Exam results

The first exam came in with a class average of 55% :( There were many concerns raised on the course discussion board, one was the lack of time, so I will extend the time in the next exam by 30 min.

A more subtle issue is which questions the students did well on, and which ones they did not do well on. Across pretty much all the content areas, questions that were direct applications of a single core equation or skill scored very high. I grouped these and the average is ~ 70%.

However for questions that required a combination of two ideas, the percentage of correct answers dropped, to a class average for this group of questions of ~ 40%.

There are many calls from the students to provide a larger formula sheet, or more example problems in recitation, or... I understand this, but I do not think that this will help address the core challenge, in fact it may make it worse. Students taking the course are heading to a variety of quantitative careers, engineering, science, business. The number one goal is for students to develop skills that go beyond the straightforward application of ideas and to combine information in novel ways. I understand that this is challenge for students, and that this is not their typical experience of a university course. But I want students to strive for this higher goal.

All the components of the course are designed to give students multiple opportunities to develop these skills, the complex problem-sets, multi-faceted problems on Tue recitations, the group projects, the multi-content questions on the exams. I will continue to work with the students to help them as much as I can. I also hope that students will strive for these higher goals as well.