7 ms·

This is a enormous failure of the teacher. The kid should have talked it a supervisor, because any teacher should be able to look beyond their own ignorance of

This is a enormous failure of the teacher. The kid should have talked it a supervisor, because any teacher should be able to look beyond their own ignorance of the subject of a student's project and instead ask questions about the thought process the student used in making their project, and given a grade based on that.

Jach 15y ago
I thought the same. But then I thought that a supervisor is probably going to understand even less than the teacher, which just biases them even more to siding with the teacher. It's hard enough to get people on your side when they don't understand what you know; it's even harder when they don't even understand how you could possibly understand. That said I don't think he couldn't have done better. I don't think I'd have done the tedium of commenting every line of code; I'd rather write a script that just parsed out the doc of every function call and pasted it next to the function call.
AlexC04 15y ago
There are two sides to that story. There's quite a bit going on that has been left out. England's school system really doesn't work in a way that teachers can just hand out whatever grade a student "deserves". The kid was handed a syllabus, a marking scheme and told "if you do this you'll get an A". He threw out the mark scheme and did his own thing. He then tried to get an A for doing whatever the hell he wanted. I applaud him for pursuing his own interests and taking charge of his own learning - I really do - but the system doesn't allow for that. You don't hand in creative writing and expect to get a math credit. You don't hand in physics to your chemistry teacher. I wish the system in England were different. Maybe I'd still be teaching there if it were, but you're casting a lot of aspersion and judgement on a subject that you don't seem to know much about.
- JimDabell 15y ago
  > He threw out the mark scheme and did his own thing. That's not what the article says. It says the brief was to "design and create a multimedia project", which he did. It says that most people went with Powerpoint, but it doesn't say that's what was asked of them.
  - seabee 15y ago
    The brief is just that. The mark scheme undoubtedly suggests a more restrictive approach into how you produce a project in line with that brief. It's like listening to the first sentence your client utters ("I want a program to calculate my expenses...") and then creating Excel when all they wanted was a calculator. For better or worse, it's not about doing whatever you like, and hiding behind the brief when there was a more detailed set of specs is immature.
    - JimDabell 15y ago
      You are assuming that there was a more detailed spec. that asked for something different to what he did. There's no indication of that in the article, you're just inventing things to prop up your argument.
      - seabee 15y ago
        I'm assuming? I did the same course that student did. The curriculum hasn't changed towards 'we won't tell you what you need to score the marks' - quite the opposite. It was like this 6 years ago and it was like this a years ago when my coworker showed me his mark scheme for a similar curriculum-mandated ICT project. > There's no indication of that in the article Because if there was, it would severely weaken his whole 'I'm surrounded by idiots' argument, wouldn't it? Good for the kid for making a cool app, but he has to learn that you don't get judged on your merits but by how successfully you complete your task. Have you had any experience with GCSE ICT? As far as I am concerned, there is one person making judgments with less information and that person is you. Let's not forget you are seeing one side of the story - don't be so foolish and pretend it's the whole truth. You can even view the mark schemes online! Here is but one exam board that does this: http://www.edexcel.com/quals/gcse/gcse10/ict/Pages/About_GCSE_ICT.aspx http://www.edexcel.com/quals/gcse/gcse10/ict/Pages/About_GCS... It's amazing how I am ignorantly downvoted for something that is common knowledge among schoolchidren, seeing as they are given a mark scheme for every piece of coursework in every subject they take. I can only assume these people aren't from the UK...
        15y ago

Jach 15y ago

I thought the same. But then I thought that a supervisor is probably going to understand even less than the teacher, which just biases them even more to siding with the teacher. It's hard enough to get people on your side when they don't understand what you know; it's even harder when they don't even understand how you could possibly understand. That said I don't think he couldn't have done better. I don't think I'd have done the tedium of commenting every line of code; I'd rather write a script that just parsed out the doc of every function call and pasted it next to the function call.

AlexC04 15y ago

There are two sides to that story. There's quite a bit going on that has been left out. England's school system really doesn't work in a way that teachers can just hand out whatever grade a student "deserves". The kid was handed a syllabus, a marking scheme and told "if you do this you'll get an A". He threw out the mark scheme and did his own thing. He then tried to get an A for doing whatever the hell he wanted. I applaud him for pursuing his own interests and taking charge of his own learning - I really do - but the system doesn't allow for that. You don't hand in creative writing and expect to get a math credit. You don't hand in physics to your chemistry teacher. I wish the system in England were different. Maybe I'd still be teaching there if it were, but you're casting a lot of aspersion and judgement on a subject that you don't seem to know much about.

JimDabell 15y ago
> He threw out the mark scheme and did his own thing. That's not what the article says. It says the brief was to "design and create a multimedia project", which he did. It says that most people went with Powerpoint, but it doesn't say that's what was asked of them.
- seabee 15y ago
  The brief is just that. The mark scheme undoubtedly suggests a more restrictive approach into how you produce a project in line with that brief. It's like listening to the first sentence your client utters ("I want a program to calculate my expenses...") and then creating Excel when all they wanted was a calculator. For better or worse, it's not about doing whatever you like, and hiding behind the brief when there was a more detailed set of specs is immature.
  - JimDabell 15y ago
    You are assuming that there was a more detailed spec. that asked for something different to what he did. There's no indication of that in the article, you're just inventing things to prop up your argument.
    - seabee 15y ago
      I'm assuming? I did the same course that student did. The curriculum hasn't changed towards 'we won't tell you what you need to score the marks' - quite the opposite. It was like this 6 years ago and it was like this a years ago when my coworker showed me his mark scheme for a similar curriculum-mandated ICT project. > There's no indication of that in the article Because if there was, it would severely weaken his whole 'I'm surrounded by idiots' argument, wouldn't it? Good for the kid for making a cool app, but he has to learn that you don't get judged on your merits but by how successfully you complete your task. Have you had any experience with GCSE ICT? As far as I am concerned, there is one person making judgments with less information and that person is you. Let's not forget you are seeing one side of the story - don't be so foolish and pretend it's the whole truth. You can even view the mark schemes online! Here is but one exam board that does this: http://www.edexcel.com/quals/gcse/gcse10/ict/Pages/About_GCSE_ICT.aspx http://www.edexcel.com/quals/gcse/gcse10/ict/Pages/About_GCS... It's amazing how I am ignorantly downvoted for something that is common knowledge among schoolchidren, seeing as they are given a mark scheme for every piece of coursework in every subject they take. I can only assume these people aren't from the UK...
      - 15y ago