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What do you mean by easy in this context?
by andrewingram 5y ago
What do you mean by easy in this context?
- Jensson 5y agoStudents are happier with courses they get good grades in. Students who fail aren't very happy.
- n4r9 5y agoGood question, it is slightly nebulous but to do with how much the course requires students to deeply understand the underlying concepts, and how much independent effort it asks of them. For example... Easy: Lecture contains an algorithm for diagonalising 3×3 matrices and an example. Tutorial/exam has students do a very similar example (e.g. both matrices have lots of zeroes in the same cells). Harder: Lecture contains an algorithm for diagonalising 3×3 matrices and an example. Tutorial/exam has students do a matrix that is structurally very different. Hard: Lecture contains an algorithm for diagonalising 3×3 matrices and an example. Tutorial/exam has students extend the ideas of the algorithm to a specific 4x4 matrix. My own undergraduate experience was largely in the "hard" category, whilst as a lecturer at a different university there was pressure to move increasingly towards the "easy". It was even fairly explicit: student feedback surveys would be aggregated and you'd be informed that the students are unhappy because the tutorial exercises cover things they "haven't seen" in lectures.