Jul

21

VOCAT and the Question of Openness

July 21, 2009 | by Mikhail Gershovich | 6 Comments

x-posted from cac.ophony.org
It recently occurred to me that very little has been written about the Schwartz Communication Institute’s most ambitious and potentially most promising project, our Video Oral Communication Assessment Tool, or VOCAT. I have presented on VOCAT a number of times over the years (most recently at the 2009 Computers and Writing conference in [...]

Mar

11

A+ . . . Despite Heavy Accent

March 11, 2009 | by Elisabeth Gareis | 10 Comments

Question: A student gives a presentation. He has a heavy foreign accent and is at times incomprehensible. Overall, the speech seems well researched and on target. What do you do?
a. Give him an A.
b. Subtract points for incomprehensibility and give him a B.
c. Tell him that the presentation was unacceptable and that he should improve [...]

Nov

7

Usefulness of Tests

November 7, 2008 | by Leah Schanke | 3 Comments

When the idea for a general teaching blog was first formed, David Birdsell, Dean of the School of Public Affairs here at Baruch College, made a great suggestion – writing posts on the face-to-face faculty development events such as our Master Teacher Series. Last week, Edward L. Deci, professor of psychology at the University of [...]

Oct

2

Multiple Choice Questions for Quants?

October 2, 2008 | by Will Millhiser | Leave a Comment

Lately, I’ve been wondering about the efficacy of multiple choice exams in quantitative disciplines, like operations management, calculus, finance, etc., and discovered this little study that García Cruz and Garret presented at the 2006 International Conference on Teaching Statistics in Brazil (link to proceeding). Using a combination of multiple-choice and open-ended questions about descriptive statistics, [...]

Sep

29

Viral Video, Donor Dollars, and Academic Integrity: Poor Students versus Freedom of Speech?

September 29, 2008 | by Sarah Ryan | Leave a Comment

This summer, two of my colleagues became the subject of a YouTube viral video. Maybe you heard about the swearing, pants-dropping debate coaches (well, only one dropped his drawers) videotaped (with their consent) at the national cross-examination debate tournament… It was quite a spectacle. Since then, the video has been taken down, the debate association [...]

Sep

22

Writing Better Learning Objectives

September 22, 2008 | by Leah Schanke | 4 Comments

When I attended the Zicklin Business School Summer Teaching Seminar in 2007 (and again this year), the first thing I noticed was that the terms “learning goals” and “learning objectives” are used interchangeably. This seems to be the case throughout much of the College. From my training and experience in strategic management and following the [...]