Here’s the central example. Most, if not all, of us have had an experience with a very strict teacher. This teacher set expectations for classroom conduct, for assignments, and for quality of work that were exacting. Assignments were to be turned in at 8 AM on a date, no exceptions. If assignments were turned in later than that, they were not accepted. If a student fidgeted in her desk, chewed gum, chatted with her neighbor, or wrote in purple ink, she was penalized in some way ranging from verbal chastisement to 0s on assignments. If asked to justify this style, the teacher may have offered up reasoning that equated his methods with the teaching of responsibility, hard work, or other positive values.

I have little doubt that this teacher sincerely believed he was teaching these skills. And for some students, the lessons may have worked. But if the teacher had stopped to consider systematic biases in the enforcement of rules, he may have found that the lessons were far from effective. We can all agree that there are some particular types of students who, due to factors beyond individual control, are less able to live up to the exacting standards set by the teacher. A student with ADHD may need to fidget in order to get work done. A student without resources at home may sometimes need extra time for an assignment. A student who is forgetful may not remember to bring a black pen to class. These students will find themselves systematically downgraded.

An easy counter-argument is that these students must learn to overcome their difficulties. We, as a society, cannot mollycoddle them for their whole lives. I wholeheartedly agree, which brings me to my second point. How certain is the teacher that his methods are actually teaching responsibility? In his methods, there is no specific instruction given for how to be more responsible. There is merely a rule. Any learning is done by the student herself based on instruction from the rule, not from the teacher. If anything, it’s classical conditioning, not learning.

Further, the teaching of responsibility is not part of the teacher’s curriculum. That means that any actual instruction of responsibility takes away from instruction in the teacher’s subject matter. It also means that the teacher has no specific set standards for how to teach responsibility or how to evaluate it either. There is also no set criteria across the school, meaning each individual teacher may have wildly different criteria for teaching and evaluating responsibility. This undermines the instruction overall as students are forced to adapt to multiple different standards, rather than focus on their schoolwork. Teaching responsibility outside of a set curriculum makes for wildly different standards and successes and does not put the student’s learning first.

So if teachers shouldn’t be teaching responsibility because it favors some students over others and because it isn’t part of their curriculum, then what should teachers be doing? How can teachers develop a proper balance between individual learning styles and requirements for classroom order? Does the teacher have to pick one rule for all or one rule for each, and how does fairness factor in? The answer is that teachers should be developing and enforcing rules in whatever way is most utilitarian. The style of enforcement that leads to the greatest good for all is the best way to ensure a successful classroom.

In practice, utilitarian rules maintain order without stifling the learning environment. They enforce fairness without systematically favoring some students over others. They are understandable, logical, and flexible. And finally, they are shaped by the classroom, not the other way around. Rules like these are natural products of student-teacher interaction.

Examples of utilitarian rules include:
1. Students must turn in assignments on time, or schedule a conference with the teacher.
2. Conversation in class is strictly turn-based, unless otherwise specified. Listen when someone else is talking.
3. The classroom is a learning environment, and students must do their best to maintain that environment.

There is no reason a teacher should not begin the school year by explaining these rules, but no teacher should expect each class to enact the rules in the same way. In some classes, quiet conversation between neighbors may not interfere with the learning environment. In other classes, the norm may be silence. But because the rules are flexible, they require no excessive measures to enforce them. And because they are subjective, they can be enforced without systematic discrimination. With these rules, students learn responsibility and respect, without the teacher having to teach a thing.

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3. The Point of the Assignment

First, some explanation of the concept of orthogonality. It’s a statistical concept that asks whether each factor being measured (or each test performed) is providing solely unique information. For example, cutting up a pizza is an orthogonal task. There’s no way that part of one slice can also be a part of another slice. No slices can overlap. This is important in statistics as it allows you to make stronger conclusions about the effect of one factor and because it allows you to keep your chance of error to a minimum.

So how does a statistical concept relate to building a rubric? For each of the standards that I put on my grading rubric, I expected to be able to evaluate them independently. Having an interesting introduction has nothing to do with providing a proper definition; neither of those factors relate to whether the student used proper grammar. Thus each of those factors is orthogonal (or independent). But what about these two items: appropriate choice of concept and successful application of concept. These concepts are not always orthogonal. For example, if the student chooses a concept that is not valid because it isn’t part of the course, then that student can’t apply the concept to explain her group’s interaction. In that case, the student loses two points for one mistake.

What’s the big deal?, you might ask. The rubric is perfectly clear on how many points are awarded for these two factors. That’s perfectly true. Except that if the concepts are not orthogonal, then I can’t tell what I’m really measuring. Does the student understand what an appropriate concept is? Maybe, but not based on her paper. Does the student understand how to apply a concept? Maybe, but I can only tell if the student chooses an appropriate concept in the first place. So the student’s answer can’t actually tell me what the student understands. To award points when I don’t have the required information to make the decision is not ethical.

Before considering what might be done to solve this problem, let me recognize that one of the issues is my specific point-by-point system, which allows these concepts to be considered in an orthogonal sense in the first place. A more subjective grading system might not have this problem. But because I believe that these types of rubrics are most transparent and helpful, I think it is useful to consider whether or not your concepts are orthogonal.

What should be done instead? After assembling your point rubric, take a glance over it. Are there areas where you expect that some students will fall into a pit of lost points? Are there items that you think are tied a bit too closely together? If there are, you need to revise the rubric and adjust the points awarded. After taking a look, you may still need to adjust after grading a few papers. I didn’t recognize this problem until I found a couple of students who had picked incorrect concepts. Thankfully I recognized the issue right away and made adjustments in my grading (though not to the rubric itself).

On a broader scale, these kinds of adjustments may be required for a wide variety of ways that we treat students. For example, let’s say a student asks for an extension to a paper one hour before a paper is due and another student asks one hour after. Our inclination might be to give an extension to the student who asked prior to the due date and not to the student who asked after. But what other factors may be at work here? Does the timing of the request also correlate with the quality of student? If it does, then we may be granting extra time to good students and not to bad students.

Yet, how much does the extra time influence good students versus bad students? I’m guessing that it’s not equal. For a good student, extra time may be put to good use. For a bad student, extra time may not make a difference at all. So to grant extra time based on factors that ALSO correlate with good students versus bad students may be to grade the bad student even more harshly and the good student even more leniently. This may further the gap between good students and bad students.

I’m not suggesting, then, that grading policies be made hard and fast or that all students be treated to exacting standards. These too tend to favor good students over bad. Rather, I’m suggesting that, within reason, instructors stay flexible. Be flexible in grading and be mindful of ways that your grading rubric may systematically favor some students over others, above and beyond their assignment quality. Be flexible in allowing for extra time, knowing that the only component of assignments that should be graded is the quality of the work. Of course, this doesn’t mean that all students get As or that students can turn in a paper whenever they want. After all, it’s a school, not a zoo. But to not be aware of systematic, nonorthogonal, discriminatory factors that disadvantage some students and not others - that’s just plain ignorance.

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Intro psych, whatever the course number at your institution, is likely to provide you with a lot of practical knowledge. First, simply the parlance of how to talk about certain social scientific matters is well covered in intro psych. What is a theory? What is a hypothesis? What is a trait? These are words that are borrowed from the hard sciences, but often find more everyday use in how we discuss predictions of human behavior. We often theorize about things that could happen, make educated guesses, or talk about whether someone is “just wired that way.” Introductory psychology helps shape our language of these issues.

There’s also a solid history aspect in learning about psychology. Psychologists are often rolled up into history. Freud unleashed a new type of thinking about is really going on in our minds. B. F. Skinner made us think differently about how rewards impact our behavior. Stanley Milgram demonstrated that people follow authority, even when it causes them great distress. No doubt there are other great names I am missing. These researchers gave us new ways to think about how the world works and have earned a place in history because of it.

Because of psychology’s impact on history, its importance is manifest in pop culture. Books and movies, especially from the ’70s, talk about going to an analyst. Electroshock therapy and labotamies (and other treatments) turn up in horror movies. A Clockwork Orange ends with classical conditioning to treat an orientation toward violence. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is all about the problems with how our society treats mental illness. These references aren’t lost if you haven’t taken intro psych, but it’s a lot easier to understand them (and laugh at them in some contexts) if you have the background.

Finally, there’s real practical value in a working knowledge of psychology. Because of its place in history and pop culture, these topics come up frequently. Just today in class, someone referenced a “Skinner Box,” an environment designed to measure repeated responses caused by rewards (and specifically used with rats and pigeons). A Skinner Box is both a historical reference and also a nice metaphor for a controlled environment structured to elicit a certain response. Without the knowledge of this information, the reference is lost. And taking an intro psych class is the perfect place to gain that knowledge.

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The iPad has got me thinking totally differently about how I can use a computer. For example, this morning I got up at 7 to feed the cat, then grabbed my laptop and headed back to bed. I was a little worried that using the keyboard would be noisy and wake up Lauren, but on the iPad, this wouldn’t be a concern. It’s the perfect shape and size to use in a variety of positions, unlike a laptop.

The iPad has the possibility to change my schoolwork too. After I finish writing this blog post, I’m going to go and grade some student papers. I find that I am most successful at grading student papers when I have a very simple number breakdown for all the points I award (so for every element, the student can earn 0, .5, or 1 points). This means the ideal application for grading is a form with check boxes. Lo and behold, the iPad version of Numbers (Apple’s spreadsheet app) has exactly this feature; you can convert any spreadsheet into a form view. That could make grading a breeze. I’m especially excited to use the form view for student presentations. I am very bad at evaluating student presentations while they are going on and terrible at assigning a grade, mostly because I tend to view what they do favorably, rather than think about where they went wrong. But if I could have a checklist right in front of me, then I might have a better chance of putting down some ratings and using this to assign a grade.

In addition to grading, I’m hoping that the iPad has a great PDF reader. It can absolutely display PDFs from email or the web, but I’m not yet clear on what kind of annotations may be available, nor what kinds of third-party apps there might be for PDFs. Right now, I print out a lot of articles for class. I’m not that keen on it, but it’s difficult to read them otherwise. Especially when I need to discuss them in class and write papers on them later, I want to have a hard copy with my hand-written notes. But if I could use them on my iPad instead, complete with highlighting and annotation capabilities, then I would not have nearly as much reason to print them out. Anyway, that’s all about the iPad for now.

Second, my favorite pair of shoes (brown, leather, somewhat dressy/stylish) developed a tear between the upper shoe and the sole. I noticed this on Thursday. Not wanting to prolong the life of the shoes and wait for them to tear more (especially with the possibility of having to walk through puddles), I went to buy some new shoes yesterday. There were a variety that looked nice, but then I saw that the store was still carrying the exact style that I was looking to replace. So while I tried on a couple of others, I came home with the exact style. How boring.

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The program need not be complicated. Students admitted to medical school agree to serve a term in a rural community for a period of five years. Their placement is selected by the government based on need; the student is allowed to rank states, so as not to move them too far away from family or friends. In exchange, the student has their debt forgiven after the five years of service. The student could also be provided with incentives like a car (as rural doctors may be required to make home visits or provide other services), a housing stipend, or a flat-rate salary (with insurance payments going to the community or to the government). Interested communities must provide a community health center that meets certain requirements and may be asked to contribute to the doctor’s salary.

It’s hard to imagine that there would be many medical students completely opposed to this idea. It could even prove too popular, necessitating a more selective application process. Some students who participated in the program might even find that the rural life suits them well. Being a community doctor is likely to carry more cache than working in a big city in a large medical practice or hospital. And the cost of living would be much lower too. The program would likely be popular with communities as well. There may even be communities who would propose to enact the plan themselves, offering a partial or total payment of debts in exchange for service. And the government (state or federal; you’ll notice I haven’t been specific) may find that the program could work for other jobs that are in high demand. Overall, it seems like a win all around. Any bets on which political party would support the plan and which would arbitrarily try to block it?

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First, on the issue of texting while eating a meal with others, Mr. Bilton gives his position: the answer to the question changes based on who I’m with. I wouldn’t feel comfortable texting a friend while I’m in a meeting with my boss. But I often sit at dinner with friends, chatting in person while simultaneously engaging with distant friends in a digital context. Depending on the age group I’m with, that can be considered perfectly acceptable.

This seems awfully confused. First, when you are dining with friends, with whom are you interacting? Your friends whom you are eating with, or a distant friend? Either deserves your full attention; neither deserves your attention divided. Simple tolerance of a behavior does not make that behavior the correct one. This is a key principle in justifying the mere existence of rules of etiquette. Mr. Bilton should not assume that his behavior is proper just because his friends don’t object. The main objection may come from the friend sending the texts, who would be horrified that his messages are taking Mr. Bilton’s attention away from the friends he is dining with.

Personally, I believe texting is only as appropriate as taking a telephone call at dinner. Telephone calls are acceptable if they relate to an urgent or emergency situation, or if they relate to a guest still attempting to make it to dinner (and thus calling for instructions, or to say they are late and dinner should start without them). In any case, a telephone call or text should be taken only after excusing yourself from the table. This is common courtesy to your dining guests and to the person calling or texting.

Second, on the issue of snooping around your partner’s phone or email, Mr. Bilton gives his position: it’s important for couples to have their own personal identities online, but that can change when it comes to questions of infidelity. In a scenario where someone suspects his or her significant other of being unfaithful, snooping is justified.

This answer seems to have incomplete logical consideration. The goal of such snooping, ostensibly, would be to confirm or deny that infidelity is occurring. But the actual outcome of snooping is likely to be either confirmation, or conclusion that the evidence does not exist on the device. For example, an affair at the office need not include personal emails. Thus, snooping begets additional snooping. The heart of this issue has nothing to do with the technology; Mr. Bilton is giving relationship advice. He advises you to snoop and spy rather than express your concerns openly. It seems likely that Mr. Bilton has no experience in these matters of the heart.

Personally, I do not think it is ever justified or necessary to look at your partner’s emails, Facebook, or any other personal correspondence, unless invited to do so or in an emergency situation. Reading such private communication is likely only to do harm to a relationship. It should be priority one for any couple to resist the temptation to seek more details about a conversation or correspondence. This desire to know can only breed mistrust. Personal communication should not be assumed to be undermining a relationship. Often times, it may be doing the exact opposite. A wife may express concern that her husband isn’t doing his fair share of household duties; her friend may respond that such concerns are normal and give her advice on how to help encourage him. Were the husband privy to the conversation, then his response may be filled with resentment. If he stays in the dark, then everyone is happier.

Simply because Mr. Bilton knows technical information about gadgets does not make him an advice columnist. Mr. Bilton - stick to what you know. We don’t need any more tech etiquette advice from you.

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First, we must recognize (as the researchers do) that the findings are correlational. That means kids who have trouble forming relationships with their parents (for any number of reasons) may be more likely to spend more time watching TV and using the computer. It is not that television viewing causes reduced relations. This finding isn’t particularly striking, as any home where kids are able to watch five or more hours of television is probably not a home where parents and kids are spending lots of meaningful time together.

But recognizing the correlation is no true help for parents who might seek to change how their home is currently structured. If parents are constantly working or exhausted from working, don’t plan family activities, or simply aren’t interested in being with their kids, then throwing out all screens in the house won’t help them bond with their children. Indeed, it might actually breed serious resentment and hurt their relationship even further. So removing the media may not actually change the atmosphere of the home.

Furthermore, there are plenty of ways we could imagine media actually making a home better, even if it does put distance between parent and child. If the child spends more time at home, then the child is not out on the streets; for some parents, spending money on a big TV and video games is insurance toward the child’s safety. If the parent also likes to watch a lot of TV, then television is potentially a time for the family to be together; if the other option is the parent not being around, then media should be encouraged. If we imagine homes where kids watch hours of television every night as homes where, on average, things aren’t going so great in the first place, then some types of media use may be better than the alternative.

Based on these results, what are parents to do if they think this issue may be affecting their family? The findings offer no easy solution. Suffice it to say, a drastic change is probably not the best bet. Rules about screen time are probably a good place to start, coupled with assigned responsibilities that lead to earning the privilege of screen time. But that’s not enough. If parents really want their relationships with their children to improve, then they need to create meaningful times for family interaction. Without this, there is no opportunities for parent-child relationships to improve, whether or not the kid spends all his time in front of the television. This is the step we need researchers to take next. Too much TV is bad - research and common sense says so. But as to what we do next, no one is nearly as certain.

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Tipping can be stressful, especially in the United States where is is both culturally expected and quite divergent from our usual economic transactions. We aren’t used to negotiating prices for almost anything; even purchases where it is expected, buying a car for instance, are regarded as some of the least fun purchases to make. We like to see a set price and make our decision based on that. Adding in an additional calculation for a tip complicates the purchase. Further, different areas of the country may have different expectations for tip percentage. I always tip 20% minimum, but out of town friends sometimes think I’m crazy to go so high. Tipping is complicated, so it’s no wonder that Mr. Sax is arguing against tipping.

The solution to eliminating tipping (or reducing its expected percentage), however, is not so simple as raising the minimum wage due to simple economics. Were the minimum wage to go up, restaurants would likely raise their food prices. It wouldn’t be so dramatic as to happen over night, but gradually the prices would rise in all restaurants affected by the change. Slow to change, however, would be the cultural norms of tipping. If the minimum wage went up by 10% and food prices followed, we would not expect to see a similar downward shift in the rate of tipping. Such a change would actually be doubly warranted, as higher wages mean less dependence of tipping and higher prices mean higher tips. Such a change might cap the rate of tips at their current level, but it would be unlikely that the tipping norm would actually decline.

Mr. Sax’s solution, then, is actually worse for his pocketbook. Even if he keeps tipping at 15% (as the article says he does), he would be forced to pay for the rising minimum wage in higher food costs and higher tips. And even if he did get his way and the cultural norms changed, economics would argue that the quality of service would decline, as service workers would have less motivation to work extra hard with the hope of earning a greater tip. Maybe Mr. Sax should think about what he really wants and argue for that instead, as I certainly don’t trust his economic solution to the issue of tips.

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“The imaginary calendar looks like a calendar. It’s about the size of a standard pad of paper, it opens up to display dates. But it really is a computer, so it can do things that today’s appointment calendar cannot. It can, for example, present its information in different formats: it can display the pages compressed so that a whole year fits on one page; it can expand the display so that I can see a single day in thirty-minute intervals. Because I frequently use my calendar in conjuction with my travels, the calendar is also an address book, notepad, and expense account record. Most importantly, it can also connect itself to my other systems (via a wireless infrared or electromagnetic channel). Thus, whatever I enter into the calendar gets transmitted to my office and home systems so that they are always in synchrony. […] The computer is invisible, hidden beneath the surface; only the task is visible. Although I may actually be using a computer, I feel as if I am using my appointment calendar.”

That sounds an awful lot like an iPad. The iPad is about the size of a pad of paper. Its calendar application looks like an actual date book. While it can’t expand to show an entire year (and I’m actually not clear why that would be a good feature), it can show an entire month, week, or day. It can sync when connected to a computer, or by using a CalDAV server (e.g., Apple’s MobileMe service or Google Calendar) so that everything stays updated.

He also asks for an address book, notepad, and expense account program. Apple ships the iPad with an address book and notepad applications (designed to look just like a real address book and real notepad). These also can be synced with multiple computers. And I’m certain there are multiple expense account programs that can be downloaded from the App Store.

Most importantly, the iPad is a computer that doesn’t look like a computer. When Prof. Norman wrote the book, computer graphical user interfaces were becoming more common. Today, they are universal but also quite confusing. The iPad transforms to become the application, and thus it does feel very much like you are interacting with an appointment book rather than a computer program. One of the selling points mentioned when Apple debuted the iPad was that the device disappears, and you feel like you are interacting with only the content.

I would love to hear Prof. Norman’s thoughts on the iPad. So far, I can find only a quote from him in a Wall Street Journal article:
Don Norman, a tech-design pioneer and professor of design at Northwestern University, went a step further. “I think it has redefined the computer,” he said. “The laptop is now obsolete. The multitouch interface now extends to word processing and spreadsheets.”

I guess we can put him in the ridiculously enthusiastic camp. Count me as a member as well.

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It seems like he takes either of two viewpoints on the iPad, each of which I will liken to marketing an alternative to a sedan. First, there’s the too many features pitch. “Why drive that giant car into the city every day when you can replace it with a motorized scooter? The scooter gets great gas mileage, is stylish and hip, goes anywhere you need it to go, and is easy to use. It’s so much better than the car you currently drive!” This pitch presumes that the car driver does not need most of the features of their car and thus can handle something much simpler. But a laptop, to a business person, is an invaluable tool, especially when traveling. It cannot be replaced by something simpler in most cases. So asking customers if they wouldn’t just rather have a simple tablet computer doesn’t make any sense. If they had to pick just one, they have no choice but to keep the full-powered laptop.

The second marketing strategy is the full-feature, low-power pitch. “Why drive that giant car when you can have a small, inexpensive budget car? This new model seats four, but is half the size of a sedan! It gets great gas mileage, though takes 45 seconds to go from zero to 60 MPH, and it only has a 4 gallon gas tank. But you don’t need all the power of your current car, and this one has all the same features.” This is akin to selling a tablet computer with all the hardware of a laptop built in. That means it runs Windows 7, has 10 USB ports, connects to external peripherals like mice and keyboards, and does everything a laptop does. Except that it has terrible battery life, weighs a ton, and seems weak when compared to an actual laptop. No surprise that someone would not choose this product over a real computer. It’s an inferior laptop without a keyboard and with a touch screen; it has absolutely no features that anyone really wants in a tablet form.

What Mr. Majapuro misses is that the iPad and other devices like it are not designed to replace the functionality of a laptop. If you need to do extensive writing while on the road, then an iPad will not be the computing device for you. If you need to juggle dozens of spreadsheets, numerous strategic marketing plans, and all the design specifications for your company’s entire product line, all while on the road, then an iPad falls way short. Your only option is a laptop.

But what happens when you need to share information on a computer with a customer or client? Do you really want to pull out your work laptop to do a simple task like that? Last semester, a professor gave a presentation to us communication science folks using his laptop that he clearly didn’t know how to operate. Thus, during his slideshow, he was continually interrupted by Skype alerts. He just ignored them, rather than stop the show to turn off the alerts. This is the experience of many people who take their full powered computers and use them for multiple tasks at once. When you are the only person using the computer, the alerts and other individual configurations are helpful. When you have to share the computer with others, the alerts are a distraction.

Maybe Lenovo is simply being cautious. After all, the iPad isn’t out yet, which means Lenovo would have had to do a lot of work in defining the market to be releasing an iPad-like tablet device now. And Steve Jobs is notorious for disparaging a product or function before Apple releases their own version. But because Mr. Majapuro is a marketing guy, I’m surprised that he is taking the customers’ perspective on this kind of products. Feedback from customers in response to either of the two marketing pitches above will be negative, but only because the pitch is for a product or a use of a product that no one would be interested in.

The fact is that every warrior needs a variety of tools to do the job. Road warriors are no exception. The additional burden of carrying a 1.5 pound Apple iPad, in addition to a laptop, is hardly worth noting when compared to the advantages of such a product. If Lenovo continues to have no interest in making such a product, then they may have missed an opportunity to sell both a laptop and a tablet to many of their customers. Good news for Apple, as I’m sure they will welcome the additional iPad sales.

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