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

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 trappe@physics.utexas.edu wrote:

My students believe that fair is interpreted as that which benefits
*me* more than my competition.

But, Karl, do your students really believe that, or is that just your belief as to what they believe? If you were to ask them, "Do you believe that "fair" means ...", what would they say?


Here's a little anecdote, comments invited.
I've been using old AP exams for movst of the final in my Community College calc physics course. The final is a big deal in my course- the grade on the final was half (as I recall) of the final grade.
Furthermore, a minimum grade on the final of 20% was required to pass the course (that normally gave no more than about one - well deserved on other grounds - flunk). I also gave another old AP exam as a warm-up for the final. The old AP exams are in the public domain.
Well, the last time I did this, the students outguessed me. They apparently obtained a copy of the exam that I actually gave as the final.
OK, good head. I corrected their advantage by downgrading the weight of the final from 50% to 10%.
The other half the story is that I gave a weekly quiz. The quiz grades accounted for most of the rest of the final grade. If I had taken the cumulative quiz grades at the end of, say, the third week, as the final grade (on a relative scale, of course) the final grades would have changed hardly at all.
Regards,
Jack
>>

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 trappe@physics.utexas.edu wrote:

You guys missed the "Hong Kong Press" era. When I was grading core
graduate physics courses in grad school, I had several students
vociferously argue with me that my request to "fill in the steps" was
rediculous since "It is obvious..."

My supervising porfessor watched in amusement as I kept sending the
students away to fill in the steps. Finally, he asked me: "You know
why he is so confident in arguing with you, don't you?" "No, I
replied" to which he said..."Hong Kong Press..."

Way back in the 60's and 70's, Hong Kong ignored international
copyright and produced solution manuals. Because of the interest in
technology as an escape from poverty, solution manuals existed for
nearly every graduate physics text in existence. Sure it was illegal
to import them, but how many customs officials actually read the
Chinese solution manuals to discern if they are pirated editions?

After that I was livid about the "head in the sand" attitude of
Physics faculty. They pretended it didn't exist. When I got a copy
of the solution manual to Jackson's E&M and ran it under their noses,
their retort was that the solution manuals had mistakes in them...and
that the students weren't really learning.

I was not (and am still not) amused. Most graduate physics courses
have a large component of very difficult homework. Regardless how it
counts in the grades, the exams are exceedingly similar to those
homework problems.

Students who get the solutions from *anywhere* will do better than
students who never see the solution. That's a no brainer, even for an
osterich.

Years later, I asked a colleague how he prevented scholastic
dishonesty in his classes. He said: "Figure out every possible way
they might cheat (cheat sheets, solution manuals, etc) then make those
part of the acceptable ways of succeeding in the course." Engage the
students in defeating their own lopsided way of succeeding over their
classmates. For example, *let* them have a cheat sheet, give them
print outs of equations, place your old sets of HW in the library so
everybody has access to them, not just the "former UG students" or the
students who are in a research lab with grad students ahead of them.
In other words, Level the playing field for everybody, or accept that
you are part of the good old boy, fraternity cheating cabal. Most of
all, don't be an osterich and deny your complicity with the insiders.
Trying to "keep the honest people honest" only works to promote the
dishonest advantage.

Karl

Quoting "Rauber, Joel" <Joel.Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>:

Krishna said in part:

| Even worse. I went to Google, typed in physics homework
| solutions. Third
| hit:
|
| http://www.solutionarchive.org/

I forgot that site!

I would implore all instructors to either not post solutions on line or
at least password protect them and then remove them when the course is
over. This won't totally solve the problem by any means, as students
can download and then post themselves, but it would help.

Later Krishna stated:

"I feel that this must always have been a problem. Fraternities are the
most common example, but plenty of student groups have solution files of
homeworks and exams."

I think the ease with which the internet allows you to access the whole
world's solution files makes the problem incomparably different, as you
say, an order or magnitude greater.

Yea, when I was at school the fraternities had files, but there weren't
too many with upper division physics courses in them!
_______________________________________________
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


--
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley



_______________________________________________
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


--
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley