Re: FINAL EXAMS

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 14:46 -0500 11/02/2001, John S. Denker wrote:
> Note that if teachers draw from a small pool of questions, the system is
> vulnerable to cramming (by students who focus on the specific questions,
> not on the concepts), but if teachers draw from a large pool, it becomes
> easier to learn the concepts than to cram all the questions, so the
> vulnerability goes away.
This is meant to be an argument for John D's proposal for a large
pool (but done in the way Dan earlier suggested). If there is a large
pool of questions, those students who try to cram the questions will
also benefit. Not because they will have seen the questions before
when they get to their exams--if the pool is large enough, the odds
of that will be small--but because by doing lots and lots of
problems, the concepts that they so assiduously avoid trying to learn
will creep in through the back door, and they will do reasonably well
on the exam in spite of their efforts to memorize the bible.

IMO, one can study the concepts as much as you want, but without
having done lots of problems, both conceptual and numerical, they
won't have much chance of applying the principles correctly, but the
converse in not necessarily true. Studying lots of problems will make
the concepts clearer and will make the students better able to apply
them to something that they didn't see before.

Of course the best solution is to do both, but we all know that most
students are not efficient studiers, and without some knowledge--the
kind that comes with experience--they cannot always tell what is
important and what isn't. doing lots of problems will, at least for
the more perceptive students, give them some insight into the
difference between the important stuff and the sidelines.

So I heartily endorse the idea of a repository of HS problems, but
let's let Dan get it directly to a web site, rather than cluttering
up this list with the stuff (besides, posting attachments to the list
is a major no-no anyway). Another benefit of this effort would be to
let college teachers see what sorts of things the students they get
from high schools can be expected to know. Maybe that will reduce by
at least a little bit the duplication that now exists between HS and
college intro. physics courses.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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