A grade warrior in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is trying to restore meaning to the grades given. All of us--students, faculty, administration, and anyone who plans to hire any of us in the future--owe him a vote of thanks. Here is the article.
In this post, I would only like to reflect on my own practice. Grades are crude, but they are the best we can do when we take on eighty students or more at a time. It would be much better to say that Bonnie (here used fictitiously but in fact one of my favorite students from my fifty years of teaching) writes descriptively with real ease and clarity, but whose analytical writing gets abstract and hard to follow; that she does not pick up new material quickly, but manages to master it all by applying herself; is very resilient in her work; shows amazing insight into complex issues, often leading her peers to look at things in a new way. That would be a useful array of things to know about Bonnie, wouldn't it?
Alas, we don't do that. We say A, B, C, D, or possibly P, and then those other letters, which include a word starting with f-. Really. You can look it up.
Using A--F, the question is whether it reflects absolute judgments or relative ones. In other words, when I know that Bonnie has received a B, what do I know about her work? Using the relative criterion, we would know that Bonnie's work was not as good as the A students, but better than the C students. Back before my time, some universities used pre-selected percentages so that A meant the top X% of the distribution. If comparison within the class is the most important thing to know, you can hardly do better than that.
The absolute criterion is most often used to measure mastery of knowledge or of skills. Bonnie--oh, let's go to Scott--knows or is able to do 80% of the things I have been trying to teach him. That might be more than anyone else in the class or less than everyone else in the class. We don't know. This is a very useful criterion for outsiders if the things that are measured are clear and similar to the outsider's use of them. Otherwise, not so much.
Each of these systems has its difficulties. I use a hybrid notion, which, of course, has its own difficulties. I use an absolute distribution for final grades. There are 900 points available and if you fall in the highest nontile--900 to 800--you get an A of some sort. My students could all get A's or none get A's. One of my most treasured memories of teaching at PSU is the woman who challenged me on that distribution on the first day of a new class. "Do you mean," she said, "that every student here could get an F?" I said, "Yes, or every student could get an A." She stood up and walked out, and in doing so, probably saved both of us a lot of grief.
For individual assignments or tests, I specify in advance what needs to be in the paper or, if it is a test, on the synthesis essay. The material needs to be formatted properly, and developed in an orderly way, and to treat the essential concepts correctly, and to cover the range of material and so on. You do all those things and no more, you will probably get a C on that assignment or test. If you do less, likely a D; if you do more--more on "more" in the next post--likely a B or an A. Complete failures at one or more of the criteria will produce a grade of F.
That combination gives me the final distribution I want--taking into account all kinds of student skills like brute memory are regular and careful completion of the assignments. It also gives me the comparative measurement I want on those narrow skills for which the criteria can be made entirely clear to the class and can be measured with reliable judgment, if not with complete precision.
Next post: What is "more?"
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
PS 102 Political Knowledge and Political Context
I have been using a two-part instrument (PAPPI) to measure each student's position on a crude liberalism/conservatism axis and a set of questions measuring whether they know which ideological position favors which argument as a political knowledge measure. I don't think the political knowledge measure has worked very well.
I am thinking now that a lot of factual questions in a multiple choice format--take them from AMPU?--wouldn't be a better measure of "knowledge."
I am also thinking, based on my grading of the part of the final based on The West Wing, that I could measure political sophistication better by giving them a TWW script and asking what the political implications are. On the clip I used on the final, Judge Christopher Mulready rebuts Toby Zeigler's charge that Mulready's opinion denies "full faith and credit" by pointing out that this leaves the state of Vermont in charge of all the states' laws on gay marriage. This clip requires that you know what "full faith and credit" means and also that you know Vermont was one of the first states to legalize gay marriage.
Applying the implications of Vermont's action to the "full faith and credit" situation of the rest of the states is what I mean by "political sophistication." That could be approximated by a multiple choice test as well, although it would be really hard to make up.
At this point, I am thinking that knowledge of what is liberal and conservative is the most accessible of all the information I am asking. Factual knowledge about American government is the next level down. The reasoning about political implications, as in the TWW segments, is the furthest down and hardest to get to.
I am thinking now that a lot of factual questions in a multiple choice format--take them from AMPU?--wouldn't be a better measure of "knowledge."
I am also thinking, based on my grading of the part of the final based on The West Wing, that I could measure political sophistication better by giving them a TWW script and asking what the political implications are. On the clip I used on the final, Judge Christopher Mulready rebuts Toby Zeigler's charge that Mulready's opinion denies "full faith and credit" by pointing out that this leaves the state of Vermont in charge of all the states' laws on gay marriage. This clip requires that you know what "full faith and credit" means and also that you know Vermont was one of the first states to legalize gay marriage.
Applying the implications of Vermont's action to the "full faith and credit" situation of the rest of the states is what I mean by "political sophistication." That could be approximated by a multiple choice test as well, although it would be really hard to make up.
At this point, I am thinking that knowledge of what is liberal and conservative is the most accessible of all the information I am asking. Factual knowledge about American government is the next level down. The reasoning about political implications, as in the TWW segments, is the furthest down and hardest to get to.
399 Offering Issues
So imagine that you are a farmer who grows organic vegetables. You are also an organic farmer, but that is another story. You want to sell your vegetables to a local vegetarian restaurant. You need to offer to sell them to the restaurant and the restaurant needs to, for reasons of its own, buy the vegetables.
That describes the interface between the politicization of an issue, the last phase of the political psychology process, and the agenda acquisition, which is the first phase of the public policy process. People who bring issues to the political system--who petition the school board, or who have a talk with the division chair or the dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs, who contact their representatives about bills the Oregon State Legislature might consider, etc.--are offering the fruit of their own reflection. They may be grievances or solutions or special advantages. When you have offered them to a political system, you have become "a policy entrepreneur."
The next question is whether there is room on the agenda. Will the legislature or the school board or the dean make a place for your proposal on the agenda? Always, there are reasons why they might not want to. There are many items on the agenda already and time is always short. This new proposal might disadvantage someone who matters to the "gatekeepers," the people who say what makes it to the agenda and what does not.
Politicization, in any case, is the process of making an issue relevant to a government. If it calls on their authority or their competitive advantage or their funding mechanism or the urgent need for a regulation of some sort, you have politicized the issue. Congratulations.
That describes the interface between the politicization of an issue, the last phase of the political psychology process, and the agenda acquisition, which is the first phase of the public policy process. People who bring issues to the political system--who petition the school board, or who have a talk with the division chair or the dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs, who contact their representatives about bills the Oregon State Legislature might consider, etc.--are offering the fruit of their own reflection. They may be grievances or solutions or special advantages. When you have offered them to a political system, you have become "a policy entrepreneur."
The next question is whether there is room on the agenda. Will the legislature or the school board or the dean make a place for your proposal on the agenda? Always, there are reasons why they might not want to. There are many items on the agenda already and time is always short. This new proposal might disadvantage someone who matters to the "gatekeepers," the people who say what makes it to the agenda and what does not.
Politicization, in any case, is the process of making an issue relevant to a government. If it calls on their authority or their competitive advantage or their funding mechanism or the urgent need for a regulation of some sort, you have politicized the issue. Congratulations.
Friday, December 10, 2010
399 Intentions and Obligations
Once again, there is help in the etymology of these fundamental terms. The frictional problem uses "intention" as the starting gun. I "intend" is represented by the W, "wanted to." In English, intend is based on the Latin verb tendere = to reach or to stretch toward. The person is here and the object there; the person stretches toward the object.
By contrast, the normative problem features obligations: the obligations of someone to me or to us or my (our) obligations to him, her, it, them. The well worn "ought not be trash on the Park Blocks" imagines an obligation toward "others" or toward "the university" or "one's fellow students" and so on. The Latin source here is ligare = to bind. It is our moral obligations that bind us together, in this view. When we say, casually, that we are "bound to respect each others' opinions" we have spoken much more literally that we realize.
It is the relationship, here, not the person, that is central. I am bound to respect or you are bound to obey some conception of what is considered right, decent, virtuous, etc.
By contrast, the normative problem features obligations: the obligations of someone to me or to us or my (our) obligations to him, her, it, them. The well worn "ought not be trash on the Park Blocks" imagines an obligation toward "others" or toward "the university" or "one's fellow students" and so on. The Latin source here is ligare = to bind. It is our moral obligations that bind us together, in this view. When we say, casually, that we are "bound to respect each others' opinions" we have spoken much more literally that we realize.
It is the relationship, here, not the person, that is central. I am bound to respect or you are bound to obey some conception of what is considered right, decent, virtuous, etc.
414 Locating the Conflict in the Problem Format
A key device we use for analysis in PS 414 is the “problem.” Specifically, it is the normative (not the frictional)problem and the notation looks like this.
NS = Normative Standard
Something is said here to have “ought” value. There ought not (should not) be trash on the Park Blocks. If you are pushed on a norm, you lodge it in a more encompassing norm or one that is uniformly held.
FO = Factual Observation
It is asserted that the standard is contradicted. If you are pushed, you cite the source of this “fact,” a personal observation or a series of anecdotes or a study that has been done. The best form is simple contradiction, “But there is.” “But” grants that a norm would be expected to be followed but asserts that in this case, it is not being followed.
CA = Causal Attribution
Not, please note, “casual.” We don’t allow casual attributions of causality; they are too important for that. The CA says what the cause is of the conflict described. The question could be put, “Why, since there ought not be trash on the Park Blocks, is there trash there?” It is the second element, in other words, that directs the statement of cause.
Here are some alternative CAs. 1. Because there are not enough trash containers. 2. Because students have not been told to put the trash in the containers. 3. Because students are expressing their grievances against the university by their behavior. 4. Because the Trash Crews, which are supposed to pick up the trash, have been seriously underfunded. 5. Because the Trash Police, whose job it is to monitor compliance and to punish noncompliance, are not diligent in doing their job.
This post is going somewhere else, but I will detour briefly here to note that the problem and the solution mutually imply each other. For every problem—focused by the CA—there is a natural—an implied-- solution. For every solution, there was an implied problem. We will be using the designations IS (implied solution) when referring to problems and IP (implied problem) when referring to solutions. In Political Psychology, we used the more specific “solution implied by the problem) or SIP, but we won’t need to be that specific here. I hope.
Now to the question. Given that the problem is about a conflict and given that the nature of the conflict (what the CA is about) is specified by the second term (FO), what would happen if we switched the order of the two terms? Now we would have some observation, e.g., there is trash on the Park Blocks (FO), followed by the relevant norm, e.g., there should not be trash on the Park Blocks (NS) and a CA. Notice that the question as I put it above was, “Why, since there ought not be trash on the Park Blocks, is there trash there?” Now the question is, “Since there is trash on the Park Blocks, why do we hold that it ought not be there?” Now, we are asking that the norm be justified. We might ask why the questioner thinks the Park Blocks ought to not have trash. We might wonder if that is an appropriate norm for an urban university. We might suspect that the maker of the problem is a cleanfreak who ought not to be unleashed in reasonable company. Does he scrape gum from the underside of the tables, too? Clean up pigeon droppings? And so on.
Here is where that leaves us, I think. If you want to presume the norm and question the condition that contravenes it, put the norm first: NS/FO/CA. If you want to presume the condition and question the norm that condemns it, put the norm second: FO/NS/CA. That ought to work.
NS = Normative Standard
Something is said here to have “ought” value. There ought not (should not) be trash on the Park Blocks. If you are pushed on a norm, you lodge it in a more encompassing norm or one that is uniformly held.
FO = Factual Observation
It is asserted that the standard is contradicted. If you are pushed, you cite the source of this “fact,” a personal observation or a series of anecdotes or a study that has been done. The best form is simple contradiction, “But there is.” “But” grants that a norm would be expected to be followed but asserts that in this case, it is not being followed.
CA = Causal Attribution
Not, please note, “casual.” We don’t allow casual attributions of causality; they are too important for that. The CA says what the cause is of the conflict described. The question could be put, “Why, since there ought not be trash on the Park Blocks, is there trash there?” It is the second element, in other words, that directs the statement of cause.
Here are some alternative CAs. 1. Because there are not enough trash containers. 2. Because students have not been told to put the trash in the containers. 3. Because students are expressing their grievances against the university by their behavior. 4. Because the Trash Crews, which are supposed to pick up the trash, have been seriously underfunded. 5. Because the Trash Police, whose job it is to monitor compliance and to punish noncompliance, are not diligent in doing their job.
This post is going somewhere else, but I will detour briefly here to note that the problem and the solution mutually imply each other. For every problem—focused by the CA—there is a natural—an implied-- solution. For every solution, there was an implied problem. We will be using the designations IS (implied solution) when referring to problems and IP (implied problem) when referring to solutions. In Political Psychology, we used the more specific “solution implied by the problem) or SIP, but we won’t need to be that specific here. I hope.
Now to the question. Given that the problem is about a conflict and given that the nature of the conflict (what the CA is about) is specified by the second term (FO), what would happen if we switched the order of the two terms? Now we would have some observation, e.g., there is trash on the Park Blocks (FO), followed by the relevant norm, e.g., there should not be trash on the Park Blocks (NS) and a CA. Notice that the question as I put it above was, “Why, since there ought not be trash on the Park Blocks, is there trash there?” Now the question is, “Since there is trash on the Park Blocks, why do we hold that it ought not be there?” Now, we are asking that the norm be justified. We might ask why the questioner thinks the Park Blocks ought to not have trash. We might wonder if that is an appropriate norm for an urban university. We might suspect that the maker of the problem is a cleanfreak who ought not to be unleashed in reasonable company. Does he scrape gum from the underside of the tables, too? Clean up pigeon droppings? And so on.
Here is where that leaves us, I think. If you want to presume the norm and question the condition that contravenes it, put the norm first: NS/FO/CA. If you want to presume the condition and question the norm that condemns it, put the norm second: FO/NS/CA. That ought to work.
414 Texts for Introduction to Public Policy, Winter 2011
We will be using the 3rd edition of Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach, by Joseph Steward, Jr. and David Hedge. Also Aftershock, by Robert Reich. Both books will be available in the PSU Bookstore, eventually, and are available now at Amazon.com.
We look at policy, rather than at political party wars, so a lot of the interesting stuff now going on in the U. S. Congress will elude us. We are going to be spending our time on three things. The first is the policy process itself. How do "issues" get onto the public agenda; how are they considered, legitimated, implemented, and evaluated and does it make any difference?
The second is what I call "policy skills" and has to do with establishing the axis of salience of an issue, the positions taken on that axis, and the information that becomes available when those positions are turned into "problem charts."
The third is a study of a few representative issues. The economy, for sure, in all its taxing and spending and borrowing complexity. Education, for sure. Welfare policy, for sure--meaning not "welfare" as in Reagan's "welfare queens," but in the sense of how the needy are to be dealt with. We want "the lash of poverty" on the one hand, but not a permanent underclass. How to do that? We will be studying fool politics and environmental politics and maybe smoking politics as well. We'll see.
We look at policy, rather than at political party wars, so a lot of the interesting stuff now going on in the U. S. Congress will elude us. We are going to be spending our time on three things. The first is the policy process itself. How do "issues" get onto the public agenda; how are they considered, legitimated, implemented, and evaluated and does it make any difference?
The second is what I call "policy skills" and has to do with establishing the axis of salience of an issue, the positions taken on that axis, and the information that becomes available when those positions are turned into "problem charts."
The third is a study of a few representative issues. The economy, for sure, in all its taxing and spending and borrowing complexity. Education, for sure. Welfare policy, for sure--meaning not "welfare" as in Reagan's "welfare queens," but in the sense of how the needy are to be dealt with. We want "the lash of poverty" on the one hand, but not a permanent underclass. How to do that? We will be studying fool politics and environmental politics and maybe smoking politics as well. We'll see.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Blog 1
To the readers of Blog 2. This is the post I wrote first, lost, and now have found.
Today is December 9, 2010. I have just finished watching my P.S.399 students take their final exam. And while I was watching, this blog came to mind. Funny, isn't it, how fast those things happen sometimes?
Most of the posts on this blog will be about the courses I teach. I teach three, really, although the registrar's office calls it four. I teach a course in American Government. PS 101, emphasizing the essential background and the major national institutions, falls in the fall term. PS 102, emphasizing first the politics attendant on our kind of system and then the policies that kind of politics produces, hibernates during the winter term. That's one course, really, offered in two terms and that is the reason my own recordkeeping differs from that at the registrar's office.
I teach a course about political psychology (PS 399) in the fall term and follow it with a course about public policy (PS414) in the winter term. Issues that do fall or should fall in the personal and social arenas are the natural material for 399. Issues that do fall or should fall in the social and political arenas are the natural material for 414. The overlap you notice there is the subject matter of the last two weeks of 399 and the first two weeks of 414. Nifty, isn't it?
I have two other topics in mind for this blog. The larger one is the educational context of my work and I mean "context" broadly, so that it includes international, national, public, private, and all the levels of schooling. All of which, by the way, I have taught, from elementary to doctoral levels. The smaller one is the practice of pedagogy. I teach a certain way; have certain goals; certain joys and sorrows peculiar to the way I teach. I'd like to mull those over with you--as of this moment, only my political psychology class even knows of the existence of this blog--looking over my shoulder and commenting as you will. All alumni of any of those courses are hereby invited to join in. Anyone else too, of course.
If I write a post here that seems, as I read it over, as if it would make a useful addition to my other blog, I will probably post it there as well as here. This one will be a good deal more circumspect, bearing in mind, as Stan Freburg says, "the tiny tots." This blog, because of the audience, is more a part of Portland State University, my colleagues there, and my students. The other one is just me, writing about whatever I want to write about.
Blogspot.com provides, along with screens like this, "pages," where the introductory material may be put. I plan to write five of those pages: one for each of the topics I have referred to so far.
In honor of Chip Kelly and my Oregon Ducks, I am going to try a "win the day" approach to this blog. I am not entirely sure what that means, but it means at least, that there will be standards for every day I post, and I will try to acquit myself well--that is what "win" means when you don't have an opponent--every day I post.
Today is December 9, 2010. I have just finished watching my P.S.399 students take their final exam. And while I was watching, this blog came to mind. Funny, isn't it, how fast those things happen sometimes?
Most of the posts on this blog will be about the courses I teach. I teach three, really, although the registrar's office calls it four. I teach a course in American Government. PS 101, emphasizing the essential background and the major national institutions, falls in the fall term. PS 102, emphasizing first the politics attendant on our kind of system and then the policies that kind of politics produces, hibernates during the winter term. That's one course, really, offered in two terms and that is the reason my own recordkeeping differs from that at the registrar's office.
I teach a course about political psychology (PS 399) in the fall term and follow it with a course about public policy (PS414) in the winter term. Issues that do fall or should fall in the personal and social arenas are the natural material for 399. Issues that do fall or should fall in the social and political arenas are the natural material for 414. The overlap you notice there is the subject matter of the last two weeks of 399 and the first two weeks of 414. Nifty, isn't it?
I have two other topics in mind for this blog. The larger one is the educational context of my work and I mean "context" broadly, so that it includes international, national, public, private, and all the levels of schooling. All of which, by the way, I have taught, from elementary to doctoral levels. The smaller one is the practice of pedagogy. I teach a certain way; have certain goals; certain joys and sorrows peculiar to the way I teach. I'd like to mull those over with you--as of this moment, only my political psychology class even knows of the existence of this blog--looking over my shoulder and commenting as you will. All alumni of any of those courses are hereby invited to join in. Anyone else too, of course.
If I write a post here that seems, as I read it over, as if it would make a useful addition to my other blog, I will probably post it there as well as here. This one will be a good deal more circumspect, bearing in mind, as Stan Freburg says, "the tiny tots." This blog, because of the audience, is more a part of Portland State University, my colleagues there, and my students. The other one is just me, writing about whatever I want to write about.
Blogspot.com provides, along with screens like this, "pages," where the introductory material may be put. I plan to write five of those pages: one for each of the topics I have referred to so far.
In honor of Chip Kelly and my Oregon Ducks, I am going to try a "win the day" approach to this blog. I am not entirely sure what that means, but it means at least, that there will be standards for every day I post, and I will try to acquit myself well--that is what "win" means when you don't have an opponent--every day I post.
Blog 2
Blog 1 was a serious effort to introduce this new PSU-based blog. It disappeared. This first post will be short enough that I won't care all that much if it disappears.
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