The Classroom

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Buffy

11:50 AM

Stir it up.

Buffy

12:16 PM

@JudyOakley, @BenI., a new question.

Hark! A question!

Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of cumulative vs percentage grading?

There are many ways to grade students. One is to provide a fixed body of student work and then give a percentage grade for assignments, with the overall grade representing the percentage achieved of some ideal. 90% = A, etc. The student is expected to work on each assignment. This is Grading by P...

Buffy

12:59 PM

And a self answer. Stir it up. Need more joyful noise here.

Hark! A question!

Q: How Effective Is "Rosetta Code" as a Teaching Technique?

When working to teach developers Scheme (which is functional programming) I'll often show them analogous examples in C#. The idea is that by seeing something familiar it will make it easier for the students to understand the unfamiliar. But I'm not sure that this may actually be causing more co...

best-practice teaching-analogy

Buffy

1:21 PM

Ok, the pot has been stirred. Let's see if the aroma entices any visitors.

Gypsy Spellweaver

@Buffy Is it even possible to parallel code between Scheme and C#?

Buffy

1:36 PM

For lots of things, sure. But not the most obvious thing to do.

But algorithms are algorithms.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I don't know either, and I'm not a functional programmer, but even in C vs Perl I'm not sure parallel code is good.

Much of what can be coded in C can be directl translated to Perl, but you loose the way Perl can do it in a more natural (to Perl) manner.

2 hours later…

Buffy

3:24 PM

@Ben is very busy with a project and will return in a few days. We shall have to keep this place active ourselves.

2 hours later…

Michael0x2a

5:28 PM

Just as an aside, that cumulative grading thing sounds like a really interesting idea

Gypsy Spellweaver

6:16 PM

@Buffy It seems that the grading question is getting some traction. It seems that for the mathematically inclined students there is no difference. I was always able to know where I stood, relative to my final grade, in any grading system. At least when the syllabus specified what the weights were for different elements in the grading.

Hark! A question!

6:39 PM

Q: The Eyes Have It

I teach Windows Forms programming, and now ASP.Net (essentially the same thing, except you view it in a browser) and I am dismayed that students seem to spend an enormous amount of time straining at gnats, trying to get picky details of the appearance correct. This involves them attempting to do ...

student-motivation labs c# programming-environment gui

Gypsy Spellweaver

@Hark!Aquestion! I wish users would register when they ask questions. Hard to get clarifications and question improvements when they won't get notified of comments. :(

@Buffy I do hope that his project turns out to be a good as I sense he thinks it can be.

Buffy

@GypsySpellweaver I'm sure we will all be pleased when he releases details.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I'm just glad that he's got the chance to do the project, even if it's a bit earlier, or faster, than he expected.

Buffy

6:55 PM

@GypsySpellweaver I think the "strugglers but non-slackers" benefit the most from it.

Gypsy Spellweaver

That's just something I can't wrap my brain around. It seems the same to me. Always has. I've been "graded" many ways, but it always amounts to different roads to the same place. Or, different ways to say the same thing.

Extra credit seems to be workable in any variation as well. And with Excel, or other tools, the "workload" on the instructor seems to be equal as well.

Buffy

@GypsySpellweaver You may be right in the details. The psychological effect can be different though.

Gypsy Spellweaver

That's why I can't wrap my head around it enough to answer it. I know students can "see" it differently, but since I never did I can't relate to the issue.

Buffy

It can also encourage re-work a bit more than percentage grading. Some students get things easily, but others need the repetition, so re-work can be a good thing for that same set of students.

Gypsy Spellweaver

In most disciplines where the learning is about "doing" I support the concept of rework. Just like different drafts of an essay.

History would be a case where rework is probably not much value to most students.

Buffy

7:14 PM

I've edited my answer to the question a bit.

Gypsy Spellweaver

Makes sense.

The point system does seem to be less abstract than a weighted percentage system.

I wonder if the students that are more "motivated" in the point system are also the ones that struggle more with abstractions? Speculation only.

Buffy

I wouldn't expect much if any correlation.

Buffy

7:32 PM

Cumulative grading just went HNQ. Getting views now.

Let's hope for spillover to the other new questions.

Gypsy Spellweaver

8:00 PM

What's the connection between C# and ASP.Net? (If any)

Buffy

Microsoft.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I was looking at the eyes have it, says ASP.Net is the language and yet has c# . Didn't seem to be the same.

Buffy

8:15 PM

C# is one of the languages in which you program asp.net according to wikipedia. I don't use it myself.

Gypsy Spellweaver

Then, at least it is a valid tag. Glad to know.

So far I've managed to avoid, or sidestep most things that are Micro$oft specific, such as C# and VB.

Buffy

ditto (in spades)

Gypsy Spellweaver

I can't even remember when I last booted into any one of my Windows installs. Been quite a while for sure.

I've almost decided to reclaim the disk space and wipe them out completely. Stick with some VBoxes instead.

Buffy

8:56 PM

I thought XP was fine until it died. I thought Win7 was fine until MS decided to kill it with forced upgrades. I still have the Win7 bootable, but am afraid to boot it now. Later versions have issues.

Gypsy Spellweaver

If your internet is disconnected it can't upgrade, forced or not. :D

Buffy

Hmmm. Extreme solution.

Effective, tho

Gypsy Spellweaver

To boot into XP I have to change BIOS boot order and switch the mode on one of the SATA channels. But, it works.

Buffy

9:14 PM

Also extreme.

But 7 was pretty nice, actually, on those few occasions I had to test something on a win system.

Gypsy Spellweaver