In my experience, students benefit from the individual and group _production_ of
summaries, "syndicate notes", and cheat sheets.
Reviewing the summaries produced by students gives a teacher feedback on what is
or is not understood, and whether the relative emphasis of the lessons _as
received_ is appropriate.
Herman Rubin wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Robert J. MacG. Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >"Paul W. Jeffries" wrote:
> > What are
> >> list members views on teaching students to use tables. In the computer
> >> age, tables are an anachronism. The vast majority of students will never
> >> use a t table.
>
> Not everything is available on computers, and often tables
> have to be used. Not that the ones usually used are important.
>
> > Were it only so... Unfortunately, most universities are not set up to
> >give *examinations* using a computer for large service courses.
>
> This should be coming.
>
> >Moreover, it is sad but true that many students in large service courses
> >simply do not want to be there, and in the absence of any real "buy-in"
> >they are likely to do uninvigilated work by the easiest means available
> >- plagiarism.
>
> Plagiarism can be countered by giving students different problems.
>
> Thus dumping examinations is not an option. Finally,
> >students would get very angry if the professor announced "we can't put X
> >on the examination and will examine you on Y instead; however, X is more
> >important and we'll spend most of the classroom time on X." (To be more
> >precise: if X is studied to the _exclusion_ of Y almost all students
> >would get, quite justifiably, angry; but some have a very low threshold
> >indeed for _any_ classroom time spent on _anything_ that does not
> >contribute directly to passing the examination.)
>
> If you mean that the students are asked to memorize X,
> I agree. But I do not believe that this is worth
> testing; the test should be on things which they can
> approach understanding the course, but not if they
> have memorized the definitions, formulas, and methods.
>
> > Until such a time as universities such as mine are set up to examine
> >300 students using computers, while providing proper security [so, in my
> >opinion, requiring each student to bring their own laptop is NOT an
> >option, at least for lower-level exams for which an open-book format is
> >rarely appropriate.
>
> For the important part, it is ALWAYS appropriate. An
> argument against open book is that they spend too much
> time looking things up, but I always allow crib sheets.
> This way they know that they will get no credit for
> memorizing definitions and formulas.
>
> What is important is that they can use the material in
> unexpected types of situations, and not graded so much
> on the answer, but more on understanding the question.
>
> Advanced scientific calculators are not impossible,
> >but I am not sure that practicing scientists will use these any more
> >than they use tables!] the t-table wil be an unfortunate holdover.
>
> --
> This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
> are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
> Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
=================================================================
Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about
the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES are available at
http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/
=================================================================
