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.

first exam!

The first exam is Wed. I think it is a fair exam, with a mix of conceptual and quantitative questions. Some questions are designed that the majority of students should get correct to establish a reasonable floor in the score. Other questions are harder, and hopefully serve as some discriminatory power.

But as always I am nervous to see how much the students have understood and how well they do. I hope well

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.

first week

whoa, what a week. So much happened and so fast

• the enthusiasm in the lecture room seems very good with students working hard on the clicker questions
• first problem-sets went off with only a few technical webCT problems
• the podcasts worked great, thanks to ISU's IT team
• the TAs did a great job with the recitations and labs

Though I did feel for most of the week that I was running fast just to keep up :)

First day of class

Tomorrow is the first day of class. I need to practice the lecture, but I think everything is set. I am excited an nervous (always happens, not matter how many times I have done this :)

podcasts!

OK, it looks like I am all set to make podcasts of each lecture

• the echo360 software receives a feed from my room microphone
• it takes periodic screenshots of my powerpoint slideshow
• then uploads the mp3 file to itunesU
• students registered in the course can then access the file either directly from itunes or via a link on the calendar of webCT
• students can fast-forward through the lecture to key parts
  

Let's see how well it works! Should help students who must miss a lecture, or want to review before exams. Let's hope it does not reduce attendance :(

finished the pre-labs!

I've finished the pre-labs for the upcoming semester. For the first time, there will be a separate due time for each lab section, so that the assignment closes as the lab-period for each student starts. This hopefully will clear up any ambiguity and confusion about the pre-labs and will hopefully help the students with a firm/fixed deadline and also help the TA monitor the accountability.

Looking forward to tommorrow, when I lean about podcasting the lectures to iTunesU