Endorsements on LinkedIn: The New Grade Inflation?

So I've been growing my LinkedIn profile recently to expand my contact list, and to look for freelancers. My home institution is gearing up for a few initiatives that will need instructional designers, writers, copyeditors, and support personnel. I thought if I were to grow my contact list now, we would have an easier time finding qualified people.

In connecting to other people I noticed that a number of them used LinkedIn's Skill & Expertise section, and endorsed me for specific skills. These were people I just added as a connection who I didn't know before. I thought it was a bit strange, not knowing these people how would they know I'm qualified in anything?

After some reflection it seems like Skills & Expertise is a ripe area for inflation, in a similar way that grades are. Greater competition forces greater 'numbers' (grades, number of recommendations) to be highly coveted. A quid pro quo of grades and instructor evaluations/skills & expertise and skills & expertise benefits everyone. There doesn't seem to be many checks on these numbers, and if they line up with reality.

That last point is the focus of a number of recent efforts in L.A. and New York to accurately measure teacher performance. Both use the value-added economic measure to gauge the impact a single teacher has on a student, relative to all other teachers. There is some merit to this measure, but in no way can it be the only criteria teachers should be evaluated on. Teaching is a dynamic endeavor, one that uses the range of human expression and thought, and cannot be reduced to a single value. There has to be some middle ground between the objective and the subjective here, as in everywhere else.

So if we are trying to measure grade inflation (or related phenomenon), shouldn't we try to measure Skills & Expertise inflation? Would LinkedIn open up that information for data analysis junkies on Kaggle? Would they do some of that themselves, and publish it in one of their glossy infographics?

Until there is a bit more clarity on what these numbers are, and what they mean, I'll be politely declining recommendations from people I haven't met. I hope you do too.

Education Week's CCSS Coverage

Education Week has been doing some decent coverage of the CCSS and the recent backlash. Today they posted two articles about the CCS:

• What Do Math Educators Think About the Common Core? - Erik Robelen writes about math teacher's opinions of the CCSS, that he gathered at last week's annual meeting of the NCTM. The opinions are positive and look forward to challenging standards. 
• Poking Fun at the Common-Core Opposition - Benjamin Riley at New Schools Venture Fund writes a fake memo detailing the 'conspiracy' of the Common Core that has been found out by a "...band of truth seeking American patriots would see through our ruse and reveal our true intentions."

CCSS and Local Control

The Education Gadfly blog posted The emperor is mostly naked: Responding to Common Core critics, an insightful response to critics of the Common Core. I agree with most of their points, but this one caught me:

Fabrication #3: The Common Core strips local school boards of their authority over curriculum

Regardless of whether this is a fabrication or not, I've always been annoyed with the assumption that local control of education is the best way of organizing our primary education institutions. We have thousands of school districts doing the same things; creating lesson plans aligned to state standards, developing their own training materials, and training faculty. This system worked great when graduates would compete for jobs locally. Teachers and administrators would be trained in fairly constrained domains, and could develop curricula and materials that target those jobs.

But we are no longer competing with the town down the highway. We are competing with Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, and Sydney. Global competition requires global skills. Skills we must train our teachers and administrators to teach. If we ask local education institutions to develop an ever-increasing amount of materials, in order to compete internationally, can we really trust that the quality of that education will get better?

In essence we are asking local school districts to compete with countries whose curriculum is organized at a national level. For New York, and Los Angeles, that may be fine. But for Birmingham, Tallahassee, and Denver? Wouldn't placing some amount of curriculum development in the hands of the federal government, with their wide range of resources and funding, be a better approach?

3/29 Job Opportunities

Saw a few jobs that look interesting:

• E-Learning Instructional Designer / Technical Writer - Unsure of who it is for, but you would be working with engineers.
• Contact Biology Item Writer - It says it requires a PhD in Biology, but if you have a Masters and experience writing Biology items, give it a go. Let them tell you 'no'.
• Macmillan is looking for a Freelance Media Producer. 

Good luck!

RateMyProfessor for MOOCs

The Cavalier Daily's article Rate my MOOC discusses the differences between the standard bearer of student angst RateMyProfessors, and the creation of MOOC review sites, Top Free Classes, Grade My Course, and CourseTalk. The article discusses the inherent biases of the review sites, given the properties of the students. Traditional undergraduates usually use RateMyProfessors when they feel strongly about a course, usually negative feelings. I have found that it is unlikely that a student who passed a course, and enjoyed it will take the time to write a review. The drive to assign blame is unfortunately greater than the drive to offer positive feedback.

Students who use the MOOC review sites, the article claims, are those that strive through the course and complete it. For these students, the blame for not completing the course rests solely on them because there are no outside forces require them to take these courses. Undergraduates on the other hand have to take courses they may not want to take. This proportional relationship between being forced to take a course, and the resulting blame-passing (if you are forced, more blame, if you aren't, less blame) is one that needs to be taken into consideration for all educators. Teacher reform efforts inherently have this bias, as do for-profit colleges, and charter schools; students will rate a teacher/instructor/professor poorly if they are required to take a class and perform poorly. Just another reason why student surveys should always be paired with objective data.

BSN, SoftChalk and Google+ course aimed at K-12 educators

MarketWatch posted this article New Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Delivered by Blended Schools Network Using SoftChalk Platform yesterday about a course offered by Blended Schools Network (BSN), through SoftChalk, using Google+. Hear Mark Radcliffe from BSN discuss the course;

While there is a lot of edu-tech babble and self-promotion in that video, he does have a point. Educators need to become more comfortable using technology. But, my question is, how will this course do that? From the press I don't get a sense of what the assessments and resources will be. It being a MOOC I may enroll as a lurker and pick and choose the parts I want to participate in.

Reading the article I couldn't help but get a little cynical. This is a great visibility booster for BSN, SoftChalk (which is going up against both well-heeled LMS, and open source ones), and Google+ (which could use a boost). On the other hand, it may prove a useful experience. Time will tell.

Project Opportunity: Freelance Math Item Writer

Thought this looked like a good opportunity; http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?FullSite=1&Job_DID=JHQ05P705FWFVY9CHX2 . Seems that Priestley Publishing, a small publisher in Vermont is looking for freelance math item writer.