In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
>Herman Rubin ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
>: What is the purpose of homework? It should be to help learning,
>: and this cannot be combined with being used for a grade. Those
>: problems which do not contribute to learning are a waste of time.
>
>
>I agree completely. In my class, homework gets graded, but students are
>told up-front that grades are based on midterm and final examinations with
>homework used rarely to decide borderline cases. They are also told that
>if they don't do the homework, there's no way they can succeed on the
>exams. The purpose of the homework is to give them a chance to
>explore and fail without penalty if that's what it takes for them to
>master the material.
If homework scores don't matter in grade consideration, why should the students
do them? You can keep telling students that they need to do the homeworks to
pass the exams but the fact is students won't care. I find it silly to require
students to do homeworks but then you don't account for the scores in
determining the final grades.
>One year, I tried letting the homework weigh into the grade (something
>like 25-33%) because the previous year's class said there was so much
>effort involved that it should be formally rewarded. The TAs spent more
>time arguing over grades than they did grading homwork (I
>exaggerate...slightly) and it was stressful for student, TAs, and
>instructor alike.
Perhaps your TAs are just too strict or don't know how to deal with students.
--
Tjen-Sien Lim
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.Recursive-Partitioning.com
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