Hi all! A year ago I wrote . Judging by the reviews, the article has a lot of interesting ideas, but it is long and hard to read. And I have long wanted to break it down into smaller ones and write them more clearly.
But writing the same thing twice somehow does not work. In addition, significant problems in the organization of this course have made themselves felt this year. Therefore, I decided to write several articles about each of the ideas separately, to talk about the pros and cons.
This is the first article about a way to organize students so that they actively study theory during the semester, and not in the last days before the exam.
List of articles in the series:
Let's say a group of adults needs to deal with some new vast area. For example, they are developing a new product. Let's say these people are technically advanced and independent. How can they do better?
It is wise to first make a list of questions that need to be answered. Then instruct everyone to deal with some group of questions, explore and clearly write answers for everyone else. Everyone else can read these answers, supplement them, ask questions if something is not clear.
If all goes well, you will end up with written and well-formulated answers. In them, everyone can look and find information when needed. If there is not enough information, this is an occasion to contact an expert who has dealt with this topic. And, then, of course, do not forget to supplement the written database of answers =)
How does all this relate to students and university studies?
A group of students is like a group of adults who need to explore a new area. The teacher is like a person who can set the direction for research - designate a list of questions that students need to deal with.
Usually the answers to the teacher's questions are contained in what he has already said. Students are required to understand this and report on the exam. It is almost impossible to check the understanding of a large amount of material in a short exam, so the mark is put on how well the student learned or copied a random piece. An important role is also played by the ability to pass such exams: to think quickly, confidently say things similar to the truth, and respond correctly to the teacher's comments.
The task of understanding the material becomes far from being the highest priority. Most of what is learned is not used and forgotten over the next six months or a year, if not the next day. Of the written artifacts, at best, a synopsis remains. Sometimes it is good, but as a rule it is a squeeze of the opinion of one teacher, collected in time pressure.
Complementing the picture is the fact that theoretical material is usually not interesting for students. They postpone its study until the session and deprive themselves of the opportunity to use theory in solving practical problems. Teachers have to save practical classes: they poke students into fragments of theory that are necessary to solve the problems being analyzed. The solution of the problem according to a fragment of the theory lowered from above is a necessary skill, but, alas, not sufficient. Under the tasks from real life, it is not signed which methods are best used in solving them.
So the idea
The teacher uploads a list of questions to the public, for example, by posting to a VKontakte group where all students are. Students can:
- Choose a question that no one has answered yet and answer it in a comment.
- Choose an answer already written by someone else - and comment on it: supplement / ask the author a question / write what is wrong and why.
Students are encouraged to answer questions; students who answer questions well during the semester receive grades for the exam automatically. Duplicate answers of other students and other clogging is punishable.
Questions need to be creative and not having a clear answer, otherwise the one who answered first will win. And the rest will not have an incentive to read his answer, since there is nothing to add to it. Possible question templates:
- Give examples of using such and such a theorem / algorithm / method. Is this application effective?
- Compare algorithms / methods / technical implementations. Write their advantages/problems compared to each other.
- How to supplement the algorithm / method so that it allows solving another problem like this?
- How can one simplify the proof of the theorem if such facts are also known? How to prove a theorem if you cannot use such and such facts? (which are currently in use)
- Suggest ideas for improving the algorithm/method. How and in what situations do these improvements help?
- Check out an article. Write down from it what you think is useful; explain why.
- Formulate your questions to the lecture / topic. Why do you consider them important?
The scope for creativity is great! For many, creative questions in and of themselves stimulate learning, as opposed to tedious delving into what the teacher is telling.
A system with such questions can encourage students to deal with theory right during the semester. For example, if questions are posted after each lecture and a hard short deadline of three days is set for answers, then many students will deal with the lecture material immediately after it. Some students will even go beyond the narrow confines of what the teacher has read and dig around the internet to design their own bikes.
Sometimes the answers will be interesting for the teacher himself.
I know myself =)
The previous paragraph contains the keyword βmayβ. What is painted there in pink tones may not come. Instead, there will be ordinary gray ones, students will try to shove the course, answers to questions will turn into formalism, uselessly devouring the teacher's time.
What determines how events will develop?
A very important factor is how the check of answers to questions is organized. It is important to highly reward good answers, otherwise students will lose motivation. It is important to identify junk responses and unsubscribes, it is important to immediately make it clear to students that this is useless. Otherwise, the replies will become more and more.
It is useful to involve students in this very complex task. They can be asked to highlight the most helpful responses; the most understandable answers; answers in which people tried the most. Asking to highlight the most garbage answers is useless. And everything else in practice is not very useful, but sometimes it helps to avoid errors during verification.
Of course, such a check requires a lot of time on the part of the teacher. I understood this even when I started the experiments. I also understood that I would not be able to accurately distinguish between good answers and replies - and decided to take the side of the student in controversial situations. Such a strategy withstood two experiments, the third failed: many people wrote trash in the answers, and this became a problem.
All experiments lasted a semester. In the second and third experiments, there were 2 times more students - 40 people. But in the second, only a small handful of students wrote answers. Almost everyone wrote in the third, I think they considered it easy and greatly simplifies the passing of the course. And I could not normally distinguish the wheat from the chaff, with which everything was rapidly overgrown. To save the situation, I had to offer an easier option for passing the course - for those who wrote anyhow.
Next time, Iβm thinking of initially stimulating only those who will be really interested in answering questions - I plan to give points only for good answers. In disputable cases, I think to offer to supplement and not put any points until this is done.
Some philosophical reflections
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How often to post questions? If questions come up too often, students will get tired of answering them. After all, answering such questions can take a long time. If questions appear too rarely, this is an approximation to the situation βfrom session to session, students live happily, and the session is only 2 times a yearβ with all the ensuing consequences. The more important and complex the subject, the more questions should be posted. What is often and rarely? More than lectures are definitely not necessary. Once a month is rare, students will fall out of the context of what happened at the beginning of the month.
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What are the deadlines for responses? The shorter the deadline, the more students answer questions when they still remember well what happened at the lecture. The longer the deadline, the fewer students will say that they did not have time to answer questions because they were distracted by important matters. I think the optimum is between 3 days and a week, maximum two.
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Should I post questions before the lecture or after? If both the questions and the deadline are before the lecture, many students will come to the lecture more prepared. But not all, this is a problem, someone's interests will not be taken into account. If posted after a lecture, questions can build on what was said in the lecture and cover more material. If you make questions before the lecture, and the deadline is after, students will answer questions instead of listening to the lecture. If you post one list of questions before the lecture and another after, there will be an overflow. At least if the subject is not the most important.
Is there any downside to exempting students from taking an exam for doing well on questions during the semester? I see only one: preparing for the exam encourages the student to go through all the course material again in a short time. This often leads to an understanding of the overall picture of the course, if only for a short moment. When answering questions on individual lectures, such a picture may not form.
Should students who did well during the semester be forced to take an exam just for the sake of forming a big picture of the subject in their heads? Is this picture worth the stress? Will this discourage students during the semester? Can this picture be formed in some other way? On these issues, I'm still at the stage of reflection, write if you have ideas!
Thank you for attention!
PS: I do not consider anything written as dogma, and I will be glad to justified comments and objections =)
Source: habr.com