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From: shankar@src.honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics,comp.edu
Subject: Re: How to beat the high cost of text books!
Message-ID: <13205@srcsip.UUCP>
Date: 10 Dec 88 03:28:17 GMT
References: <130@xenon.UUCP>
Reply-To: shankar@haarlem.UUCP (Son of Knuth)
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Camden, MN
Lines: 25

In article <130@xenon.UUCP> goodloe@xenon.UUCP (Tony Goodloe) writes:
>In article <14193@cisunx.UUCP>, jjc@cisunx.UUCP (Jeffrey James Bryan Carpenter) writes:
>> I fully agree with this.  I could never understand why there was so
>> much emphasis on memorizing formulas when it is the concepts and ways
>> of applying the formulas that counts.
>
>It is much easier for the prof to make and grade a test that is "plug-n-chug"
>rather than thought-provoking. Also, some profs end up teaching a class
>that they really don't understand. We had a professor, sort of a utility
>professor, that taught digital design, emag, electronics, and
>communications, and couldn't answer a question about any of it ...
>unless he had HIS cheat  sheet in front of him. If you knew the
>formulas, you could get a 100%. Teachers like that really piss me off.

It's also because most students don't like tests that make you think.
As an undergraduate the teachers who had the most thought provoking
tests were the ones criticized the most by students for giving tests
"unrelated to the class material".  Profs who made you regurgitate
homework problems, except with different numbers (this was in EE) were
well liked, especially if they had nice curves (no, not the kind of curves
you're thinking about :-)) too.  

Yes, this relates to the earlier discussion about students wanting to
be spoonfed in buying textbooks, even though I disagree with the idea of
not having a required textbook.