Departures from conventional grading systems at uni

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Originally Posted by Loki

You know, I don't think highly of my own social skills, but you without a doubt have the worst social skills of anyone I've ever come across. If you value humanity, please move to some island and stay there for the rest of your life. That is all.

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Oh, and you derive that solely from my massive dislike for your ignorance? Heh. Another sign that you're not half as clever as you think you are.

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Originally Posted by Nessus

Reports are a very early part of learning to write article level text, and as such definitely belongs in the basic studies. However, I would discourage "out of the box" thinking for these writing exercises, that comes later. You have to know the basics before you can develop your own style.

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Indeed. And if you give feedback on what you did right and what to improve upon, you actually don't need grades anymore.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Nice strawman there. Grades aren't the only incentive students need, but it sure as hell an important one. There are some students who are self-motivated, and the percentage increases at higher levels of education, but you can't expect secondary school students to all want an education for the sake of an education.

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No, of course not, and I don't think I suggested that you should implement a simple pass/fail system in secondary school. Some people will need an excuse to do better work, just like some people need an excuse to pay more for coffee :mad:

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So you're talking about a group that's known for being highly motivated and highly intelligent. Who'd think that such people wouldn't need additional motivation.

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Obviously you did, judging from your nonsense about mediocrity :downcast:

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You don't have to get rid of grades just to reduce student stress levels. A far more reasonable solution is to have many different types of assignments. That way, people don't have to worry about doing poorly on one of them (or on one category). The stress isn't caused so much by grades as it is by the knowledge that screwing up once or twice can have huge consequences.

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Absolutely, which is one of the reasons why, at uni, we can retake exams.

While basing student evaluation on many different types of assignments may be more reasonable in some ways, it's an approach that comes with its own problems. After all, the whole point of such an approach is lost if it leads to an unnecessarily great workload that cuts into the energy and time required for high quality independent study and reflection. While it may aid evaluation, it may also hinder learning.

I don't know what to do about you people in the humanities. Maybe have one major paper a semester, with mandatory seminars and feedback sessions throughout :o

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Originally Posted by Nessus

Reports are a very early part of learning to write article level text, and as such definitely belongs in the basic studies. However, I would discourage "out of the box" thinking for these writing exercises, that comes later. You have to know the basics before you can develop your own style.

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I'm not sure it's possible to expect someone from not doing this at all to doing it well in a few years. It's a skill that has to be developed over time, just like all the other ones.

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Originally Posted by Loki

I'm not sure it's possible to expect someone from not doing this at all to doing it well in a few years. It's a skill that has to be developed over time, just like all the other ones.

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Yeah?

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Originally Posted by Nessus

Yeah?

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As many of the Asian countries learned, you can't emphasize rote memorization for 90% of someone's education, and then expect them to magically pick up creative thinking at graduate level.

Learning valuable skills through playing :heart: humans and cats have been doing it for many generations now.

Hehe according to wiki, most medical schools in the US use a pass/fail system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical..._United_States

:)

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Originally Posted by Loki

As many of the Asian countries learned, you can't emphasize rote memorization for 90% of someone's education, and then expect them to magically pick up creative thinking at graduate level.

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I have no idea what the Hell kind of conversation you think we're having, but this has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said

No, you. :o

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Originally Posted by Nessus

I have no idea what the Hell kind of conversation you think we're having, but this has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said

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I'm also not quite sure where he got the rote memorization part from. I think he just picks words at random and looks if you'll bite.

I think he basically meant that you should promote the learning of key concepts and the development of creative thinking in parallel, so that you end up with people who both know things and can use what they know in awesome ways.

I can't picture higher education based on rote memorization. How would that work? What would it serve? So strange. Maybe I should visit Chin---bwahahaha

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Originally Posted by Aimless

I think he basically meant that you should promote the learning of key concepts and the development of creative thinking in parallel, so that you end up with people who both know things and can use what they know in awesome ways.

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You still have to start with the basics :)

If you want to build creative or artful houses, first you still have to learn how to build houses which don't collapse at the first sneeze of a butterfly. As long as you don't state during the teaching that your models are the ultimate and only way of doing something, there's still plenty of space for creativity.

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Originally Posted by Nessus

Reports are a very early part of learning to write article level text, and as such definitely belongs in the basic studies. However, I would discourage "out of the box" thinking for these writing exercises, that comes later. You have to know the basics before you can develop your own style.

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Fair enough.