Get rid of Clickers. They are expensive and easy to loose. There are clicker apps available for smartphones that are free or under 5 dollars. Since the results of the clicker quizzes aren't graded and only used for attendance, it seems like a waste of money.
Webwork tests are bad. Questions are are often confusing and misleading. This would be okay if you could get partial credit, but many of the questions require you answer everything correctly to get points (on a 7 part question this can be tough and feels unfair).
The lectures have been fairly intriguing (despite all of the chemistry involved). As the semester went on, the class became more and more interesting, especially with the information on evolution (in general) and the potential to find life elsewhere.
The lecture notes are very helpful, but they could be shorter. While the information is all relevant, there were times, especially in the first third, where some of the information became redundant.
The website, like you said when we started, is very easy to navigate and use. Posting the lecture notes online as outlines has been very useful. The headlines should be kept on the homepage. Not only were the articles interesting but it was cool to see how relevant the information was to new discoveries.
Webwork is probably my biggest complaint. While multiple choice questions were relatively easy and simple to go through, the questions where you had to "Choose from the following" were often frustrating. Even if one answer was missing, I would get the whole question wrong. Partial credit should be given rather than having it to be "all or nothing." Otherwise, the tests and homework were manageable and helpful in learning the course material.
My comments are similar to a couple of previous ones.
I very much enjoyed the course content. As a science major, getting this kind of information would take a huge number of classes and way more detail than I was interested in. This class allowed for several different topics to be covered in a good amount of detail. I found it very interesting and engaging in lecture and recitation.
I believe, though, that the course greatly suffers from the amount of Webwork used. Webwork is a nice too for math courses, as answers are cut and dry, right and wrong. With a course like this, one that requires more thinking and explanation, the constant true/false and multiple choice have really detracted from the content, in my opinion. The use of Webwork for homework AND exams made the course much more distant than I thought it should have been, and I felt as though I was not so much taking a true college course, but rather just interacting with Webwork on a weekly basis. I think if there were one thing I would rethink for this course in the future, it would be the use of Webwork for both the assessments in the course.
Other than that, I very much enjoyed the semester. Thank you.
Interesting Class but...
ReplyDeleteGet rid of Clickers. They are expensive and easy to loose. There are clicker apps available for smartphones that are free or under 5 dollars. Since the results of the clicker quizzes aren't graded and only used for attendance, it seems like a waste of money.
Webwork tests are bad. Questions are are often confusing and misleading. This would be okay if you could get partial credit, but many of the questions require you answer everything correctly to get points (on a 7 part question this can be tough and feels unfair).
The lectures have been fairly intriguing (despite all of the chemistry involved). As the semester went on, the class became more and more interesting, especially with the information on evolution (in general) and the potential to find life elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe lecture notes are very helpful, but they could be shorter. While the information is all relevant, there were times, especially in the first third, where some of the information became redundant.
The website, like you said when we started, is very easy to navigate and use. Posting the lecture notes online as outlines has been very useful. The headlines should be kept on the homepage. Not only were the articles interesting but it was cool to see how relevant the information was to new discoveries.
Webwork is probably my biggest complaint. While multiple choice questions were relatively easy and simple to go through, the questions where you had to "Choose from the following" were often frustrating. Even if one answer was missing, I would get the whole question wrong. Partial credit should be given rather than having it to be "all or nothing." Otherwise, the tests and homework were manageable and helpful in learning the course material.
My comments are similar to a couple of previous ones.
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed the course content. As a science major, getting this kind of information would take a huge number of classes and way more detail than I was interested in. This class allowed for several different topics to be covered in a good amount of detail. I found it very interesting and engaging in lecture and recitation.
I believe, though, that the course greatly suffers from the amount of Webwork used. Webwork is a nice too for math courses, as answers are cut and dry, right and wrong. With a course like this, one that requires more thinking and explanation, the constant true/false and multiple choice have really detracted from the content, in my opinion. The use of Webwork for homework AND exams made the course much more distant than I thought it should have been, and I felt as though I was not so much taking a true college course, but rather just interacting with Webwork on a weekly basis. I think if there were one thing I would rethink for this course in the future, it would be the use of Webwork for both the assessments in the course.
Other than that, I very much enjoyed the semester. Thank you.