[Phys-L] homework lookup

[John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM>]

On 04/15/05 09:37, RAUBER, JOEL wrote:
> I was totally amazed by the number of solution manuals
> available for purchase on-line.
...
> we will need to adjust our teaching methods in recognition of the new
> reality.

There's nothing fundamentally new about this reality.  Only
the details have changed.
  -- For decades, frat-houses have kept files of previous
   years' homework and tests.  The web just evens the
   playing field, by making this stuff available to
   everybody, not just frat members.  (Level is better
   than unlevel, if you ask me.)
  -- The problem isn't restricted to intro-level courses.
   It turns out that in the whole world there are only a
   limited number of quantum mechanics exercises that are
   suitable for homework in a first-year graduate level
   course.  If you go to the university library and look
   through enough texts, you will find a very high
   proportion of these problems appears as a worked example
   in one text or another.  I know some students who IMHO
   abused this.

> unethical

I agree that homework lookup has a very serious downside.
But the ethical issue is less clear-cut than one might
have expected.

Let's move out of the classroom to a real-world situation.
Suppose you are asked to solve a hard problem.  You *should*
start by searching the literature for an already-published
solution.  Otherwise you're just re-inventing the wheel,
which is not a widely-admired activity.

> For handwritten problems I am now writing my own.  (Stealing from
> other books mostly, ....)

That proves my point.  How can it be ethical for teachers
to look up questions, but unethical for students to look
up answers?

======

When it comes to homework, I'm not arguing for either
extreme.  Indeed I'm arguing against both extremes.
Oftentimes, yes, it is good exercise for the student
to re-invent a wheel or two.  But at the other
extreme, it's somewhere between counterproductive
and utterly impossible to require that homework be
done "closed book", without looking anything up.

Teachers and students need to keep their eyes on
the prize:  The goal is to _learn the material_!!!
Looking something up is not necessarily incompatible
with learning the material ... depending on the
attitude the student brings to the process.
  a) Looking it up and mindlessly copying it
   verbatim onto the answer sheet ... that's bad.
  b) Looking it up, thinking about it, figuring
   out what the method is, and internalizing the
   method so it can be applied to a wide class of
   similar problems ... that's fine.

I can preach about the distinction between (a) and (b)
... but I don't know any way of making it an enforceable
rule.  I can't legislate attitude.

My policy on homework has two parts:
  *) Unless otherwise stated, you may solve the problem
   by any means at your disposal.  This includes searching
   the web, scouring the library, and talking to people.
   (But remember, you remain responsible for understanding
   the material.  Homework is assigned for a reason.  It's
   not just a scavenger hunt.)
  *) In all cases, you must cite your sources.  Otherwise
   it's plagiarism, which is not tolerated.  Example:
    -- "Following the method in Jackson, integrate
     by parts."
    -- "Joint work with my friend Pat."


> a) I downgraded the weighting of the HW in the course grade.

I've seen lots of courses where the HW counts for
zero.  The course grade is based on the exams.

And I emphasize that fundamentally the exams
and the course grade count for nothing.  What
matters is whether the students know the material
and can use it two years or twenty years down the
road.

> For handwritten problems I am now writing my own.  (Stealing from
> other books mostly, but rewriting them.)

Rejiggering the problems is an excellent defense
against mindless copying.

(But you have to be a little bit careful.  I had
one prof in grad school who liked to change the
problems, but often he accidentally made them insanely
hard or even impossible, e.g. by removing a crucial
symmetry.)

> For me it is a miserable situation, as I think it may
> force me to go
> to some teaching practices that are less than optimal.

What practices, and in what ways are they less
than optimal?
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