Timeline for What do we do with users who post numerous unlabeled homework questions?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
23 events
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| Jul 16, 2012 at 10:50 | comment | added | Dan Brumleve | +1, very well said. | |
| May 10, 2012 at 11:44 | comment | added | Ronald | +1: To commenters including @YuvalFilmus, who suggests we should concern ourselves with students who don't have willingness to learn. I don't agree. I prefer to assume that a student does have a willingness to learn and deal with this case properly - for these students, a complete answer is far more helpful than a hint that may or may not hit the source of their misunderstanding. Educationally, it's much preferable to provide a complete answer. | |
| May 8, 2012 at 22:43 | comment | added | JDH | Thanks, @Bill, for the heads-up. It seems that my view is expressed adequately there in your answer. Thanks for posting it! | |
| May 8, 2012 at 22:21 | comment | added | Brian M. Scott | As a teacher I generally encouraged collaboration on homework, albeit with the proviso that students write up their solutions in their own words. However, your final paragraph is throwing the baby out with the bath. Well-crafted hints can be excellent answers. It would make more sense to encourage good hints, and perhaps to encourage answerers to go back after a few days to flesh out their hints, if they've not already done so. | |
| May 8, 2012 at 19:57 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @JDH Pinging you to let you know that there is more recent discussion on this here, where I linked to this answer. Perhaps you might wish to contribute there. | |
| May 8, 2012 at 17:34 | comment | added | André Nicolas | @JDH: Hurrah! Would however argue that a hint can be a suitable answer. | |
| Feb 16, 2011 at 16:36 | comment | added | bobobobo | YES. +1 for a great answer, +1 for being reasonable as a professor, +1 for "test them at the exam", +1 for knowledge doesn't come out of thin air and discussion is a great way to learn. All too often, a professor will adopt a DADT policy on how his students get the assignments done, (i.e. "turn a blind eye" to forums altogether). Your perspective is extremely healthy and I'm sure your students will be a lot more comfortable with this straightforward policy. | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 20:35 | comment | added | Aryabhata | @ghsh: What about a take home exam? To give an example of the unfairness, and not just to other students: I wouldn't want to be operated upon by a doctor who got through college without actually understanding the subjects. Of course, this might be a failure of the education system, but that is not our concern right now. | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 17:53 | comment | added | ghshtalt | @Akhil: I dislike the argument that students who are able to easily copy homework answers are given an “unfair advantage”. Presumably homework is assigned to give those who work through and understand it an advantage over those who don’t do it or just copy it, right? | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 17:40 | comment | added | Aryabhata | The answers can always be edited to provide the fully clear and elaborate answers after the student has done the work. I have seen people willing to put in the effort to guide the student and then later modify the answer with a fuller better version of the answer. From what I have seen, people who provide hints are usually almost always willing to clarify any comments from the students (in fact, I have seen other people jump in too!). It would not be too much of an additional burden on them if we encouraged them to add the full answer later, IMO. | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 14:56 | comment | added | Akhil Mathew Mod | (Incidentally, the student may even find herself in an awkward position --- at least according to course policies --- if she asks for a "hint" to a question and gets a full answer. Granted, the OP in the present situation made no such request.) | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 14:55 | comment | added | Akhil Mathew Mod | ...of thinking through a solution in sufficient detail oneself to produce a coherent submission. As @Arturo observes, it requires less effort for a student to copy (with perhaps some touch-ups) a solution posted here than to flesh out a hint provided by anyone else. I understand that the current policy of encouraging people to post hints to questions that are definitely homework is not perfect, and there may be both false positives and false negatives to people's guesses whether a question is homework, but I do not see how giving full solutions to homework questions would be a better one. | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 14:51 | comment | added | Akhil Mathew Mod | @JDH: Dear Joel, I see nothing wrong with collaboration (which has encouraged in most, if not all, of the math and science courses that I've taken, and many others whose syllabi I've read). However, in many of these courses, it is emphasized that students' write-ups should be their own, and for that reason I think writing a fully fleshed out (and easily copiable) answer to a question that is homework is sub-optimal: the student both gains an unfair advantage over her classmates (especially in classes where the grading is based almost entirely on homework) and does not get the same practice... | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 14:34 | comment | added | Arturo Magidin | @JDH: Hi, Joel. I think there are some good points you make; but I will point out some differences between learning from a book or getting a problem worked out here. The student who goes to the library will have to be somewhat active, locate applicable results, realize that they are applicable, adapt them, and then use them, except perhaps on the rare occasion in which he finds the exact assigned problem worked out in a book. If the specific problem is worked out here, this requires much less initiative and action on the part of the student. Likewise with group work or asking a prof. | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 14:24 | comment | added | Isaac | @JDH: I think whether or not a hint is a proper answer heavily depends on what is being asked. If the question is asking for hints or suggestions as to how to start a problem or how to progress from a particular point in a solution, a hint isn't an obscure half-answer. That is, the question being asked and the problem being discussed are not necessarily the same. | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 14:12 | comment | added | JDH | Alex, I stand by my remarks. As a mathematician, I could never prefer an obscure half-answer to a mathematics question here, when an insightful discussion of general strategies or extensions and an enlightening solution might be available. | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 6:19 | comment | added | Alex B. | And I do encourage my students to work collaboratively. But to be told the solution is not exactly the same as to arrive at it in a collaborative effort. I very strongly discourage the former. | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 6:18 | comment | added | Alex B. | @Joel I disagree that incomplete answers or hints are automatically bad answers. I have often given hints that were subsequently accepted and I claim that the students got more out of the exercises. Here are some examples: tinyurl.com/5szyuqc, tinyurl.com/62h5z8x, tinyurl.com/6huofk8. Also, your comparison with a conversation with a professor gives further support to the policy of "no complete answers to HW", since most professors I know would much prefer giving a hint a letting the students struggle with the problem, instead of handing them a solution on a silver plate. | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 4:42 | history | edited | JDH | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Feb 15, 2011 at 4:15 | history | edited | JDH | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Feb 15, 2011 at 4:09 | comment | added | JDH | I'm not ignoring that fact. Such students will benefit from understanding the answers posted here. How is it different from learning from a book or from talking to their professor? Would you object to such students going to the library for the same reason? | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 4:03 | comment | added | Yuval Filmus | You're ignoring the fact that many math classes are taken by unwilling students of other disciplines. Those students are after a solution to the exercise, not understanding. If not forced to tackle the questions by themselves (or with fellow students), they will never learn anything. This is especially true in regard to questions "phrased in the imperative". | |
| Feb 15, 2011 at 3:56 | history | answered | JDH | CC BY-SA 2.5 |