If we do go back to Zoom teaching, a few little things that helped me with my 6th form classes. A thread…
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When the university starts sending out teaching evaluation reminders, I tell all my classes about bias in teaching evals, with links to the evidence. Here's a version of the email I send, in case anyone else wants to poach from it.
1/16
When I say "anyone": needless to say, the people who are benefitting from the bias (like me) are the ones who should helping to correct it. Men in math, this is your job! Of course, it should also be dealt with at the institutional level, not just ad hoc.
OK, on to my email:
2/16
"You may have received automated reminders about course evals this fall. I encourage you to fill the evals out. I'd be particularly grateful for written feedback about what worked for you in the class, what was difficult, & how you ultimately spent your time for this class.
3/16
However, I don't feel comfortable just sending you an email saying: "please take the time to evaluate me". I do think student evaluations of teachers can be valuable: I have made changes to my teaching style as a direct result of comments from student teaching evaluations.
4/16
But teaching evaluations have a weakness: they are not an unbiased estimator of teaching quality. There is strong evidence that teaching evals tend to favour men over women, and that teaching evals tend to favour white instructors over non-white instructors.
5/16
1/16
When a teaching award is based solely on teaching evals and then only men get it. pic.twitter.com/szIBkCvTe9
— Dr. Marissa Kawehi (@MarissaKawehi) February 12, 2021
When I say "anyone": needless to say, the people who are benefitting from the bias (like me) are the ones who should helping to correct it. Men in math, this is your job! Of course, it should also be dealt with at the institutional level, not just ad hoc.
OK, on to my email:
2/16
"You may have received automated reminders about course evals this fall. I encourage you to fill the evals out. I'd be particularly grateful for written feedback about what worked for you in the class, what was difficult, & how you ultimately spent your time for this class.
3/16
However, I don't feel comfortable just sending you an email saying: "please take the time to evaluate me". I do think student evaluations of teachers can be valuable: I have made changes to my teaching style as a direct result of comments from student teaching evaluations.
4/16
But teaching evaluations have a weakness: they are not an unbiased estimator of teaching quality. There is strong evidence that teaching evals tend to favour men over women, and that teaching evals tend to favour white instructors over non-white instructors.
5/16
We've been falsely told 'schools are safe', 'don't drive community transmission', & teachers don't have a higher risk of infection repeatedly by govt & their advisors- to justify some of the most negligent policies in history. 🧵
data shows *both* primary & secondary school teachers are at double the risk of confirmed infection relative to comparable positivity in the general population. ONS household infection data also clearly show that children are important sources of transmission.
Yet, in the parliamentary select meeting today, witnesses like Jenny Harries repeated the same claims- that have been debunked by the ONS data, and the data released by the @educationgovuk today. How many lives have been lost to these lies? How many more people have long COVID?
has repeatedly pointed out errors & gaps in the ONS reporting of evidence around risk of infection among teachers- and it's taken *months* to get clarity on this. The released data are a result of months of campaigning by her, the @NEU and others.
Rather than being transparent about the risk of transmission in school settings & mitigating this, the govt (& many of its advisors) has engaged in dismissing & denying evidence that's been clear for a while. Evidence from the govt's own surveys. And global evidence.
Why?
Questions have to be asked about the evidence Jenny Harries gave to the Education Committee today about the risk to teachers.
— Adam Hamdy (@adamhamdy) January 19, 2021
Was she aware of this data?
If not, why wasn\u2019t she properly briefed?#COVID19 #schools https://t.co/4wa1PyAJld pic.twitter.com/eqFjaA1zYC
data shows *both* primary & secondary school teachers are at double the risk of confirmed infection relative to comparable positivity in the general population. ONS household infection data also clearly show that children are important sources of transmission.
Yet, in the parliamentary select meeting today, witnesses like Jenny Harries repeated the same claims- that have been debunked by the ONS data, and the data released by the @educationgovuk today. How many lives have been lost to these lies? How many more people have long COVID?
has repeatedly pointed out errors & gaps in the ONS reporting of evidence around risk of infection among teachers- and it's taken *months* to get clarity on this. The released data are a result of months of campaigning by her, the @NEU and others.
Rather than being transparent about the risk of transmission in school settings & mitigating this, the govt (& many of its advisors) has engaged in dismissing & denying evidence that's been clear for a while. Evidence from the govt's own surveys. And global evidence.
Why?
I get asked a lot how you can improve your skills and chances of getting a job as a developer. Best way is to work on a real-world project, deploy it, make it open-source, get feedback from others, share your knowledge, rinse, repeat.
Here are my top 7 project ideas. Thread 👇
1. 📊 Build an embeddable user feedback form (clone of https://t.co/xFHvT7iFEf) . Have a top notch design, fully working, minimal bugs, open-source, deploy it free on Heroku / Netlify / Vercel. If you can spare $11, buy a domain. Share with the whole world when done.
2. 🚀 Build a product roadmap SAAS.(https://t.co/Rq9DBeCMlh) Users can create new projects, create different stages for their projects. The community can submit project ideas, vote on existing ideas. Project owners pay a monthly fee per project.
3. ⛈️ Build a digital marketplace. (https://t.co/BWd1aeWMt5) Sellers can upload digital products for sale. Customers can purchase digital products and securely download. Sellers are paid out at the end of every month. Don't make it complicated, implement a great design.
4. 👨🏭 Build a job board software (https://t.co/EjWoMyqi9H). Companies can post jobs for a price, providing a link to the job application form. Jobs can be highlighted as urgent for an additional price.
Here are my top 7 project ideas. Thread 👇
1. 📊 Build an embeddable user feedback form (clone of https://t.co/xFHvT7iFEf) . Have a top notch design, fully working, minimal bugs, open-source, deploy it free on Heroku / Netlify / Vercel. If you can spare $11, buy a domain. Share with the whole world when done.
2. 🚀 Build a product roadmap SAAS.(https://t.co/Rq9DBeCMlh) Users can create new projects, create different stages for their projects. The community can submit project ideas, vote on existing ideas. Project owners pay a monthly fee per project.
3. ⛈️ Build a digital marketplace. (https://t.co/BWd1aeWMt5) Sellers can upload digital products for sale. Customers can purchase digital products and securely download. Sellers are paid out at the end of every month. Don't make it complicated, implement a great design.
4. 👨🏭 Build a job board software (https://t.co/EjWoMyqi9H). Companies can post jobs for a price, providing a link to the job application form. Jobs can be highlighted as urgent for an additional price.
