hard problem sets

It has been a fascinating week. Each week students complete two problem sets, the first covering basic ideas and key skills, the 2nd set is far more complex. These are hard problems and have been a cause of frustration for the students.

A mini-maelstrom of complaints occurred on the course discussion board. Some of the comments were rather negative and I had to make sure I did not take them personally. However after thinking about this for a few days I decided to make two changes, a) shift the due date to Tue 8am from Mon 8am so the students have an extra day to get help from TAs, help-room or myself, and b) increase the number of attempts for each problem from 2 to 3.

I also extracted the time when students were starting the problem-sets and the score on the problem-set. Students who started the work within 24 hours of the due date got 25%, while those who started 3-4 days before the due date scored ~ 75%. With a smooth trend between these two extremes. So I encouraged students to start early and use all the resources we make available.

At lecture I also discussed the goal of these problem-sets is to build confidence so that when they see a tough problem that they can't do, they have the approach, skills, and confidence to say, OK how do I start, what principles are at work in this case, how can I make progress towards a solution, etc. These are critical skills for the future.