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A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

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Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#131

Post by downerending »

jimhefferon wrote: post #90
downerending wrote: post #5

I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the paper are well advised to keep going. The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

> You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A! I'm a prof at a SLAC. Many of the students I have are doing fine. But a good number of them are struggling. Some are working, sometimes many hours because their parents are out of work or anticipate being out of work. Some of them have illness in their family (I don't know of any who are themselves ill). And for some of them it is that they are not good at this en…

I don't disagree with any of that, and despite my glib phrasing, I don't think grading easy during this time is the wrong thing to do.

Rather, just noting that for some students and some courses (especially the non-useful ones), this might be a real opportunity.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#132

Post by credit_guy »

collegeburner wrote: post #105

High schooler here. On-line school is far from perfect. There are two approaches I've seen: 1. The "self-taught" style. This one is being done by my linear algebra class: the prof tells us which chapters to read, sends out notes, and some recommended problems. Periodically, he sends out a take-home test; we work it and send him the answers. This style is helped by the fact that our book is short and concise enough to…

There's a third method, roughly in the middle of your 1 and 2. My wife practices this (she teaches Math at college level): keep the lectures at the times they are regularly scheduled, but on Zoom. Use an iPad-based whiteboard (Notability) and share the screen. Allow questions, give answers. Pretty much the regular class time, only online. Quizes happen at the scheduled times. Students receive the test pages via email, and they have to print them out and send photos of their worked solutions by a certain time limit (roughly the same as the one for a normal exam, plus a few more minutes to allow for printing, etc). She simply decided to trust her students. So far she has zero reasons to believe any of them cheated; in particular one submitted an empty exam. No students have dropped the class, and the attendance is better than the one prior to the lockdown.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#133

Post by vharuck »

collegeburner wrote: post #105

High schooler here. On-line school is far from perfect. There are two approaches I've seen: 1. The "self-taught" style. This one is being done by my linear algebra class: the prof tells us which chapters to read, sends out notes, and some recommended problems. Periodically, he sends out a take-home test; we work it and send him the answers. This style is helped by the fact that our book is short and concise enough to…

>require one to show the space around him using a mirror.

I'm hard-pressed to think of many subjects where an "open book" test isn't a better option, even for in-person classes. If a cheat sheet can help during a test, then it's asking predictable questions and measuring regurgitation.

My wife pointed out language tests to see if students can use the skills on the fly, but I can't think of another good case. This should be a time for schools to find which teachers are just going for easy-to-write instead of useful tests.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#134

Post by alexbanks »

lisper wrote: post #45
alexbanks wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a gap year and do what? Go nowhere, do nothing? Delay any hope of a reasonable income by another year?

Read. Code. Zoom.

In what way is this different than taking online courses at university :)

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#135

Post by Balgair »

collegeburner wrote: post #105

High schooler here. On-line school is far from perfect. There are two approaches I've seen: 1. The "self-taught" style. This one is being done by my linear algebra class: the prof tells us which chapters to read, sends out notes, and some recommended problems. Periodically, he sends out a take-home test; we work it and send him the answers. This style is helped by the fact that our book is short and concise enough to…

Per issues with #2, they are assuming that the webcams of students are unmodified.

Yellow highlighters' coloring is called 'Solvent Green 7' and has a peak at about 494nm.

You can buy filters for lenses that will knock out certain bandwidths of light and keep the rest coming into the camera. These are called notch filters, as they take a notch out of the light.

There just so happens to be a notch filter that should know out the yellow highlighter color. Meaning that the light reflected from a yellow highlighter will not enter into the camera.

https://www.thorlabs.com/thorproduct.cfm?partnumber=NF488-15

They are not cheap though, and as such, I've not tried this at home to see how well it works.

Other solutions may exist at to the ideas that these people may have about how your webcam is working. I'd experiment with other lenses, polarized filters, exposure times, etc.

That said, studying is a lot easier than trying to jerry-rig your webcams.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#136

Post by downerending »

bachmeier wrote: post #118
Balero wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this still True? I didn't go to the institution in question, but we had ID cards that we had to show when entering the building. Also I think a more obvious example of it being popular is the courses and lectures that are made freely available online.

Notice that he does a neat little switch there. He talks about Princeton, then he says "As a professor", then he talks about Princeton again. He's a professor at George Mason. I think anyone can figure out why he used Princeton rather than the place he works without actually stating the name of his employer.

It's odd, for sure, but perhaps he just uses Princeton as a relatable example. Most of us have never heard of George Mason.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#137

Post by downerending »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #122
collegeburner wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18-year-old here, heavily considering a gap year. I've already got a job at a cybersecurity firm as a developer, and would continue working there. It's a start-up, so I've gotten to work on many different things and build skills in lots of different places. I've worked on projects to build skills throughout high school; I'd continue working on those. I'd have more time to focus on learning "real things" vs. padding m…

Back in the day, HP hiring used to value a Masters' Degree as 1 year of experience. And a Master's Degree took 2 years. So they made in explicit: get out of school and get a job.

Having both an MS and been in industry a long time, I'd say counting an MS as one year of experience is quite generous.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#138

Post by collegeburner »

vharuck wrote: post #133
collegeburner wrote: post #105

High schooler here. On-line school is far from perfect. There are two approaches I've seen: 1. The "self-taught" style. This one is being done by my linear algebra class: the prof tells us which chapters to read, sends out notes, and some recommended problems. Periodically, he sends out a take-home test; we work it and send him the answers. This style is helped by the fact that our book is short and concise enough to…

>require one to show the space around him using a mirror. I'm hard-pressed to think of many subjects where an "open book" test isn't a better option, even for in-person classes. If a cheat sheet can help during a test, then it's asking predictable questions and measuring regurgitation. My wife pointed out language tests to see if students can use the skills on the fly, but I can't think of another good case. This sho…

My linear teacher did a good job of this, because you're right that regurgitation isn't useful. He does open-book tests that are focused on doing proofs and conceptual questions that depend on using properties of stuff rather than just juggling numbers. Good CS teachers have done the same; rather than demanding students memorize a half-dozen sorting algorithms, they ask students to use an appropriate sort in a project. In History, students can write papers and give perspectives rather than regurgitating dates. In Econ, students can do modeling projects rather than spouting formulae and facts about AS-AD models.

The caveat to all of these is that they take more work for teachers, so many prefer not to use them.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#139

Post by downerending »

nn35 wrote: post #43
downerending wrote: post #5

I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the paper are well advised to keep going. The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

Take a gap year and do what, exactly? Sitting around your parents' house for a year is probably worse than getting the coronavirus, for an 18 year old. Maybe much worse.

One of the most valuable things I did during college was to "eat" documentation wholesale. I read absolutely everything I could get my hands on, and also played around with a few toy projects.

This turned out to be more useful than 80% of what I learned in college.

Re: A List of Colleges’ Plans for Reopening in the Fall

#140

Post by downerending »

argonaut wrote: post #80
downerending wrote: post #5

I feel bad for the colleges. But anyone in their right mind that's going to college to learn things will take a gap year. Those going to college just for the paper are well advised to keep going. The next couple of years will be easy mode, for sure. You get an A, and you get an A--everyone gets an A!

Colleges are not going to let many people take gap years. So it'll be a choice between attending the school you want or reapplying next year (when it'll probably be even harder to get in). Usually most people who want gap years are allowed to do so, but usually there aren't many people who want to do gap years (at least in the US).

> Colleges are not going to let many people take gap years.

They're desperate, and they're about to be a lot more so. If your money's green, they'll let you.

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