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Comment by jkingsbery | Hacker News Reader

I'd very much be in favor of having more separation between teachers and those who assess students. Is this teacher intellectually hazing students? I don't know, maybe. Are these students whining that a traditionally hard class is hard? I don't know, maybe. If some 3rd party is doing the evaluation, it makes it easier to understand if the professor is being too hard or not.

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Yes, and after that, if the scores are too low, then you know the problem is the teacher.

I have heard professors glorifying themselves saying "I'm a good professor, I give a lot of material, and expect the students to learn a lot... and at the end, only a few pass the exam, because they do not study enough". I suspect those sucked at pedagogy.

>Are these students whining that a traditionally hard class is hard?

probably no:

An NYU spokesperson defended the firing, emphasizing high student withdrawals and bad course evaluations. The statement said the decision was also based on complaints about dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and lack of transparency about grading.

I taught at an academy where evaluators were different from the teachers and were anonymous. The system worked very well. It was originally implemented to get away from students trying to bribe teachers for grades, but it also made evaluation more objective, and gave better feedback to both students and teachers.

Never heard of this system. Please can you post a link/source?

There was no prepackaged system to follow. It was a pretty large academy, with I think close to 100 teachers. Teachers were grouped by the sections they taught. One group of teachers would be assigned test creation and grading for the classes of another group, that is, same subject but different section.

Wow are you advocating to hire people for teaching and for evaluating separately? Sounds both interesting and a cultural war ground.

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