Argument9=美丽G程小组=小组第九次作业=By岁月静好

岁月静好UID: 2738700

TOPIC: ARGUMENT9 - The following appeared in a memorandum from a dean at Omega University.

"Fifteen years ago, Omega University implemented a new procedure that encouraged students to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of all their professors. Since that time, Omega professors have begun to assign higher grades in their classes, and overall student grade averages at Omega have risen by thirty percent. Potential employers apparently believe the grades at Omega are inflated; this would explain why Omega graduates have not been as successful at getting jobs as have graduates from nearby Alpha University. To enable its graduates to secure better jobs, Omega University should now terminate student evaluation of professors."
WORDS: 546
TIME: 00:30:00
DATE: 2010-1-8 22:36:17

Should the failures of students from Omega University in getting jobs, compared with those from nearby Alpha University, be blamed for the evaluation of teaching effectiveness? The speaker tried to convince us so. While there are several logical flaws of the memorandum, made the recommendation less valuable.

To begin with, the speaker assumed the thirty percent risen of grade averages of students from Omega University are inflated hasty. It is easy to imagine that with the procedure of the evaluation system, several professors are willing to grant students higher scores to show their teaching effectiveness. While this does not lead to the conclusion that overall progress are results of the inflation of the scores. Considering for a long time sitting in the classroom and listening to the professor reading what they might not be interested in is the only way of students having classes in the past, the new system of evaluation is possible providing students a table to communicate with faculty, applying for what students are really interested in, pointing out the effectiveness and flaws of professors' teaching, to some extent cement the tie between students and professors, which might stir students study harder and with more interests and result in the arise of overall students' grade averages. It is unwise to ascribe all risen grades to inflation and allege the useless and disadvantage of the evaluation, failing to consider other possible reasons for the risen grade averages.

By claiming the comparison between Omega University and Alpha University, the speaker blamed the failure of Omega University students' job hunting for the disadvantages of evaluation system. While the speaker made the assumption too hasty without telling us more detailed information about two universities. Not being aware of such information such as the classification of two universities and faculty level, we cannot compare two universities just through the success in job hunting. It is possible that Alpha University is the first class university and Omega University, unfortunely, is the second class university, different standards of students before joining university calls for different results. If so, it is most possibly the classification of two universities cause the different circumstances in job hunting. It is also possible that the best major of Omega University, which most students choose as their major, compared with the best major of Alpha University, sucks at getting a job under this condition. There are many factors which can lead the failure, not just
the disadvantages of the evaluation system.

In the end, the speaker recommend the termination of student evaluation of professors to enable its student to secure better jobs. I argue that because first of all, there are may more valuable factors that can be executed to enable students better jobs, just like imitating the arrangement of curriculum of Alpha University. And on the other hand, there is no specific data showing Alpha University does not share the same evaluating system. Lacking more information weaken the recommendation of the speaker.

To sum up. the unsuccess of students from Omega University might due to many factors. not just disadvantages of evaluation of professors. To make the speaker's recommendation more convinceable, the speaker should also provide more information about two universities and specific data showing that Alpha University does not share the same system.