Comment by dunham
1 day ago
At Michigan State, I had a math prof (Wade Ramey) who would lock the door after class started. If you were late, you couldn't attend.
He also insisted students purchase a stapler and staple their homework. And he would give negative points on assignments. You could say "I don't know how to do X" for a step in a proof (0 pts), but if you put in something wrong, you would get negative points on that part.
He was a good prof, and I enjoyed his classes.
>And he would give negative points on assignments.
I remember reading (maybe from Nate Silver) of a professor who would use this technique to teach about uncertainty. You could weigh your overall grade with a proclamation about how certain you were about the answer. Right answers with high certainty could really amp up your grade, but conversely if you claimed 100% certainty on a question you got wrong, you’d fail the course!
There are a number of variations. You might actually be thinking of https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/my-favorite-liahtml or possibly https://gwern.net/doc/statistics/prediction/2022-gelman.pdf (if neither of those are it, it might be one of the others I collated in https://gwern.net/fake-journal-club#external-links ).
This is the best/most fun way to bet on the Oscars.
You pick the winner and then assign 1-25 (or whatever) points to it (using each number for only one category) and if you get it right you get that number of points.
It basically prevents ties. It lets you make risky picks without falling out of the running. The downside is a shocking number of people won't be able to follow the rule and end up with 22 used twice or whatever.
> shocking
I don't think it's surprising or notably bad that people will have trouble tracking everything when you ask them to order a big list while making other decisions that affect the order.
Make it a web app or hand out cards where the order is the certainty.
I have a medical condition (autoimmune hypothyroid, extreme edition) which I wasn't aware of, but was suffering from severely, during my University years. Waking up was extremely difficult for me and as a result I was often late. At the time I couldn't understand why I seemingly had a problem that nobody else did, and presumed I just lacked self control. Nope, I just needed (a lot) of medication.
Your Prof Ramsey would have penalised me for this unknown condition. This isn't behaviour to be celebrated.
You seem to expect the professor to give you a reasonable accommodation for an affliction you didn’t even realize you had. If you want to hold him accountable for his (unfair?) rules, you need to first hold yourself accountable for getting the disease diagnosed.
The world we live in, with the people we live with, require accomodations every single day.
Not locking a door allows the students who were delayed on the road by a car accident, as much as the disabled student who took five minutes longer than expected after falling down some stairs.
Every single person makes mistakes at times. If those are not absorbed by flexibility, then they go on to affect everyone else connected to the punished.
If the professor is delayed due to a tire puncture, should they lose their tenure?
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> You seem to expect the professor to give you a reasonable accommodation for an affliction you didn’t even realize you had.
No. How could he? Instead, I'm pointing out the value of empathy, tolerance and flexibility.
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Maybe we should just be a little lenient to everyone, on principle?
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It is baffling that you are claiming “can’t show up on time” is something professors need to work around as a reasonable accommodation.
In cases where a student shows up 10+ minutes late to a course and disrupts the lecture, what percentage of the time do you estimate the reason for tardiness is a diagnosed or undiagnosed illness or hardship.
Then maybe the easy solution is to make sure anyone showing up late doesn't disrupt anything? That accommodates everyone, is flexible, and does not unfairly punish anyone.
_THAT_ is flexibility.
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> Your Prof Ramsey would have penalised me for this unknown condition. This isn't behaviour to be celebrated.
On the contrary, your anecdote is evidence of how this seemingly arbitrary behaviour can actually uncover real issues and prompt people to question and investigate.
Maybe people had ADHD and having students disrupt the class once it began made it hard to stay focused. The professor was making a reasonable accommodation for them and should be celebrated.
Why not. I mean if you're expected to come and relieve a co-worker at 5pm, because he has to go get his kids from daycare, and you show up at 5:30 so now the police are at the daycare collecting his kids (because he's waiting for you all the time)
It always baffles me. Make accommodations for your conditions.. So the 30 plus students are meant to have their time interrupted by a late arrival. I have ADD, so when in a class if someone comes in late, I get distracted and can't pay attention. Which person should this prof accomodate? Me with ADD or you.
The "make accommodations" is always argued by the few, against the needs of the many. It's self centred. If waking up is hard, go to be earlier, get a better alarm clock, pick classes later in the day. Make accommodations for your own disability.
My ADD has me working from home, with noise cancelling headphones. I accommodated my own-self.
You seem to think that if everyone were more empathetic, it would be possible to arrange our society so that people with serious un-diagnosed medical conditions never have to miss out on anything important.
As someone who is _often_ late, your inability to be there in time is not someone else's problem. Unfairly punished...gimme a break.
That's a common point of view, but when your disability is never someone else's problem, it becomes waaaaaay harder to manage. You should display more empathy to people that don't follow the norm.
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Its so strange to me that when it comes to college no one has any empathy whatsoever for students. Its so absurd.
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