Re: schools banning homework

morrisjcroy@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
When I was in high school, I was under the impression that the counsellors
had to have special qualifications.


I have no idea what the qualifications are these days for getting a
guidance counselor job. Though I suspect quite a large number of
guidance counselor jobs are filled internally.


(Multiple-guess PDE exams? Huh?)


That was my thought at first too.

Arguably, some of the simpler problems could be easily expressed as a
multiple-guess or short answer (ie. fill in the blank) type problem.
Crap like

- What's the general solution to: y''' + 3 y'' + 3 y' + y = 0 ?

- What is a solution to y'' + k^2 y = 0, (where k is a real number)?

a) sin kx b) cos kx c) cosh kx d) sinh kx
e) a + b f) c + d g) none of the above

etc ....

Ouch! I was often generous with my marking if the students had most of the solution. If they made a common mistake like a sign error, I usually didn't penalize them too much. Even if they made an incorrect assumption but had most of the rest correct, I was fairly lenient.

Multiple-guess answers don't show how close one actually came or where one made one's mistake. That's hardly an effective way of teaching, though it does reduce the burden of marking.

Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work on multiple guesses. Often a software program give erroneous results because of a typo. One doesn't have to write the entire code just to fix it.




Over the years, I met only a small number of the local members, which might
not be an accurate sample.


For some strange reason, the eccentric types I met at various Mensa
meetings were folks who were either really into UFOs, conspiracy
theories, and/or they were Star Trek and/or Star Wars fanatics.

I never came across any of those....yet. The Annual Gathering is happening in my city this coming summer, so I may cross paths someone like that there.

I
suppose a long time ago, there were no internet or BBS type groups
which catered to folks into Star Trek, Star Wars, UFOs, conspiracies,
etc ... The more recent meetings I popped into on impulse, seemed to
have less of the Star Trek, Star Wars, conspiracy, UFO, etc ...
types. I suppose the Star Trek, Star Wars, conspiracy theory, UFO,
etc ... folks just go straight to various online web pages and chat
boards these days, to indulge in these topics.

Or hang out in newsgroups. ;-)


The last meeting I went to awhile ago, it seemed a lot "smaller"
compared to the ones I checked out many years ago. (I've been to
meetings in the past in both big towns and medium sized towns). I
suppose if one can just go online these days to chat about various
intellectual (or even semi-intellectual) topics, many folks will just
do that instead of attending a Mensa gathering.


Wait until you check out a Mensa newsgroup. High IQs, huh?
.

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