L. Marcus Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 What was the question? How fail was the answer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 About the Doppler effect, and the closing assertion that because of it, images of stars moving through space are elongated in the direction of motion. L. Marcus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 In an AP conference earlier this fall, one of the readers mentioned a peculiar difficulty some students had: They wrote too much. She said that on numerous exams, students who were trying to explain a phenomenon as directed by the exam would wander around (so to speak) and eventually stumble into the neighborhood of the correct answer. And then just when they were about to win the point, they would write something to obviously and irreparably wrong that the graders had no choice but to mark it incorrect. Her advice for us to give to our students: Take a moment to think about the question, decide what the correct answer is, and write it down. Then stop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 Negative points for irrelevancies, even if factually correct. Say that at the top. Otherwise, you cannot properly punish brain dumps (and those really deserve punishment). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 or ask better questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 If you want full points on some of our questions -- ten-pointers, some of them -- you have to dump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 or ask better questions. Criticizing the question is the hallmark of the weak student. The brain dump response is the hallmark of desperation in someone who thinks mastery is achieveable by memorization ... so all they must do is puke everything they have memorized onto the paper. All too often, it has always worked in the past, so it must work now, mustn't it? ... To which I respond: welcome to Broken Bulldozer Gulch. This is a trap. And yes, malice aforethought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted October 20, 2013 Report Share Posted October 20, 2013 Criticizing the question is the hallmark of the weak student. lol I'm sure there could be something to be said about people asking questions, being curious about the world they are living in and intelligence/wisdom. Is not questioning nature of humanity why we have science in the first place? to rephrase my post above: to get straightforward answers, ask straightforward questions. THis way the student doesn't need to "brain dump". On the flip-side the question itself my be straightforward (to the lecturer) but the student is not learned enough to recognise this to write an elegant answer, and thus "brain dumps". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 20, 2013 Report Share Posted October 20, 2013 Confronted with a question which they don't know how and can't figure out how to answer, there are many students who resort to brain dumps on essay questions. It is an inherent weakness to the format. The alternative formats, for this level and the students at my institution, while sometimes easier to grade and avoid the brain dump desperation response, are far weaker in in their ability to let the instructor get a broad picture of re student's understanding. So I accept the brain dumps (unhappily) because of the superiority of the format otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 20, 2013 Report Share Posted October 20, 2013 About the Doppler effect, and the closing assertion that because of it, images of stars moving through space are elongated in the direction of motion. Wut? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 20, 2013 Report Share Posted October 20, 2013 Yeah, that was my initial reaction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 20, 2013 Report Share Posted October 20, 2013 Maybe the student in question has seen a spectrum of a star and misunderstood it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 20, 2013 Report Share Posted October 20, 2013 Well, she certainly misunderstood something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 20, 2013 Report Share Posted October 20, 2013 Rather grandly so, I fear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 OTOH, collectively they did better than I anticipated. A 64 average is better than I usually get on the first exam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 so 9 days until Thor 2, wahoo can't wait. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 The only really good thing about the first one was Hiddlestone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 I'll get a report from my daughter the fangirl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 ... Fan of who? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 I cannot keep track of them all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 Is she the normal kind, or the kind that goes "Squee!"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 She's 16, so only occasionally does that happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 Thank goodness. It's a good way for the environment to lose hearing and sanity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 I have lost enough of both that further losses are not particularly noticeable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 Typical of parents of teens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.