"Information Age", or just plain laziness ?

[Shannow]

20 years ago, I had a run in with my "Professor" in Finite Element Analysis. The school of Mechanical Engineering had a "sign convention", which all lecturers were supposed to abide to.

My FE lecturer, was an ex Brit, and had a different sign convention, which he explained to us in first lectures, and that he wouldn't accept any other... bear in mind, we were doing FE without computers, messing about with matrices and HP 15Cs.

I stuck to the school standard, and failed mid semester exams, having got 3 out of 4 questions with the exact correct answer, as I didn't use his sign convention... 40% of final mark was mid semester, and a pass required passing both exams.

I raised it with the Dean, who decided, after reviewing my paper that we were both right. I failed for not using the correct sign convention as per lecturer, but the Dean would mark my final, using the University sign convention, and if I passed that, then I passed.

Passed with an HD.

Lecturer was lazy, and wouldn't adapt his thinking to that of the University, or the country wide standard.

Now have a mate/workmate doing engineering by correspondence with an Oz University. It's "Statics", one of the majorly important basic subjects in analysing anything.

They have a mid semester assignment....to be submitted electronically.

By electronically, the student is expected to carry through all of the working of the problem on paper, and without conspiring, then submit the answer, and the answer only onto the web based submission form...a single number.

Get the number wrong, and you lose. Get it right, even if you've had a brains trust of dozens, and you win.

He's paying nearly $3grand to be ripped off for this single subject, and all the university is offering is to widen the error bands in the answers.

 

[John_K]

If the prof isn't following a rule, the dean should make him follow the rule or can his a**.

John

 

[mechtech2]

I had a geometry classes that were similar in their approach.
I had no problem getting correct answers, but my 'proofs' were not exactly what they wanted.
Poor grades resulted.

But this online stuff is a whole new thing. Kinda like cops and tickets nowadays - simply a huge money maker for very little input and service .
Cheating? You think??
Imagine an employer interviewing a college graduate. "How in the world did you NOT get a 5.1 grade average??"

 

[d00df00d]

At some point, education has to come to terms with the fact that, in the course of their actual work, everyone can and should have access to computers that will take care of the little details. As technology advances, teaching resources can be reallocated away from small matters of form and toward a deeper/broader understanding of the subject matter.

That said, there has to be a balance. I firmly believe that certain details and conventions need to be taught whether or not the actual work will require them, because that is the most efficient means available to teach certain sensibilities that can be useful.

My brother and I had a big debate on this subject fairly recently when I tried to convince him that a traditional photography course that involved developing black-and-white film would be valuable to him, even though all his pictures could and should be taken on a digital camera.

Even more recently, when I took my Ph.D. qualifying exam, I understood quite plainly that I would not understand biological systems as well if I did not know how to do at least some work with differential equations without the help of Matlab.

The trouble, IMO, is finding that balance. It's hard for experienced professors and administrators to disentangle their comfort with convention and their outdated beliefs from a truly valuable sense of what to teach.

 

[Shannow]

Main point is the current "assessment", where the answers are simply typed into a computer, and the student either gets it 100% right or 100% wrong, regardless of any understanding of the subject, or "rounding errors".

Apparently a horde of students are currently attacking the university, on a front, as "Disgruntled customers" (which they are), as they are not getting corrected, not getting feedback just marked right/wrong...not educated for their thousands of $.

 

[d00df00d]

Oh. Well, that's different...

 

[rpn453]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
They have a mid semester assignment....to be submitted electronically.

By electronically, the student is expected to carry through all of the working of the problem on paper, and without conspiring, then submit the answer, and the answer only onto the web based submission form...a single number.

Get the number wrong, and you lose. Get it right, even if you've had a brains trust of dozens, and you win.


What is the value of the assignment relative to the course? I had a few courses with similar weekly assignments. They were only worth 10% of the final grade though, so it wasn't a big factor in the final grade. If you cheated, you'd likely need to make it up with more studying to pass the midterm and final exams. Scoring 100% on the weekly assignments and then failing the exams did not get you a "win", it just made it obvious that you were cheating.

I even had one course where someone discovered you could access the solutions by adding "/answers" (or something like that) to the end of the URL.

It's not as easy, but you could always copy handwritten assignments as well. That's why they were never worth more than 10% of the final grade. It's just a way to encourage study.

 

[oilyriser]

Originally Posted By: rpn453
I even had one course where someone discovered you could access the solutions by adding "/answers" (or something like that) to the end of the URL.


Excelent way to track cheaters by IP address...

 

[crinkles]

they should show calculations in handwriting and submit that through a scanned document for assessment.

the uni is full of it. it is not right.

FWIW statics is a piece of pee, and i really enjoyed it. in my experience, you can do the calculations and concepts wrong but still get an answer within say 5% (sometimes). so in arriving at the answer lies the true knowledge and learning.

 

[Shannow]

crinkles, that's the whole point (IMO) of submitting a written assessment, that learning can be demonstrated.

The "tolerance" on this one is "1", regardless of magnitude, not a percentage.

Update today, the University has heard the complaints, and the next "assessment" will still be entered into the website, but a written (PDF??) copy of the workings must be submitted in parallel.

They won't necessarily provide feedback prior to the final exam.

(I'd pull my money, and find another uni).

 

[JohnBrowning]

I often got marked down for not showing all of my work. I could do large chunks in my head so I was not cheating I was just writing down those parts that I needed to be able to see visually.In my mind the answer was what mattered not the method used to get their.Keep in mind that I went to a Private Christian College that had small class room sizes as in never more then 40 students to a class. The Prof.'s did not have TA's teaching the class's or grading the papers. They could easily see you during the test.

So their is no need for them to not have proper review!

I can see though where lack of feed back would be a killer and I can also see where not getting partial credit for an answer that was close to correct might aggravate some.The lack of feed back though is a really bad situation. I have a friend that did his Masters and PHD work 75% on line after getting his BA in the classic traditional way. He always had plenty of feed back though. I helped him a few times and the quiz's where on line and all your lecture and lab work was on line. The quiz's and lab's where always reviewed as long as you where logged in at the correct class room time. Then they where posted with the correct answeres on that class rooms bullitein board so even if you had to miss the offical review it was still their in black and white for you to look at. The fianal exam's where always required to be done blue book style and then sent in so you had to wait a while for your final grade sometimes.

Their is no reason for them not to get feed back!

 

[crinkles]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
crinkles, that's the whole point (IMO) of submitting a written assessment, that learning can be demonstrated.

The "tolerance" on this one is "1", regardless of magnitude, not a percentage.

Update today, the University has heard the complaints, and the next "assessment" will still be entered into the website, but a written (PDF??) copy of the workings must be submitted in parallel.

They won't necessarily provide feedback prior to the final exam.

(I'd pull my money, and find another uni).


if its before the census date i would do the same.