single biggest expense I ever have had or ever will have does not mean it is unfair, useless, and obnoxious. Yes, I pay not only my tuition but also for books. And as much as I hate that, I’ll have to live with it. But paying for this useless peice of frippery is essentially subsidizing a professor’s leisure time. You’re damn straight I’m pissed at it, and I have good reason to be. The textbook, at least, might give me some useful information. This does not help me learn in any way. It simply makes the professor’s life easier, and if she wants that, let her pay for the damn things.
If this is saving the professor’s time, and thus saving the college value, it would be profitable for the school to cover the costs. Regardless it’s unjust to pass the costs on to the students, since they will not be seeing benefits from this.
No - it is profitable to push the maximum amount of costs onto the student, unless the university is in a pricing battle with other schools (and assuming that this cost is not also forced by competing institutions).
Now, if the schools started providing clickers - guess what - they would just raise tuition to cover it. Then, when students started losing their clickers, they would charge for replacements.
These devices have multiple educational uses, a side benefit is that they can allow for instantaneous quizzes. Those have value above and beyond that of saving faculty (or grad student) time.
at the same time!