Interesting issues regarding a
clash between a Ryerson University professor and a student, who created a
Facebook study group. I think this is not a culture clash, or, if it is, it is a clash that has endured over time: students aiming for top marks and professors attempting to assess and evaluate a student’s knowledge and skills. There is a huge difference between assessment and evaluation. To assess is to assign a mark. To evaluate you are gathering information about the student and the teacher and the teaching methods. ‘Homework’ seems to be a term mistakenly attributed to a chemistry experiment.
Assessment may be a means by which the professor determines knowledge that is lacking on the part of the student(s).
The purposes of assessment are for accountability, feedback, and classification or certification of students. With the issues in post-secondary education, it is up to the professor to determine if the student has prerequisite knowledge. Many students go to higher education without the basics they need. I think the interview made a mistake, in that to have a technology expert to weigh in on the issues negates those who attempt to assess and evaluate students. The university wants to ensure that student gain knowledge, rather than just data, information and facts, and are able to apply them to their work. The professor made a mistake in that his evaluation of the assignment should be based on the work turned in, originally a B, and not the behaviour of the student. Likely he assigned an ‘F’ because he assumed that the student cheated.
There is a difference, too, between a study group where students have peers to ensure that students are assisted with gaining knowledge, or tutors who cleverly determine how to lead a student to knowledge, and website that provides answers to problems that must be solved and where learning may not occur. Facebook, being unregulated and unsupervised by parents, teachers, or others in positions of clarity, young people are doing what they ought not to do. The media attention is grand in that it will help students understand that sometimes they just have to do as they are told!
They run on a platform of cutting taxes (Flaherty: Federal Tories) and take out those who are committed to providing Provincial services (Ontario Liberals).
Many coalitions are fighting for adequate funding. The government provides $118 per diem per day for a child in foster care. It costs $200/day since we have to outsource to private group homes here in the north. We don't have the funding to spend time recruiting and following the elaborate training procedures required by the Ministry. In LTC there isn't the funding to do the work required, and the onerous paperwork demanded in both education, mental and physical health care compounds the issue. What are they thinking?
Here in the north we have huge issues is accessing resources (human and physical). Those navel-gazing Toronto dudes...I can't wait to see what the Ontario Budget says about Long-Term Care. The Federal Finance Minister (Flaherty) is lobbying in public to tell Provincial Premier, McGuinty (Liberal), to cut business taxes. If he does that how will we pay for any of our services?