Dear Students,
Congratulations on your midterm exam -- in general, everyone did very well and you should be very proud of your progress.
I just wanted to say a few things regarding the grading of your exams:
1)
Go through and add up your points for yourself. If you think that you
should have done better than you did, it is very possible that I made a
summation error and in that case I want to correct the error as soon as
possible.
2) in general, I will not be accepting
requests for more points for this or that reason. All the exams were
graded one problem at a time and completely blindly, in order to
maintain consistency and fairness. If you feel as though I truly made a
mistake (it happens!) you can come and talk to me.
3) please do not come to me with your exam saying "my
friend got more points on this problem." If this is true, I need to see
your friend's test and from there I will evaluate whether or not you
deserve more points.
4) I will be in my office, (NS2 308) on Wednesday from 4-5pm and on Thursday from 1-2pm
to answer questions regarding exam grading. If you have questions
about your exam, please just come by during one of these time slots --
do not email me. If you cannot make either of these time slots, you can
email me, and we can arrange another time that you can come by.
Thanks,Tia
Hi All -- Tia here -- Something came up and I will not be available today between 4 and 5. Instead I will be available on Friday from 10:30-12. I will still be available tomorrow from 1-2. Sorry for the late notice!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Now that my midterms are over, and I have a little bit of time on my hands, I would like to voice a concern of mine: I am somewhat disappointed with the tests we've been receiving in the physics major as a whole. With some few exceptions, every test question I've seen so far has been remarkably similar to one given on the Review Sheet – too similar, even.
ReplyDeleteI find it almost comic that our professor felt compelled to explicitly tell us that one of the problems on the test wasn't *exactly* like the one on the review sheet.
It is my understanding that physics research and application is about coming up with models and solutions to new, never-seen-before problems. That is, for instance, how Planck dealt with the ultraviolet catastrophe, or how Copernicus was able to deal with anti-heliocentric data, etc. And I know this is a common understanding because I hear other students take pride in the fact that physicists are "problem solvers", not "memorizers". And yet, our tests don't reflect such a pride, especially when you have people writing down problems on their crib-sheet (not in this class, of course).
I've learned from a special Mathematics professor that writing a good test is an art – you can write problems that students can solve despite the fact that they have never seen anything like it before.
I'd like to point out now, that in terms of learning to solve problems, Professor Schlesinger has been absolutely phenomenal as a teacher. The question-discussion method of teaching has worked out remarkably. This is a question of finally recognizing those who are clever, who learn the physics at a deep enough level to take on radically different problems. And I repeat that this test issue I have, is not just one in this class, but again, a problem in most of the classes so far.
To those of you who disagree with me, and think that I'm asking for trouble – know this: you won't be able to memorize your way through a Ph.D., and so I believe it's best to start practicing now.
I mean, am I really alone on this stance? Is there no one else brave enough to stare radical alterity in the face, write down the Schrödinger equation, and see if they can make magic happen?
Thank you for your consideration,
A Concerned Physics Major
You make some really good points here. Let me think about this further before I respond in more detail. I don't disagree that questions of the type you mention are quite valuable and interesting. One thing I would say, however, is that I think there was such a question on this midterm. Question 7, in which you were invited to go beyond what we had done so far and include time dependence, which we had covered briefly at the beginning of the quarter but not incorporated into expectation value calculations. Isn't that just the sort of problem that you are seeking?
DeleteOh! You have a good point. I have to say that was an intense addition.
DeleteNow I see a little of my foolishness as well – in fact, this problem would have exactly involved what I said about bravely writing down the Schrödinger equation, and trying to make it pan out. To be perfectly honest, I hypocritically solved it without time dependence, partly due to time constraints.
I guess then it becomes a question of how much or how little you emphasize the new, and what I ought to say is that I'm one student pushing for more such new problems (in the 5-series, 101a, 116a and beyond I simply don't know), probably even outside the extra credit section.
But yea, sorry about not keeping in mind that good extra problem when writing that slightly over the top manifesto.
Thanks for the response! It means a lot that you're considering these things.
To add another perspective;
DeleteI don't feel like some of the problems you wish to tackle—new, exciting problems that diverge from problem's you've already solved—necessarily fit within a class meant to facilitate the growth of a baseline of knowledge. That is, from my understanding of the physics curriculum structure, we as students are meant to utilize the knowledge we obtain through classes in a more meaningful manner outside of those spaces. While I am by no means advocating simpler tests, homework questions, etc., these classes base themselves in helping students become extremely familiar with physical concepts and ideas that aren't necessarily easy to understand for all students involved. Denoting some students as "clever" and focusing on their achievements is not what a classroom is for.
That being said, our university offers quite a few opportunities for student who wish to pursue problems beyond the classroom. Research positions and projects—while not necessarily easy to obtain—are available through many professors for undergraduates who desire to come up with new and exciting questions and utilize their baseline knowledge to solve radical problems. In fact, the department requires a Senior Thesis, which is itself answering a very different question than many of the ones you may have encountered before.
I am of the opinion that problem solving cannot be taught effectively in a large classroom (although I agree that Professor Schlesinger's push to be inquisitive and logical is invaluable). Tackling complex problems leads to problem solving ability, and several of our homework problems have offered many chances to solve complex problems. A testing environment, meant to evaluate our understanding of the base concepts being taught, is not the best environment for asking problems that a student might be capable of answering, but not in the restricted time frame.
One thing I've always found interesting is the concept of being given some very difficult problems relevant to the coursework and rigorous in their demands as a take-home exam. While the impracticalities are timeless ones (most notably potential academic dishonesty), I would definitely prefer it to a short, timed test with very specific questions reasonable for a test of that nature (like our recent midterm, which was not bad).
Yea, Dillon has a good point: You need to have a baseline understanding of the concepts before you can go tackle anything new – and that's what the classes are for.
DeleteA few more thoughts: I do actually have an interest in challenging problems, and when I was a student I did tend to prefer difficult test problems, so I can identify with the initial comment. On the other hand, there are not necessarily going to work out well on a timed test.
ReplyDeleteI think that in this test, there was an invitation to do something new (problem 7), but maybe the invitation was too subtle. A concern I have is that students get into the habit of being told what to do, to the extent that a subtle suggestion is lost or misunderstood. When I said "you can do it with or without time dependence." I was trying to hint at the possibility that this contained something new and interesting. I also suggested that you could include discussion of that problem (there was a typo on the number) in an email, since you might need more time that we had in the class period to discover the time dependent nature of the solution. Perhaps it was too subtle, but anyway, I wanted to say that I do appreciate the value of difficult and new problems.