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There are just too many competing tugs. Something has to give. The problem of plagiarism goes away entirely if you make the course grade consist entirely of the

by Jach 8y ago

There are just too many competing tugs. Something has to give. The problem of plagiarism goes away entirely if you make the course grade consist entirely of the final in-person exam. That doesn't mean you have to give up assigning homework and scoring it, but for mysterious reasons probably related in part to modern students and teachers not wanting to do anything unless forced to by the system colleges have moved away from the "final is everything" model.

tsumnia 8y ago
This is something that I emphasized in my CS1 courses (I haven't taught them in a few years). Homework was 50% divided into 10% for Typing Exercises (my research), 10% for Lecture Exercises (MCQ, TF, Fill in the Blanks), and 30% Programming. Exams accounted for the other 50% (Midterm 20%, Final 30%). The big thing is that if you look at 20% of their grade was simply on drilling. Explicit cheating wouldn't help for them and they are just enough to still impact your grade if you don't do them. Exams were in class, 2-3 hours long, and with a coding without Internet section. This approach does become more difficult with a 75 minute course (which is what NC State has), simply due to time constraints, so I can agree with you there. However, your point about "Something has to give" is one of the reasons I argue that we expect too much out of CS1. In other technical skills, like cooking, music, martial arts, dance, etc., the introduction is much more about accumulating the technical skills necessary. Music theory isn't as prominent in an Intro to Singing class; however, in Intro to CS, I don't think we do that. As my course structure should indicate, I think intro courses should be more drilling to build the neuromuscular memory because then at higher levels we can do more critical thinking with the trust that students "know how to execute the plan". I do think that something like Problem Solving should be given its own separate course where its skills can be trained and honed parallel, but separate, from Programming.

by Jach 8y ago

tsumnia 8y ago

This is something that I emphasized in my CS1 courses (I haven't taught them in a few years). Homework was 50% divided into 10% for Typing Exercises (my research), 10% for Lecture Exercises (MCQ, TF, Fill in the Blanks), and 30% Programming. Exams accounted for the other 50% (Midterm 20%, Final 30%). The big thing is that if you look at 20% of their grade was simply on drilling. Explicit cheating wouldn't help for them and they are just enough to still impact your grade if you don't do them. Exams were in class, 2-3 hours long, and with a coding without Internet section. This approach does become more difficult with a 75 minute course (which is what NC State has), simply due to time constraints, so I can agree with you there. However, your point about "Something has to give" is one of the reasons I argue that we expect too much out of CS1. In other technical skills, like cooking, music, martial arts, dance, etc., the introduction is much more about accumulating the technical skills necessary. Music theory isn't as prominent in an Intro to Singing class; however, in Intro to CS, I don't think we do that. As my course structure should indicate, I think intro courses should be more drilling to build the neuromuscular memory because then at higher levels we can do more critical thinking with the trust that students "know how to execute the plan". I do think that something like Problem Solving should be given its own separate course where its skills can be trained and honed parallel, but separate, from Programming.