At 01:45 PM 4/8/02 +1000, Alan McLean wrote:
>Students will inevitably seek help for assignments. This may be other >students, other staff members or even you. If the main purpose of the >assignment is to encourage students to learn, this is fine, but it >certainly stuffs it up as an assessment tool! (One of the reasons I >eventually gave up on assignments was that I was sick of marking my own >work - and of giving lower marks to students who had not obtained help.) you are suggesting that in cases like these, large classes, only IN class in front of the instructor work ... would be relatively free from these problems; ie, thus ... would be legitimate ... any thing else would be inappropriate (NOTE: you suggest that these may be appropriate in graduate school where we have something called a "thesis" but, you aren't implying that students don't get this outside help with theses and dissertations are you? and, what about all the courses they take and papers and projects required in those? i don't think our control for graduate students is much better than for undergrads) so, we have a conundrum ... only use things that we think ONLY the student is doing BUT, the scope of coverage related to our course goals and objectives is highly restricted ... OR, allow in more sensible things to have the students do BUT, lose some of the "control" over WHO is doing it the question is: what is better overall, for students? i will argue that the latter is better ... even though our assessment control is perhaps diminished >In our sausage-machine educational institutions, where students equate >'learning' with 'photocopying' the effect of most assignments is simply >to provide marks which are generally restricted in range, and generally >reasonably high. > >Regards, >Alan > > > > >Dennis Roberts wrote: > > > > perhaps what alan is opining about is the problem of trying to make > > satisfactory distinctions amongst all these turned in assignments ... but, > > that does not DEvalue the activity ... but, does DEValues these scores from > > adding more spread to to the distribution > > > > we can assist this by making the SAME assignment to all ... variations are > > more evident that way BUT, then you run into the problem of "cheating" more > > ... > > > > if we make different assignments to all, then differences in quality of > > content become hard to ascertain since all content is different ... then we > > have to rely on presentation, structure, good writing, and the like > > > > however, i still contend that the fact that we have an activity that we > > seem to find hard to handle from a spread-em-out point of view, is not > > sufficient reason to abandon the activity but, rather, should make us more > > vigilant to find better ways to grade these (using pre determined > > checklists, keys, points to look for, etc.) things > > > > At 09:25 AM 4/8/02 +1000, Alan McLean wrote: > > >A number (>10!) of years ago I directed a subject with assignments and > > >of course had this problem. (I say of course because there is always > > >some variation among markers!) I went through an incredible amount of > > >heart burn, trying to do the best thing for the students. I started by > > >taking into account both class means and class standard deviations, > > >using the linear transformation referred to before. Then I decided that > > >the SD had very little variation, and simply leveled the class means. > > > > > >None of this resolved my heart burn, because I was never sure which > > >group of students I was 'helping'. Did a class get a low average mark > > >because their performance was low or because the marker was more > > >demanding? (Extensive remarking to try and find this out was out of the > > >question - this was why we spread the marking load in the first case.) > > > > > >One solution of course was to create assignments for which the solution > > >was very cut and dried, so that variation in marking was not a problem. > > >I eventually decided that this amounted to a class test (except that it > > >was a 'take home' test, with all the disadvantages of that) so wound up > > >turning it into a genuine class test. > > > > > >Eventually I realised that assignments are simply inappropriate as > > >assessment tools for large classes. They work fine as learning tools - > > >if you can get the students to do them as such! - and they work fine for > > >a small class (under 10). For large classes they are simply nonrandom > > >number generators. > > > > > >(You might pick up a certain emotional tone to this email......) > > > > > >Regards, > > >Alan > > > > > > > > >Tristan Miller wrote: > > > > > > > > Greetings. > > > > > > > > On Sun, 7 Apr 2002, Glen Barnett wrote: > > > > > Assuming you *can* take average student abilities across classes > as equal > > > > > > > > Who said that we are sampling across classes? I was thinking of > the case > > > > where the assignments from a single large class are randomly > divided among > > > > several graders for marking, and one of the graders is an outlier. > > > > > > > > > there are a variety of ways you might match mean and s.d., > > > > > but the obvious one is the linear transformation you get by > > > > > multiplying the B group's marks by the ratio of standard > deviations (r > > > > > = s_A/s_B, making the new sd equal to s_A), and then adding the > > > > > difference d = x_A - r x_B. > > > > > > > > Thanks, this is exactly what I'm looking for. :) > > > > > > > > On 6 Apr 2002, Jay Warner wrote: > > > > > I would be more concerned that the graders can interpret the answers > > > > > in such blatantly different ways. Perhaps the students do the same, > > > > > which begs the question of the precision & usefulness of the > > > > > questions. Reviewing the questions with your graders might > tighten up > > > > > your (instructor's) part of the process. > > > > > > > > I am aware that the best solution in this case is preventative > rather than > > > > corrective, but unfortunately situations do arise where the damage has > > > > already been done, and redesigning or remarking the assignment is not > > > > practical. In such cases the regulations of my university mandate a > > > > linear scaling of the affected grades, hence my query. I hope that my > > > > assignments will be so clearly specified and my markers so clearly > > > > instructed that I will never have need of such a scaling, but I > wish to be > > > > prepared for all possibilities. > > > > > > > > -- > > > > \\\ Tristan Miller > > > > \\\ Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto > > > > \\\ http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~psy/ > > > > > > > > . > > > > . > > > > ================================================================= > > > > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > > > > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: > > > > . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > > > > ================================================================= > > > > > >-- > > >Alan McLean ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > > >Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics > > >Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Melbourne > > >Tel: +61 03 9903 2102 Fax: +61 03 9903 2007 > > > > > >. > > >. > > >================================================================= > > >Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > > >problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: > > >. http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > > >================================================================= > >-- >Alan McLean ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) >Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics >Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Melbourne >Tel: +61 03 9903 2102 Fax: +61 03 9903 2007 > >. >. >================================================================= >Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the >problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: >. http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . >================================================================= Dennis Roberts, 208 Cedar Bldg., University Park PA 16802 <Emailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> WWW: http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm AC 8148632401 . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
