On Fri, 2019-05-03 at 13:53 +1000, David wrote: > On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 15:38:41 AEST Jevan Pipitone wrote: > Having been on the other side of the assignment process, I think > that's a very big worry. The purpose of an assignment is to assess > what the student knows and _understands_ and, by implication, what > parts of the subject need to be reinforced. How is that possible > when external tutors are involved? > > These days assignments often count towards a student's end-of-year > assessment too.
I have progeny at Uni now, and it's become extremely continuous assessment. There is no opportunity to learn before you are expected to know. Even though by the end of the year or semester you may have a godlike comprehension of the subject, if you took a few months to get your head around it, there is no way to recover lost marks from a zillion little tests and quizzes all of which count towards your final mark. I have no problem with participation being required - i.e. doing the quizzes and tests and pracs - but I have a big problem with every damn tiny little thing counting irrevocably towards your final mark, right from the get go. People seeking outside help is completely understandable especially as the inside help is often - way too often - extremely poor. If you have to censor academic assistance services (whether it's cheating or not depends on how they are used) you are missing the underlying problem. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (ka...@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer http://twitter.com/kauer389 GPG fingerprint: 8D08 9CAA 649A AFEF E862 062A 2E97 42D4 A2A0 616D Old fingerprint: A0CD 28F0 10BE FC21 C57C 67C1 19A6 83A4 9B0B 1D75 _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link