Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!enea!kth!draken!bmc1!tdb!m87_jan_c
From: m87_jan_c@tdb.uu.se (Jan Carlsson)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Student preparedness
Message-ID: <560@tdb.uu.se>
Date: 6 Jan 89 23:15:26 GMT
References: <2141@faline.bellcore.com> <6579@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Organization: Dept. of scientific comp., Uppsala univ., Sweden
Lines: 28

In article <6579@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>, elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes:
 


>It has nothing to do with whether or not the student wants to think
>about the subject matter of the course. In practice, I've found that
>the people who DON'T think about the subject matter get lousy grades
>no matter what they do on the memorization front (because they don't
>have a framework for applying their aquired trivia). On the other
>hand, the converse sometimes occurs... people not memorizing the right
>trivia for an exam, and getting lousy grades...

 Allow the students to use any aid during the examination,exept talking.
 I really mean any,including books,notes,handbooks,calculators...etc.
 Why? Because that's what they are supposed to do when they get a job.
 (I guess the labour market for living handbooks is VERY limited :=)
 This will make memorizing trivia as meaningless as it is outside
 the university.
 The questions will,of course,be  different from what one is used to,
 and definitly not easier but to my opinion more fair.

 Projects during the course  could be a part of the examination,
 a well done project (by one or more students) could give something
 like 20% of the necessary points of the examination as a bonus.
 If the examination paper contains som questions specially written
 for each group,then each member will have a motivation for taking an
 active part in the work,even if the dont realise what is best for
 them selves without that.