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Re: [Phys-l] not our majors now!



eBay now has a complete ban on any teaching related materials,
including teacher editions of texts and the supplements. They have a
program that searches through all auctions. If such material is found,
the auction is terminated. While this is good for us as educators, it has
created a big problem for the home school community as they cannot
get such materials for teaching their children at home via eBay nor sell
their used materials.

I have it in my head that someone said that the solution manuals are
available on ebay. That being the case, your point is well taken, we
can't assume they don't have them.

joe

Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. Ph.D.
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556

On Oct 5, 2006, at 2:21 PM, Monce, Michael N. wrote:

This would be a good way to get them to do the work, but if they
have a solution manual, like I suspect, then the technique would
not work at all as they would turn in a perfect solution the first
time.

Mike


________________________________

From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of Carl
Mungan
Sent: Thu 10/5/2006 1:40 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] not our majors now!



Oh and one more, my all-time favorite which has really helped in the
advanced majors courses:

Problem: Students give up on hard problems so instructors are tempted
to only assign the easier problems.

Solution: Homework is pass/fail and students only pass if every
problem (remember that there's only a few on each set) is done
essentially entirely correctly. No part credit. There is still a
grade but it's determined entirely according to how long it takes a
student to get the assignment done correctly. There are a sequence of
dates listed on each assignment. They can turn an assignment in as
many times as they like until they pass. If they pass by the first
date, they get an A; second date a B; etc. Any help they can get from
me, classmates, the internet, etc is permissible as long as they
eventually demonstrate they've figured it out. After each submission
I mark on their papers things they need to address, thereby
guaranteeing they read my comments (another common instructor
complaint!).

One extra wrinkle: I can and do make small modifications to problems
(all posted on a web page) as submissions come in and the bar for
passing goes up slightly (eg. I decide that some intermediate result
really ought to be plotted, or that some formula needs to be checked
in Mathematica, or that some interesting special case should be
examined). This is to reward those who submit early and prevent late
submitters from just cribbing off the comments I write on the papers
of early submitters.

This method probably should not be attempted in a large class,
needless to say!
--
Carl E Mungan, Assoc Prof of Physics 410-293-6680 (O) -3729 (F)
Naval Academy Stop 9c, 572C Holloway Rd, Annapolis MD 21402-5002
mailto:mungan@usna.edu http://usna.edu/Users/physics/mungan/
_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l


_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l

_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l



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