Spring 2027

Comparative Education

This course examines the socio-cultural, political, and economic forces shaping education worldwide, including in the U.S., focusing on purposes of schooling, inequality, and global reform.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Jennifer Otting3.7/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Jennifer Otting

Assignments included many readings, videos, and podcasts, but students described them as easy to get through. The course required three essays and a project, with sufficient time to complete them.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Describe the various norms, perspectives, traditions, structures, and purposes of education around the world.

  • Examine the impact of socio-economic status, race, gender, migration status, language, and ability on students in various regions of the world

  • Evaluate global educational reforms

  • Analyze a variety of arguments and policies to improve educational quality and access

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
EDPOL 240

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.84/5 from 19 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

For this course: 3.6/5 raw quality · 2.1/5 difficulty · 14 reviews

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · Jennifer Otting

Jennifer Otting taught engaging lectures featuring group discussions, live speakers, and accessible readings, videos, and podcasts. Students appreciated her kindness and humor, noting that the three essays and project allowed ample time for completion and help.

Other students found Jennifer Otting’s lectures monotonic and the content surface-level, citing a lack of grading consistency, missing rubrics, and unresponsive email communication. One student found the final essay questions confusing and misaligned with the course’s focus on issues rather than policy.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.86 GPA, 92.8% A/AB (n=97 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.87 GPA, 95.6% A/AB (n=90 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.92 GPA, 96.8% A/AB (n=94 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Past student reviews · Mark Johnson

Past students described Professor Johnson's lectures as dry and difficult to follow for undergraduates, noting a lack of clear direction and engagement. However, they found the grading lenient, with one student mentioning he helped them earn an A. While the projects were flexible, the course was generally considered easy.

JENNIFER OTTING is recorded teaching in Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MARK JOHNSON is recorded teaching in Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2023. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 500
DIS 301Classroom Instruction0 / 250
LEC 002Classroom Instruction0 / 500
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 250
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 250
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 250

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Jennifer Otting

Professor Otting led engaging lectures that many students found enjoyable and interesting. She was described as kind and funny, with content that students found intriguing and relevant to their own experiences.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.86 GPA, 92.8% A/AB (n=97 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.87 GPA, 95.6% A/AB (n=90 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.92 GPA, 96.8% A/AB (n=94 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Jennifer Otting

Assignments included many readings, videos, and podcasts, but students described them as easy to get through. The course required three essays and a project, with sufficient time to complete them.

Past student reviews · Jennifer Otting

Some students found the professor boring and noted a lack of grading clarity or rubrics. Others criticized the final paper for asking about policy when the class focused on issues, making it difficult to answer.

Topics

  • Schooling's role in inequality and social change regarding class, race, gender, migration, language, and abilities
  • Global educational reform, assessments, curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher education
  • Purposes of schooling in different locations

Skills

  • Analyzing arguments and policies to improve educational quality and access
  • Examining the impact of socio-economic status, race, gender, migration status, language, and ability on students globally
  • Evaluating global educational reforms

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

4 earlier forecasts · 0.16 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
EDPOL 240 · Spring 2027

Comparative Education

Recorded 2026-10-29
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261029T213040-0fa85c20",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:310:005996",
    "course_id": "EDPOL 240",
    "course_uid": "course_1e9b909bb2212163d641fabc",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "005996",
    "source_subject_id": "310",
    "title": "Comparative Education",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-29

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1Download part 2
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "b10debb2bd822bd5c36e86c81c07906b8c4a206bc1ee8b2ab874667d85f2a741",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "c9cd06eaa45f9ddf7e69faa38b89ff3d3dd995dd",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00"
}