Physics 218 towards a set of guidelines

Why guidelines for 218 ?  This guidelines need to be created for several purposes: 1.to be as fair as possible to all UP students.  For things that are common to all the grading should be common to all 2.to reduce the load on the instructors  Common setting of things helps a lot 3.to reduce friction among ourselves  If teaching 218 seems a highly stressful and contentious enterprise we are not doing it well.  P218 is a departmental service course.  Instructors can’t just do what they want.  Basic rules of the game apply to everyone.  If you can’t play nice, you shouldn’t play here. June 24th, 20152

Things agreed by mostly everyone

No-brainers  Lab grades to be passed centrally to department.  218-wide Coordinator or Lab coordinator ?  Challenge exam’s TA(s) to be identified early on from 218 TA pool for grade/proctoring. June 24th, 20154

TA’s performance  Office hours (p27 of survey)  Ask them to hold some office hours. June 24th, 20155

TA’s performance  Rating by Instructors (p29)  Rate only when something does not work.  Who Rates ? Rec. and Lab Coordinators ? Harder to implement for each lecture leader. June 24th, 20156

Assuming we do things we did last semester with only minor changes.

Target Final Grade Allocation (p6)  Table in survey was biased by one person putting all 100% for A’s.  Without that entry we get:  Propose to use that by default in the future.  Will put into guidelines  Discussion of absolute scale later on June 24th, Biased

Reporting to students (p9/10)  As the semester progress students need to clearly know where they stand so they can roughly estimate the letter grade they are on track to obtain. In the past this was done instructor by instructor in very different manners  Students talk to each other; one class was told that XX was an A and the other that YY was an A. This is a disaster.  A predictor is more useful for the average student than for the good one.  Survey supported the creation of common predictor  what type to use ? June 24th, 20159

Reporting to students (p9/10), cont.  Comments on the right.  Between three possibilities.  Option 1: ignore all other activities and base off midterms  Option 2: try to come up with average that considers q-drops and all other activities. Needs to be slightly conservative  Custom option: Two people selected this. One of them basically proposes a modified Option 2 that includes recitation/lab/etc grades.  It seems majority prefers Option 2.  We could implement that using previous semester’s information on the number of q-drop for each letter grades too.  We’ll put into guidelines June 24th,

Multiple Exam Versions (p13-14) Varying Answers  No majority of votes.  11 out of 15 instructors think that 2% (5%) or less students cheat in a room filled at 50% (66%)  Majority thinks that we should have two exam flavors, for either room occupancies considered.  Make known there are several versions  Only difference in ordering or value of parameters.  Will put into guidelines. June 24th,

Mastering Homework – cheating (p25/26)  Widespread copy and paste.  This is not during the process of investigating, comparing and learning.  One proposal June 24th,

Mastering Homework cheating (cont)  Widespread copy and paste.  This is not during the process of investigating, comparing and learning.  From one proposal  Reduce to 5% weight  Make points irrespective of correct answers  Ask TA to query each group about one problem from homework and deduct points if they don’t do appropriately. June 24th,

Recitations (p33-34)  Mechanical steps ?  Not acceptable, hmm. June 24th,  Instructors preferred a larger set of problems  3 or 4 problems 15 minutes long each  We should aim for that.

Things that require medium-level changes Some could be incorporated in Fall 2015

Curriculum (p4-5)  Remove Waves all together ?  Important if common final  7 out of 16 wants to remove it  3 out of 16 want to shorten it  Shorten Periodic Motion, how ? June 24th,

Curriculum (p4-5), comments  Remove Waves all together ?  Important if common final  7 out of 16 wants to remove it  3 out of 16 want to shorten it  Shorten Periodic Motion, how ? June 24th,

Common Weights (p42)  Strong preference towards common weights in all activities.  Should put this in Fall 2015 June 24th,

Common Syllabus (p42)  Strong preference towards common syllabus  We can put this in Fall 2015  (Back to reporting to students) June 24th,

Common Homework set (P43) June 24th,  Strong preference to use common Homework set.  (back to considering reporting to students)

Reporting to students (p9/10) (copy)  As the semester progress students need to clearly know where they stand so they can roughly estimate the letter grade they are on track to obtain. In the past this was done instructor by instructor in very different manners  Students talk to each other; one class was told that XX was an A and the other that YY was an A. This is a disaster.  A predictor is more useful for the average student than for the good one.  Survey supported the creation of common predictor  what type to use ? June 24th,

Reporting to students (p9/10), (copy) cont.  Comments on the right.  Between three possibilities.  Option 1: ignore all other activities and base off midterms  Option 2: try to come up with average that considers q-drops and all other activities. Needs to be slightly conservative  Custom option: Two people selected this. One of them basically proposes a modified Option 2 that includes recitation/lab/etc grades.  It seems majority prefers Option 2.  We could implement that using previous semester’s information on the number of q-drop for each letter grades too.  We’ll put into guidelines June 24th,

Absolute Scale (p7)  Consensus on that there should be an absolute scale.  How ? Most common proposal is having exam banks; need many to gauge all aspects of course. Also enough problems that they can’t memorize. Also results could differ when taken in the final or in the midterms. June 24th,

More Drastic Changes in the future

Common Finals (p11)  Consensus in having one if possible.  Consensus in having one the week before finals.  “Fourth common midterm”  Too late for Fall 2015 June 24th,

Common Finals (p11), comments  Consensus in having one if possible.  Consensus in having one the week before finals.  “Fourth common midterm”  Too late for Fall 2015 June 24th,

Time allocation for Labs and Recitations(P40)  Feeling that Lab is not valued by students. Supported by polls in two different classes.  “The manifestation of physics is lost on the technical details”.  “I wouldn’t even see the increase of velocity if I didn’t have the computer to begin with”.  “At the end we just rush and try numbers randomly until we get the green checkmark”.  Feeling that too much time given to the Lab vs Recitation  Consensus on about equal times for each  Probably require significant scheduling changes. June 24th,

Involuntary Bias (p16)  General support in having exams created by other people.  Several options on the table  Option 2: “Draw and replace” seems most popular.  Variations of that in the next slide June 24th,

Involuntary Bias (p16), comments June 24th,

Chapter Thank you 30June 24th, 2015