4 ms·

> We were explicitly told that searching online for answers to homeworks was forbidden. I might be in the minority but I am of the opinion that if you are grad

by wwortiz 16y ago

> We were explicitly told that searching online for answers to homeworks was forbidden. I might be in the minority but I am of the opinion that if you are grading students on something that can be easily obtained through a google search you probably shouldn't be grading them on that.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
What is your justification? Anything that can be found on Google isn't worth learning? Just to take a trivial example: take a look at Project Euler. There's no question in my mind that working through those exercises is a valuable learning experience, and (in the context of a programming course) would be worth grading someone on-- even though the answers are readily available to anyone who searches for them.
- wwortiz 16y ago
  >What is your justification? Anything that can be found on Google isn't worth learning? How in the world you got that out of my comment is beyond me. People cheat with resources available it is a sad fact but it is true. You are being unfair if you decide to punish honest students by grading on something that is easily available (I've seen homework grades as 30% off class grades before).
Xk 16y ago
I agree with you for the most part, but nearly all introductory courses must have content that is easily available online. Consider teaching students how to write a recursive method. What would their first assignment be? List length? "find length of list" Factorial? "factorial recursive" Fibonacci? "fibonacci recursive" GCD? "program gcd" There are only so many simple recursive procedures, and I guarantee nearly all of them are online. That said, I do think that once students have a basic understanding of computer science all assignments should be given so that the answer are not online. And this wouldn't bee to hard, even. It would just take some effort by the professor.
- wwortiz 16y ago
  Okay sure those are simple examples that are probably available in large quantities online, but why should that homework assignment count towards a grade is more of my point. Professors can assign homework that isn't graded and the ones who actually do the assignment will be the ones that learn.
  - Xk 16y ago
    Agreed, but that all but eliminates graded homework for the first several years of college (not that that's a bad thing, just that I don't think colleges would approve).
  - totalc 16y ago
    Graded homeworks might be used as checkpoints verifying that students are learning key concepts, prior to the exams that are a larger component of the grade. Without these graded checkpoints, lazy students given only voluntary homeworks might reach the exam with little preparation (lazy student speaking from personal experience. being graded on the homework 'encouraged' learning the concepts!)
    - dagw 16y ago
      lazy students given only voluntary homeworks might reach the exam with little preparation And that is bad, why exactly? You're unprepared, you fail, you learn a lesson, you retake. Repeat until done. I too was a lazy student and found that failing a few classes and having to resit the exam was a fine way to motivate you to study.
- btilly 16y ago
  It is trivial to create a simple recursive problem without saying anything that would be a Google-able search term. The problem may be solved, but the students won't know what to search for. For example have them write a program that solves the game of Nim, but don't tell them the name of the game they are solving. Instead call it "pick up pennies" or something like that. Now Google won't help.
pohl 16y ago
I suspect you're actually in the majority. I bet that, rather, the minority position is that the instructor should create whatever conditions they want to so that they can exercise the students as they see fit - and that the students should extend enough respect to consider why those conditions are being created. This is my view. Replace the teacher with a coach in a weightlifting class. One day he wants you to lift some freeweights, but he wants you to lift them in a particular way that does not use your legs. (Let's say he's having you do "military presses".) "Nonsense!" says the modern student, who already knows that it's best to lift heavy things with their legs. "Why shouldn't I be able to use this awesome resource (my legs) that's right here at my disposal!?" Well maybe - just maybe - the coach wants to target your deltoids. Hmmm. Enter Professor Luis von Ahn, who wants you to do homework without using google. Perhaps that is because he doesn't want you to target and improve your research abilities. It could be that, rather, he would like you to exercise and sculpt your ability to work problems from first principles. The professor may be aware that practice makes permanent, and homework is intended to get students to strengthen specific things, and that taking the easy way out robs the student of the intended benefit. That's how I approach being a student, and so I grant that when sensei says wax-on, paint-uh-fence, and sand-uh-flo that he's got some idea of what I should be working on. But that's an old, old attitude that exists only in a handful of Hollywood movies these days. So that's why I'm betting you're actually in the majority. By the way, the instructor here is an awesome guy. Anybody who hasn't heard of Luis von Ahn should do themselves a favor and watch his presentation on Human Computation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtFroEJN1nI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtFroEJN1nI
- bkrausz 16y ago
  Can't upvote this enough. 1) The early homeworks in this class were basically puzzles, where if you’ve seen the style of problem before you more or less knew the answer. The goal was to expose us to these types of problems and teach us how to think them through properly. 2) The class was taught by Luis just as he was beginning to hit mainstream media. The guy has a unique approach to problems that was absolutely inspiring. His lectures were one of the few that I actually made an effort to go to.
  - 16y ago
jamii 16y ago
For my MSc exams we were given the papers to take home and it was considered perfectly acceptable to look up the answers as they as they were correctly cited. Someone clearly decided that the easiest way to prevent cheating was to set questions that took more than a few seconds googling to answer.
- danielford 16y ago
  That can be really hard in certain situations. My background is in biology. One of the more interesting and fun assignments I was given in college was a series of case studies. Basically, the patient has symptoms X, T, and W, what is wrong with them? This is a situation where you can't give problems to an undergraduate student that are easy enough to answer while they're simultaneously impossible to Google. I'd love to give my own students the opportunity to experience these types of critical thinking questions. Unfortunately, I know that I'm completely incapable of assigning ungoogleable problems without turning them into some Dr. House shit that can't be answered by a college student.
  - alextp 16y ago
    The solution to this is to reserve a time and space (maybe with a TA) when/where the students are expected to do the work, instead of doing them at leisure. Few people would say it's wrong to not be able to google during an exam, but most would agree that not googling during exercises is insane.

by wwortiz 16y ago

michael_dorfman 16y ago

What is your justification? Anything that can be found on Google isn't worth learning? Just to take a trivial example: take a look at Project Euler. There's no question in my mind that working through those exercises is a valuable learning experience, and (in the context of a programming course) would be worth grading someone on-- even though the answers are readily available to anyone who searches for them.

wwortiz 16y ago
>What is your justification? Anything that can be found on Google isn't worth learning? How in the world you got that out of my comment is beyond me. People cheat with resources available it is a sad fact but it is true. You are being unfair if you decide to punish honest students by grading on something that is easily available (I've seen homework grades as 30% off class grades before).

Xk 16y ago

I agree with you for the most part, but nearly all introductory courses must have content that is easily available online. Consider teaching students how to write a recursive method. What would their first assignment be? List length? "find length of list" Factorial? "factorial recursive" Fibonacci? "fibonacci recursive" GCD? "program gcd" There are only so many simple recursive procedures, and I guarantee nearly all of them are online. That said, I do think that once students have a basic understanding of computer science all assignments should be given so that the answer are not online. And this wouldn't bee to hard, even. It would just take some effort by the professor.

wwortiz 16y ago
Okay sure those are simple examples that are probably available in large quantities online, but why should that homework assignment count towards a grade is more of my point. Professors can assign homework that isn't graded and the ones who actually do the assignment will be the ones that learn.
- Xk 16y ago
  Agreed, but that all but eliminates graded homework for the first several years of college (not that that's a bad thing, just that I don't think colleges would approve).
- totalc 16y ago
  Graded homeworks might be used as checkpoints verifying that students are learning key concepts, prior to the exams that are a larger component of the grade. Without these graded checkpoints, lazy students given only voluntary homeworks might reach the exam with little preparation (lazy student speaking from personal experience. being graded on the homework 'encouraged' learning the concepts!)
  - dagw 16y ago
    lazy students given only voluntary homeworks might reach the exam with little preparation And that is bad, why exactly? You're unprepared, you fail, you learn a lesson, you retake. Repeat until done. I too was a lazy student and found that failing a few classes and having to resit the exam was a fine way to motivate you to study.
btilly 16y ago
It is trivial to create a simple recursive problem without saying anything that would be a Google-able search term. The problem may be solved, but the students won't know what to search for. For example have them write a program that solves the game of Nim, but don't tell them the name of the game they are solving. Instead call it "pick up pennies" or something like that. Now Google won't help.

pohl 16y ago

I suspect you're actually in the majority. I bet that, rather, the minority position is that the instructor should create whatever conditions they want to so that they can exercise the students as they see fit - and that the students should extend enough respect to consider why those conditions are being created. This is my view. Replace the teacher with a coach in a weightlifting class. One day he wants you to lift some freeweights, but he wants you to lift them in a particular way that does not use your legs. (Let's say he's having you do "military presses".) "Nonsense!" says the modern student, who already knows that it's best to lift heavy things with their legs. "Why shouldn't I be able to use this awesome resource (my legs) that's right here at my disposal!?" Well maybe - just maybe - the coach wants to target your deltoids. Hmmm. Enter Professor Luis von Ahn, who wants you to do homework without using google. Perhaps that is because he doesn't want you to target and improve your research abilities. It could be that, rather, he would like you to exercise and sculpt your ability to work problems from first principles. The professor may be aware that practice makes permanent, and homework is intended to get students to strengthen specific things, and that taking the easy way out robs the student of the intended benefit. That's how I approach being a student, and so I grant that when sensei says wax-on, paint-uh-fence, and sand-uh-flo that he's got some idea of what I should be working on. But that's an old, old attitude that exists only in a handful of Hollywood movies these days. So that's why I'm betting you're actually in the majority. By the way, the instructor here is an awesome guy. Anybody who hasn't heard of Luis von Ahn should do themselves a favor and watch his presentation on Human Computation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtFroEJN1nI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtFroEJN1nI

bkrausz 16y ago
Can't upvote this enough. 1) The early homeworks in this class were basically puzzles, where if you’ve seen the style of problem before you more or less knew the answer. The goal was to expose us to these types of problems and teach us how to think them through properly. 2) The class was taught by Luis just as he was beginning to hit mainstream media. The guy has a unique approach to problems that was absolutely inspiring. His lectures were one of the few that I actually made an effort to go to.
- 16y ago

jamii 16y ago

For my MSc exams we were given the papers to take home and it was considered perfectly acceptable to look up the answers as they as they were correctly cited. Someone clearly decided that the easiest way to prevent cheating was to set questions that took more than a few seconds googling to answer.

danielford 16y ago
That can be really hard in certain situations. My background is in biology. One of the more interesting and fun assignments I was given in college was a series of case studies. Basically, the patient has symptoms X, T, and W, what is wrong with them? This is a situation where you can't give problems to an undergraduate student that are easy enough to answer while they're simultaneously impossible to Google. I'd love to give my own students the opportunity to experience these types of critical thinking questions. Unfortunately, I know that I'm completely incapable of assigning ungoogleable problems without turning them into some Dr. House shit that can't be answered by a college student.
- alextp 16y ago
  The solution to this is to reserve a time and space (maybe with a TA) when/where the students are expected to do the work, instead of doing them at leisure. Few people would say it's wrong to not be able to google during an exam, but most would agree that not googling during exercises is insane.