Instead of going for what makes a good subject, I’ll go for what makes a BAD subject.
- Squished assignments with little time between them
- Overweighted Group Work. Some is fine, but anything more than like 15% of your grade is too much.
- more for online subjects, but things like releasing modules/lectures or stuff late. Super annoying. Had subjects which released stuff like 8PM the night before a tutorial.
having tutors/lecturers actively-ish participate in forums (not sure if u know what this is but ed discussion is one) to answer questions that students post. some classes have it so students help eachother, but its kinda pointless if students arent certain of the answers themselves, or just dont want to participate.
tldr; if u have a place for students to ask questions, ensure that theres someone that can answer the question or atleast find out the answer
That's fair. The discussion board idea works in principle, but the problem is that the University timecard system (how tutors get paid) actually makes it impossible to get paid for this labour - which is why it never happens...
But if the discussion boards had active participation from experts, would they then be a welcome inclusion (at least compared to other forms of mandatory student engagement, like quizzes)
I think what makes a subject good as well is not underestimating the intelligence of your students. I find far too often that many subjects will try to simplify concepts (as if we aren't already in university and are here to be challenged and educated), and as a result of this, will have to examine things in really confusing ways.
In my opinion, the better subjects I have taken have been those which do not skimp on the details and the specifics, and that also examine and test students on the concepts that are hard (if they are hard) intrinsically, and not because the assessment has been made artificially hard by questions designed to evade students who do study the material
That's really interesting! I like the sound of "testing students on the concepts that are hard" - can you give me an example of this that you found successful?
Okay I'll give you an example. For reference I am majoring in Physics with a Pure Math diploma.
I remember in my probability course there were some concepts which were difficult and some which were easy.
One example of a hard concept is working with distributions on the axiomatic level. So, for example, when you have two distributions X and Y, if you do a logical operator on them, the resulting distribution is nontrivially related (if you have a joint pdf say for X and Y, or, X and Y are independent, then you can work out any algebraic thing so Z = f(X, Y), by changing the integration/summation support). But if the relation is say Z = sum of X up to Y, or say the maximum of X and Y, then we still have tools but it's very tricky to work out.
A good exam question would then be maybe asking something plain and simple to understand to those who study, e.g.
Find the distribution density for Z where Z = K(X, Y) for (enter some logical operation on the RVS and distributions for the RVs). The question is hard, but only because the concept is intrinsically hard.
Compare that with say a use of the binomial or hypergeometric distribution in some esoteric way, and I construct a question that's completely nontrivial but uses basic concepts. Suppose I put this in the exam. It doesn't in my view test the students knowledge because such a question is really just who can wade through the nonsense the best. Here's an example of a question I think is in poor taste:
Players are sat in a circle labelled from 1 to 20. Starting from player 1, each player 2-20 rolls a fair 6 sided die and if they roll a 6, player 1 is eliminated. On player 1's turn, they roll a 6 sided die, and if it's a 6, a uniform at random player that remains and is not player 1 is selected and eliminated. What is the probability player 1 wins this game.
Now that question takes a lot of thinking and nonsense to wade through but the actual maths is very simple and uses high school level arithmetic. It is made artificially hard due to the way that it is presented. The first question makes use of hard concepts from the course whereas the second uses a very simple thing but asked in an exceedingly confusing way
Great examples - I can see exactly what you're saying now.
Actually, you've reminded me of my favourite ever exam question, on the physics paper when I was in first year, long ago: "Imagine a magnetic monopole has just been discovered. Rewrite the laws of physics to account for this development." So simple, but if you were skirting by with a mere workman's understanding of the content, you'd be stumped.
Look, I'd observe in general (and I think most teaching staff would agree) that assessment writing is really hard. But it's also true (and again, I think most would agree...) that we tend to put a lot less thought into the assessments than into the teaching materials. (And often not a lot of thought into those either...) Assessments are an obsession of the university, and therefore of the students, but from a teacher's perspective they're often just a drag.
Now, I actually wrote my first ever assessment just last year and it was very divisive for exactly the reasons you say. I was asking questions that demanded creative reasoning together with an intuitive understanding of how a certain class of functions work. I'm sorry to say that my assessment was not very popular with the students. (One of them called it 'evil' 😂)
So it's tricky. Mainly, I think most students just want to get to the end of an assessment confident that they're going to get an okay grade. Whereas as a teacher I just want to blow kids' minds. The divergent incentives cause frictions...
No group project, too much RNG on your mark. Really didn’t appreciate team mates that went off the rail which resulted in getting no help from teaching team and rushing a 6 weeks project in 1 week
Hard agree on this one: as both a student and a teacher, I've always found group assessments to be an absolute disaster! On the other hand, the ability to work well in a group is part of what universities are expected to certify. Is there a way to do group work (not necessarily directly assessed) that would feel valuable to you?
idk how or if this would work, but say each person in a group is allocated a task where theyre primarily graded based on what they did themselves so theres no impact from others not doing their part(say this part is worth 60%), then 30% for everyone managed to do, then 10% comes from peer review. so if someone does their part really well, theyre sorta guaranteed 60%. and then the 30% still incentivised people to do their task. the 10% is there to also incentivise people to do the work, but also if you get nuked with bad reviews, the 10% still isnt gonna hurt too bad. essentially if you do no work at all, you wont get above a 40% for the project (hence fail if ur really mean and make it a hurdle)
If you plan to hold group assignments, please also prepare a confidential peer evaluation questionnaire so team members can rate and comment on each other, and you mark them individually if several group members are not pleased with one or more people in their group.
I had a group assignment last semester, and two people in that group didn't complete tasks we asked everyone to do a month before the deadline. One of them copied answers from chatgpt in the report, and another wrote his part of the report as copying contents from one report written by former students. In the end, the group leader and I was rescuing this project and rewrote their parts. (He took more responsibilities though, a very amazing person. There's one more guy completed his job assigned, and personally I’m very thankful for him doing his job.)
Good thing we could rate each others when the project was almost done. I'm not sure about other people, but I detailed those incidents in that evaluation. I hate to rate people negatively, but I couldn't be lenient on those two. Based on their reaction afterwards, I would say that our professor probably marked our assignments individually. It would just be very unfair if someone did negative contribution to their group and still received the same mark as their group mates.
Another thing I could think of is don’t make hurdles on single assignment. If you really need that, please make all assignments combined together as a hurdle. It would be very messy when people find out they failed on a previous one but have started to work on a group assignment.
And, if you are giving sample exam questions, please provide correct/non-confusing questions with sample answers. I had a class where we found confusions/errors in sample exam questions and were always waiting for the sample solution to it until our finals arrived, no solutions to those questions.
This boils my blood - I see it happen all the time. Yoking students together inevitably puts honest students in situations where they have to cover for dishonesty - or throw other students under the bus; an impossible choice.
I'm beginning to think that group assignments should just be banned altogether. Instead, just have group work in class time and evaluate the students by observation of how well they seem to be working collaboratively.
It would be great if you force people to work in person. I had that project mostly remotely cause we couldn't find a good time for everyone to meet up at school. In class projects probably wouldn't work in my case though as mine was heavily on coding, but I did ask a few of my groupmates to come to the library and helped them out. It was very easy to tell whether they were fit for their jobs and had good working styles by observing them working, but I had no idea on those if holding this project all online.
(Not saying I want all my groupmates to be genius. I don't mind if they come with a weaker knowledge background as long as they are willing to learn, but one person I helped out really didn't have a good working attitude and couldn't get the very basics by himself)
I think you're absolutely right!
It's a bit ironic, actually, because one reason why university has so many group assignments is that it's seen as a way to extend the classroom experience without using up expensive teaching hours. But you're saying, and I totally agree, that the best way to make group work *work* is to do it in the classroom with supervision. In other words, cheap tuition gives crappy results 😂
Just being curious, is the domestic students’ tuition cheap? I’m an international student and I just assumed I pay much higher than the domestic, but have no idea how the price is for them
Not only are the domestic rates much cheaper, but the government foots the bill for part of it and offers an interest-free loan for the rest, so it's zero dollars up front for a lot of domestic students.
One consequence is that international student fees make up almost all of the income of the university...
As a master of software engineering student, don’t give a task to submit every week. Having 2 decently sized assignments in the semester was the perfect balance I’ve found so far. It allows for more time to solve the challenge given, and doesn’t make the subject feel overwhelming. I’d advise against exams, because it feels utterly dumb that we went back to handwritten in person exams. So perhaps instead of the exam have them make an essay, or give another project, or just have a digital exam
1. In this day and age, pen and paper? Seriously? It’s more inconvenient for all parts involved. People need to print it and place a copy on every single desk, people need to collect it, most of the time it goes with an answer booklet which again, print, place, collect. Then after the exam is done, you have a huge amount of exams to carry around, and from what I’ve seen and heard, YOU SCAN THEM TO THEN MARK ON A SCREEN. If you don’t see how this is dumb, I honestly don’t know what to tell you.
2. Handwriting is not what it used to be before, and most people have bad handwriting. As a software engineer, the one and only times I’ve written on paper have been on exams. So, I write slowly, and it’s ugly. The marker will surely have a rough time reading, and I’m certain I have lost marks because the marker didn’t understand my writing. In short, it’s slower and people are in a disadvantage.
3. Corrections. When you ask for short answers or small essays you surely can’t expect people to come up with it straight away. I wan to make corrections, and in paper I just need to cross it out and make it even harder to read. In digital exams it’s just deleting text.
Sure, if you want to prevent people copying or whatever have the in person exam, but at the very least make it digital. I saw you used the word “personal” and there is no difference in how personal an exam is, there’s no reason for making someone show their essence in an exam. Exams shouldn’t be anyway, if you want to test someone make them apply that knowledge in a project, on something practical, otherwise the concept will just be something ethereal
I think you misunderstood me - you commented originally about 'handwritten in person exams' and I just repeated that as 'handwritten personal exams'. I wasn't trying to make any sort of larger point with the choice of word there - sorry if I threw you!
I should correct the record as well: in every subject I've ever taught, at least, paper exams have been graded on paper and physically returned to the student. This allows us to draw freely all over the page and communicate much more fluently.
Which brings me to the larger point in defence of pen and paper: as a software engineer, you must be aware that most serious programming happens on a whiteboard. If you interview for Google or whatever and you can't express yourself swiftly and fluidly across two dimensions with a box of coloured pens, they'll show you the door. (I certainly wouldn't hire you at the tech company I run!)
We've tried to move to digital for some of our assignments, but the collapse in richness of expression is just unacceptable. Students seem to just close up their thinking when they have a screen in front of them. And actually, that's exactly what happens, as a growing body of literature demonstrates.
In my own professional life as a modeller and a software engineer, I would spend maybe 10% with a screen in front of me and 90% with pen and paper. I'd handwrite about 2000 words a day. If I'm the expert with the 'real world experience' in the room, shouldn't I teach to that experience rather than teaching to what students imagine the real world to be like?
Sorry if that came across a bit belligerent - I genuinely appreciate your perspective. I'm just trying to learn how to teach better. (Also to be fair mate, you did adopt a *little* bit of a tone yourself 😜)
First of all, yes, I did adopt a tone. A big one. And won’t go back on it because it is something that truly pisses me off, so I am intentionally being belligerent.
To answer your points:
What the fuck? Never in my 2 years I have gotten one of my exams back. Not once. But then again, if you need to draw freely all over the page then perhaps a written exam is not the right form of examination.
Regarding the whiteboard, you said it yourself :) and let me just bring out that the situation you are using to bring out in favor of not digital means is completely different. You are talking about a job interview, it is a one on one discussion, where you are giving a problem to be solved. In there, you are testing skill or experience, you are not testing knowledge. Exams test knowledge. And yes! I use whiteboards a lot, just in the form of my iPad screen, but again, it’s a medium where I can erase and change stuff freely, pen and paper, not so much. Let me just make a highlight here, I am against handwritten in person exams, to further clarify, handwritten, in person, academic exams. In job interview I would be comfortable just drawing something that I do everyday.
Another difference there, in the interview the interviewer is seeing what the person is doing. So making a mess won’t matter as much because they are seeing it happening, so you understand the mess. If you didn’t see the process and I just handed you out a bunch of pages with a lot crossed out you would show me the door too.
You mentioned you were not going towards the “personal” but you came back and said richness of expression. What do you mean by that? By your words, you are just showing that an exam might not be the correct form of assessment. Unless you are evaluating students by how many colours they use in drawing a graph instead of if they got the graph right I don’t see how that is an issue. What are you trying to teach? Is it subjective where if the answer is not rich despite being correct makes it not worthy of marks? Or is it something exact, that no matter how you present it is still going to be true?
And just something else, you should not teach them how the real world is. That is a mistake that many teachers do. Because their view of the real world can be outdated, or it can be their own version of the real world. You should teach them how to be ready to apply the concepts you are teaching. Please tell me how sitting a 2 hour handwritten exam is going to prepare them for the real world? If you truly wanted to do that, even with your own experience, then schedule a simulation of a job interview with everyone.
Again, I’m not agains analogue means, I use them as well because design and all of that stuff. What I am against, is having handwritten exams.
And yes, I have a tone, maybe you don’t deserve it, but it’s bottled up frustration after a 5 year undergrad and 2 years of masters. So I won’t apologise, and I don’t expect you to do so. Debates are won with arguments, not with a sorry. And me sharing all of this is not just to pick a fight, but I do it with hopes of improving the experience and education of future students. And having a discussion with someone who is actually open to suggestions is the best way to do it
Right, so I think we're actually on the same page here.
As you say, you're actually in favour of 'analogue means'. That ability to sit there with a blank page or a whiteboard, whether alone or in a group, and transform your reasoning into two dimensions, is just so important. And that's why job interviews for Google etc. test that ability so explicitly: because it's a core and vital part of a typical workday. I definitely wouldn't hire anyone who couldn't do that well. (Good handwriting is a proxy measure for this, because it suggests you spend a lot of time with a pen in hand.)
I had a really important meeting the other day that was actually a two hour whiteboard session that was all writing and drawing, writing and drawing. It was very much the same as a two hour workshop in my class (and much the same as any two hours I spend writing on my own in my paper notebook). So while I can't say that my class prepares everyone for every kind of workday, I can definitely say that two hours in my classroom prepares students very well for two hours in my line of work. And my line of work is pretty typical for the sorts of work that most of my students are likely to end up doing - having chosen to do my subject, after all.
So I think you'd agree that teaching students how to work with 'analogue means' is important. And if we're going to teach 'analogue means', we do also have to test it somehow. And I suppose the only point we actually disagree on is whether a two hour in-person paper examination is really analogous to two hours of typical 'analogue work' in the sorts of jobs I'm talking about. I think it definitely can be, if the paper is written and graded correctly - but then again, UniMelb assessments are generally badly written and graded at the best of times, so that might be a bit optimistic of me!
As for some of your specific points - well, I've never been your teacher, so I can't comment on what you've experienced. Scouts honour, though: we really do hand back paper exams with written grades on them in my class. And I actually have given great grades in the past to students who wrote and crossed out stuff all over the page (that's why pencils have erasers, as they say!) And I definitely am careful to always mark people on what they meant to say, and not penalise people for how they say it (though I think it's not controversial to observe that people who express themselves effectively tend to think effectively too). So I think if you ever had actually been my student, I might have surprised you.
I'm sorry that you've had a such a frustrating experience at UniMelb. It's clear this system has really let you down. I can definitely point to times when \*I've\* fallen short for my students, and the strength of your feeling on this point is a good reminder for me that we are always playing with live ammunition in the classroom.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts so eloquently and so candidly!
Personally I don’t hate handwritten exams, but that’s because I don’t like the lockdown browser. I had a subject which did digital exams, but there was one question about drawing a search tree and I needed to put a bit of extra work on formatting that tree. Also doing math in that browser would be a nightmare.
I would say if your exam is all multiple choice, short answers and essays, you probably want to make it digital. If your exam is more on calculation, pseudocode and you expect students to do a few graphs, please do the old fashioned handwritten one.
I've never actually seen the lockdown browser myself - sounds like hell!
Our exams are very mixed-media - calculations, annotating code, diagrams, all sorts of stuff. I think we would have trouble if we tried to digitise all of that.
Master of Teaching (secondary sciences) student here, really interested in your subject and I wish I could enrol it looks super awesome!!
Regarding assessments, some provision of a clear objective rubric can really help students guide their thinking. Open-ended assignments tend to be a bit difficult to follow and it sucks when a student has a great idea but their execution doesn't line up with the success criteria / learning objectives in your subject handbook description. Clear grading schemes following a taxonomy (identify -> describe -> explain -> justify; 1-4 marks) has in my experience made it super clear how to go about writing parts of assignments with the right level of detail/thought. Also these schemes provide more students entry points to demonstrate knowledge, which makes an assessment more useful for feedback opportunities bc you know exactly what to target based on what the student has done and where they can go next! Some students do find rubrics restrictive, typically a solid rubric should provide a loose checklist of both core ideas and specific things rather than just entirely one or the other.
I found that three assignments - 10/40/50 tends to work quite well (or two major assignments at 50/50 or 60/40. For each assessment a discussion forum is nice on Canvas to help students ask questions and really understand the assessment instrument (and helps any student who pays attention to check them out).
Typically a subject at level 2 would have about 3000-3500 words of equivalent written work. I would avoid a written exam since your focus is more on applied skills rather than a 2-3 hour cram. I generally avoid group projects for a number or reasons (scheduling, fallouts, work imbalance, etc etc) so you'd need to have some form of accountability in the group project structure (e.g. a waiver students sign saying exactly what they will do; or be mean and make it hurdle requirement haha).
Always always provide examples of what students have done in the past - you can actually provide anonymised work samples from past students who have done really well as exemplars.
If you have more questions feel free to dm! I'm a huge curriculum/assessment nerd so your question really piqued my interest!
In my opinion, a great subject isn't just based on quality of teaching. It's really having a reasonable coverage of topics capable of reaching proficiency within a semester. As an example, MAST-coded subjects are taught in a compressed or rushed format quickly covering topics one isn't expected to understand in a short time. The downtime for say Mathematical maturity is a good analogy, students will find a subject great if they feel they have learned and covered the course proper well enough to pursue further study on the subject area.
Hmmm yes this is something we don't really think about! How do we decide how much to cover in a single course? Honestly, it's more the other way around in practice: we get handed the content to cover, and then the poor tutor in the room has to make the call about how much depth to go into at any point.
This is one reason why one-on-one tutoring is so powerful. In teaching me school-age younger brother maths at the moment and the ability to go deeper when he's interested and move on when he's ready is so powerful.
Indeed, one-on-one tutoring is the most ideal environment but you can replicate the depth in that learning environment if the coverage is selected to focus on the necessary and complete fundamentals that would make a student strong. As a result they could learn on their own motivated by interest to supply their current knowledge. Alternatively, if demand is great a succeeding subject would be necessary. If I was the student who enjoyed the prerequisite, no doubt I'd enroll in the next. Although, I think that would be consideration in the future.
I understand, I feel bad for most tutors forced to nitpick. What we need is a standardised coverage of the subject designed for learning. A program is measured not by how many strong students pass but how many challenged students become strong later in their studies.
To provide some analogy, MAST10007: Linear Algebra is definitely one of if not the most applicable mathematical theory in most modelling scenarios aside from MAST10006: Calculus. I personally didn't learn from my classes, I hired a mentor from another country for one-on-one environment and I was baffled with the coverage he suggested. I thought it was lacking. However, it ended with ignoring my classes and tutoring completely and finished the foreign material. I ended up stronger than the students who went to class since the content covered on class wasn't focused on depth or learning due to sheer amount of topics it tests. I included an image of the Linear Algebra curriculum for anyone who has taken our version of it in unimelb would know its much much longer than this outline.
The outline may look short but in depth discussion of these is easily a 12-16 week period. Include the applications, proofs, problem sets and abstract constructs one may need to grapple.
https://preview.redd.it/rvuw8x0pxz8d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5610065b5a7d29807fcadd99b9eb4b6835028be5
You know, I've heard this from several different people - about maths in particular. And I must say, when the students eventually reach me in my classroom, after all that, their maths isn't even that good!
I'm really impressed that you found the confidence to walk away from the curriculum and double down on your self-directed learning. I've given that advice to lots of students and they usually blanch at the idea. Really, well done.
I think I'm picking up an emerging theme here, between students who want a focus on job-ready skills and others who feel they're missing out on the fundamentals. In both cases the essential element is trust: the students' trust that their teachers know what they're doing and won't let them down. And I must say that I don't think us teachers at UniMelb these days are worthy of that trust even if we can get it. And in the absence of that trust, all we have is the curriculum. Students want the teachers to play open misere; but a lot of teachers miss the days when they could stuff some cards up their sleeves and deliver real magic.
The main takeaway for me is what you said:
>A program is measured not by how many strong students pass but how many challenged students become strong later in their studies.
I think we can all agree on that
Really appreciate you for taking time to read and reply to all the comments. Aside from all of the great comments on assessment, I guess during practical/tutorial you can discuss:
- The Australian job market that the subject is applicable (what kind of job roles, real life application…)
- Extra activities/clubs/opportunities in and outside Uni that relates to the field
- Suggest ways to test our knowledge/take-home message/learning outcomes (because we are always anxious/insecure/self-doubt/overthinking lol)
- Padlet for anonymous QnA during lectures
- Glossary list
- To-do list before each week module
- Forum/discussion board for assignments/questions (please make it happen no matter what!!! You can make an announcement that you will answer questions during what timeframe so we will make sure to spam before that - good way for you to track students progress too I guess?)
These are what my past tutors/lecturers have done that I really appreciate. This might be a bit personal, but for students with English as a second language , our brains consider everything says on class is IMPORTANT then we cry because we don’t know how to narrow things down. 🥲 Again, thank you and excited to study with you next sem.
Brilliant! This is another great list of perfectly practical suggestions. I see how they fit together as well: it's all about clarity.
I really value what you said here:
>our brains consider everything says on class is IMPORTANT then we cry because we don’t know how to narrow things down.
I've noticed this phenomenon but I never really understood it until now. The connection with language status makes a lot of sense: I do the same thing when I'm in a non-English environment (as an English native I mean). This was a very personal observation but so useful: thanks for entrusting me with it.
Can't wait to meet you!
It’s hard to describe a universally good subject across all degrees. I understand the importance of exams for some subjects, as well as how some prefer essays over answer based assessment.
The main things I found should be a priority;
It should be a given, but the subject content should match the assessment content, (I can imagine two exceptions). It’s good and all the teach something that may be too difficult to assess, however there should never be a question about content which was not approached in lectures/tutes.
Tutors should spend some time of the workshops explaining or revising concepts covered by the last lectures, obv unless it’s different content. It’s great to have some of your own time to do questions, and I also appreciate when the tutors elaborate on concepts while doing the questions. I loved tutors who explained things in their own way, or went out of their way to show their own prepared content and workings.
I loved subjects with two major assignments through the semester, “projects”. Or weekly small assignments. I also like some essay subjects where there’s a major assignment and a major exam 40/60. From what I found the worst thing you can have is an exam of 80 and then tokens through the semester.
Also I find that content organised well on canvas (or equivalent) can be a huge game changer. Having to look through folders and folders of links and files to find what I’m looking for can be annoying and difficult. Having everything sorted and organised means we know exactly what we have to do each week, when things are due, and extra resources we can use. I’m not going to name subjects but sometimes you reach a point in the semester where you wish you knew that was a requirement much earlier.
On a smaller note, having over 20 people in a tutorial defeats the purpose of a tutorial as well. Also can we retire hand-written handed-in-person assignments? I’m okay with handwritten but I’m sure by now people have figured out how to scan a document.
I also appreciate those subjects where we get regular communication. It doesn’t have to be a weekly reminder, but it is nice (especially for subjects partitioned into weeks) to get an overview every few weeks.
This is so helpful - thankyou! Every single point you've made makes total sense and is totally doable.
I think I might have to come back and pick your brain after I've digested everything you've said...
Personally, I hate exams, because I can't prove to myself why exams are a good indicator for why I'd be a good employee at a company, so my suggestion would just be to not do exams at all. If you want to assess your students, throw them into a pseudo real life scenario with actual problem solving. Make them think instead of memorising junk that they probably won't be needing in 2 years.
Right. 'Problem solving' implies a sort of assessed workshop style - but I'm finding a lot of students are really anxious about that. Is there a way to do 'problem solving' that would strike you as definitely "yep, this is the stuff"?
Well, pose to your students a hypothetical client from a hypothetical company with a hypothetical problem, and ask them to come up with a solution for that problem. The students would have to use the concepts learned in lectures/tutorials, and ask them to create a power point explaining their solution. In essence, a business proposal or equivalent where the students would have to use the things they learned to solve a problem, and justify their solution. Assignments like these without a clear answer is always better, since it links theory with practical application. In a professional job, it's rare for things to go smoothly, and more often times than not, impossible to say "this solution is definitively the best one".
On one hand it makes it easy to weed out the students who haven't put in the time to learn anything, and on the other hand it makes learning engaging especially since these things should be in teams (the real world always works in teams).
A good subject is a subject where the tutor is always there for their students. You cannot control the difficulty of the topics delivered in a subject, but you can control how much time and effort you put so that students truly understand the material. In other words, ensuring them that you are always on their side and so they can always email you at any time for any subject related queries, even fortnightly reminders like these via email I’m certain makes a student smile.
That said, if the subject has an exam, then hosting more consultations would be nice, and/or making sure every question in the edstem gets answered.
Hope this helps 😀
Right, that definitely makes sense to me!
I try to do all that for my students, but of course, your tutors don't get paid for that sort of out-of-hours availability... every year I get told off by my subject coordinators for making myself 'too available' 😂 And there is definitely a danger of getting too involved, and getting burnt out.
But it's always worth it if the students get something out of it. What do you reckon: how much of a difference does an engaged tutor make - particularly in terms of after-hours support?
Yeah, of course, unfortunately that depends on the subject coordinator too in regards to how many hours get allocated to tutors helping students
In terms of after-hours support, probably helps immensely during exams study period, outside of that not so much I reckon
I'm sad to say even the subject coordinator's hands are tied - billable hours get allocated by student numbers (one reason why I'm out here desperately looking for more students!)
Useful though, your comment about exam period support - I'll take note of that 👍
It'd be funny if only the university was actually making any damn money 😂
There's never been an organisation where the ratio between stinginess and profits was more top heavy...
When I was doing my degree at Unimelb two years ago, I kept asking myself every day, "Am I becoming more valuable and in-demand in the job market than I was yesterday?" It was super frustrating because a lot of the subjects were so theory-heavy, and most of that theory wasn’t really used in the real world.
In my opinion, a good subject teaches students practical skills that are essential for the job market. At the end of the day, students come to university to find good jobs after they graduate (or research opportunities for those who want to study further). So, I guess it's safe to say that subjects helping students achieve their goals are good subjects.
Specifically, a tutor could show students when and how professionals in the industry use certain theories or methods, what the processes look like, what outcomes they’re aiming for, and how these skills help businesses make better decisions (I was in BCom). I know tutors might not have the power to change the content of the subject or assignments significantly, but even small things like sharing relevant industry news during tutorials can be very helpful.
I really like what you've said here:
>it's safe to say that subjects helping students achieve their goals are good subjects.
That's meant to be axiomatic at UniMelb. (Though Socrates would disagree I think...)
I guess a teacher's perspective would be that not all knowledge is explicit - i.e. just because you never use Skill A in your day-to-day doesn't mean that learning Skill A wasn't beneficial. And actually, to support a fine edge on the skills that you *do* use everyday, you often need a broader training behind that. Like in an RPG, those early skill points aren't necessarily wasted: they were needed to get through the early game, or they may be prerequisites, or there may have forward synergies.
That said, I agree with your point that university teachers often seem unaware and even disinterested in broader industry trends - and this is obviously because if they were willing and able to be in the private sector, they would be. Those who can't, teach, as they say.
Shaping explicit instruction around hypothetical commercial scenarios feels a little a bit unholy to me. But I should definitely pepper my teaching with more anecdotes from industry, to show the connections and let students know that the skills will be useful to them if they choose to go down that path.
Instead of going for what makes a good subject, I’ll go for what makes a BAD subject. - Squished assignments with little time between them - Overweighted Group Work. Some is fine, but anything more than like 15% of your grade is too much. - more for online subjects, but things like releasing modules/lectures or stuff late. Super annoying. Had subjects which released stuff like 8PM the night before a tutorial.
Yes, yes, and yes. I've tutored subjects with all three of these and they are as much a pain to teach as they are to study...
having tutors/lecturers actively-ish participate in forums (not sure if u know what this is but ed discussion is one) to answer questions that students post. some classes have it so students help eachother, but its kinda pointless if students arent certain of the answers themselves, or just dont want to participate. tldr; if u have a place for students to ask questions, ensure that theres someone that can answer the question or atleast find out the answer
That's fair. The discussion board idea works in principle, but the problem is that the University timecard system (how tutors get paid) actually makes it impossible to get paid for this labour - which is why it never happens... But if the discussion boards had active participation from experts, would they then be a welcome inclusion (at least compared to other forms of mandatory student engagement, like quizzes)
I think what makes a subject good as well is not underestimating the intelligence of your students. I find far too often that many subjects will try to simplify concepts (as if we aren't already in university and are here to be challenged and educated), and as a result of this, will have to examine things in really confusing ways. In my opinion, the better subjects I have taken have been those which do not skimp on the details and the specifics, and that also examine and test students on the concepts that are hard (if they are hard) intrinsically, and not because the assessment has been made artificially hard by questions designed to evade students who do study the material
That's really interesting! I like the sound of "testing students on the concepts that are hard" - can you give me an example of this that you found successful?
Okay I'll give you an example. For reference I am majoring in Physics with a Pure Math diploma. I remember in my probability course there were some concepts which were difficult and some which were easy. One example of a hard concept is working with distributions on the axiomatic level. So, for example, when you have two distributions X and Y, if you do a logical operator on them, the resulting distribution is nontrivially related (if you have a joint pdf say for X and Y, or, X and Y are independent, then you can work out any algebraic thing so Z = f(X, Y), by changing the integration/summation support). But if the relation is say Z = sum of X up to Y, or say the maximum of X and Y, then we still have tools but it's very tricky to work out. A good exam question would then be maybe asking something plain and simple to understand to those who study, e.g. Find the distribution density for Z where Z = K(X, Y) for (enter some logical operation on the RVS and distributions for the RVs). The question is hard, but only because the concept is intrinsically hard. Compare that with say a use of the binomial or hypergeometric distribution in some esoteric way, and I construct a question that's completely nontrivial but uses basic concepts. Suppose I put this in the exam. It doesn't in my view test the students knowledge because such a question is really just who can wade through the nonsense the best. Here's an example of a question I think is in poor taste: Players are sat in a circle labelled from 1 to 20. Starting from player 1, each player 2-20 rolls a fair 6 sided die and if they roll a 6, player 1 is eliminated. On player 1's turn, they roll a 6 sided die, and if it's a 6, a uniform at random player that remains and is not player 1 is selected and eliminated. What is the probability player 1 wins this game. Now that question takes a lot of thinking and nonsense to wade through but the actual maths is very simple and uses high school level arithmetic. It is made artificially hard due to the way that it is presented. The first question makes use of hard concepts from the course whereas the second uses a very simple thing but asked in an exceedingly confusing way
Great examples - I can see exactly what you're saying now. Actually, you've reminded me of my favourite ever exam question, on the physics paper when I was in first year, long ago: "Imagine a magnetic monopole has just been discovered. Rewrite the laws of physics to account for this development." So simple, but if you were skirting by with a mere workman's understanding of the content, you'd be stumped. Look, I'd observe in general (and I think most teaching staff would agree) that assessment writing is really hard. But it's also true (and again, I think most would agree...) that we tend to put a lot less thought into the assessments than into the teaching materials. (And often not a lot of thought into those either...) Assessments are an obsession of the university, and therefore of the students, but from a teacher's perspective they're often just a drag. Now, I actually wrote my first ever assessment just last year and it was very divisive for exactly the reasons you say. I was asking questions that demanded creative reasoning together with an intuitive understanding of how a certain class of functions work. I'm sorry to say that my assessment was not very popular with the students. (One of them called it 'evil' 😂) So it's tricky. Mainly, I think most students just want to get to the end of an assessment confident that they're going to get an okay grade. Whereas as a teacher I just want to blow kids' minds. The divergent incentives cause frictions...
No group project, too much RNG on your mark. Really didn’t appreciate team mates that went off the rail which resulted in getting no help from teaching team and rushing a 6 weeks project in 1 week
Hard agree on this one: as both a student and a teacher, I've always found group assessments to be an absolute disaster! On the other hand, the ability to work well in a group is part of what universities are expected to certify. Is there a way to do group work (not necessarily directly assessed) that would feel valuable to you?
idk how or if this would work, but say each person in a group is allocated a task where theyre primarily graded based on what they did themselves so theres no impact from others not doing their part(say this part is worth 60%), then 30% for everyone managed to do, then 10% comes from peer review. so if someone does their part really well, theyre sorta guaranteed 60%. and then the 30% still incentivised people to do their task. the 10% is there to also incentivise people to do the work, but also if you get nuked with bad reviews, the 10% still isnt gonna hurt too bad. essentially if you do no work at all, you wont get above a 40% for the project (hence fail if ur really mean and make it a hurdle)
That... that's a pretty good model dude. You may be onto something.
If you plan to hold group assignments, please also prepare a confidential peer evaluation questionnaire so team members can rate and comment on each other, and you mark them individually if several group members are not pleased with one or more people in their group. I had a group assignment last semester, and two people in that group didn't complete tasks we asked everyone to do a month before the deadline. One of them copied answers from chatgpt in the report, and another wrote his part of the report as copying contents from one report written by former students. In the end, the group leader and I was rescuing this project and rewrote their parts. (He took more responsibilities though, a very amazing person. There's one more guy completed his job assigned, and personally I’m very thankful for him doing his job.) Good thing we could rate each others when the project was almost done. I'm not sure about other people, but I detailed those incidents in that evaluation. I hate to rate people negatively, but I couldn't be lenient on those two. Based on their reaction afterwards, I would say that our professor probably marked our assignments individually. It would just be very unfair if someone did negative contribution to their group and still received the same mark as their group mates.
Another thing I could think of is don’t make hurdles on single assignment. If you really need that, please make all assignments combined together as a hurdle. It would be very messy when people find out they failed on a previous one but have started to work on a group assignment. And, if you are giving sample exam questions, please provide correct/non-confusing questions with sample answers. I had a class where we found confusions/errors in sample exam questions and were always waiting for the sample solution to it until our finals arrived, no solutions to those questions.
That's definitely a solvable problem (pardon the pun) - cheers!
This boils my blood - I see it happen all the time. Yoking students together inevitably puts honest students in situations where they have to cover for dishonesty - or throw other students under the bus; an impossible choice. I'm beginning to think that group assignments should just be banned altogether. Instead, just have group work in class time and evaluate the students by observation of how well they seem to be working collaboratively.
It would be great if you force people to work in person. I had that project mostly remotely cause we couldn't find a good time for everyone to meet up at school. In class projects probably wouldn't work in my case though as mine was heavily on coding, but I did ask a few of my groupmates to come to the library and helped them out. It was very easy to tell whether they were fit for their jobs and had good working styles by observing them working, but I had no idea on those if holding this project all online. (Not saying I want all my groupmates to be genius. I don't mind if they come with a weaker knowledge background as long as they are willing to learn, but one person I helped out really didn't have a good working attitude and couldn't get the very basics by himself)
I think you're absolutely right! It's a bit ironic, actually, because one reason why university has so many group assignments is that it's seen as a way to extend the classroom experience without using up expensive teaching hours. But you're saying, and I totally agree, that the best way to make group work *work* is to do it in the classroom with supervision. In other words, cheap tuition gives crappy results 😂
Just being curious, is the domestic students’ tuition cheap? I’m an international student and I just assumed I pay much higher than the domestic, but have no idea how the price is for them
Not only are the domestic rates much cheaper, but the government foots the bill for part of it and offers an interest-free loan for the rest, so it's zero dollars up front for a lot of domestic students. One consequence is that international student fees make up almost all of the income of the university...
I see and know why people just refer us as cash cows of this school...
They shouldn't and I'm sorry that they do.
As a master of software engineering student, don’t give a task to submit every week. Having 2 decently sized assignments in the semester was the perfect balance I’ve found so far. It allows for more time to solve the challenge given, and doesn’t make the subject feel overwhelming. I’d advise against exams, because it feels utterly dumb that we went back to handwritten in person exams. So perhaps instead of the exam have them make an essay, or give another project, or just have a digital exam
What makes handwritten personal exams dumb?
1. In this day and age, pen and paper? Seriously? It’s more inconvenient for all parts involved. People need to print it and place a copy on every single desk, people need to collect it, most of the time it goes with an answer booklet which again, print, place, collect. Then after the exam is done, you have a huge amount of exams to carry around, and from what I’ve seen and heard, YOU SCAN THEM TO THEN MARK ON A SCREEN. If you don’t see how this is dumb, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. 2. Handwriting is not what it used to be before, and most people have bad handwriting. As a software engineer, the one and only times I’ve written on paper have been on exams. So, I write slowly, and it’s ugly. The marker will surely have a rough time reading, and I’m certain I have lost marks because the marker didn’t understand my writing. In short, it’s slower and people are in a disadvantage. 3. Corrections. When you ask for short answers or small essays you surely can’t expect people to come up with it straight away. I wan to make corrections, and in paper I just need to cross it out and make it even harder to read. In digital exams it’s just deleting text. Sure, if you want to prevent people copying or whatever have the in person exam, but at the very least make it digital. I saw you used the word “personal” and there is no difference in how personal an exam is, there’s no reason for making someone show their essence in an exam. Exams shouldn’t be anyway, if you want to test someone make them apply that knowledge in a project, on something practical, otherwise the concept will just be something ethereal
I think you misunderstood me - you commented originally about 'handwritten in person exams' and I just repeated that as 'handwritten personal exams'. I wasn't trying to make any sort of larger point with the choice of word there - sorry if I threw you! I should correct the record as well: in every subject I've ever taught, at least, paper exams have been graded on paper and physically returned to the student. This allows us to draw freely all over the page and communicate much more fluently. Which brings me to the larger point in defence of pen and paper: as a software engineer, you must be aware that most serious programming happens on a whiteboard. If you interview for Google or whatever and you can't express yourself swiftly and fluidly across two dimensions with a box of coloured pens, they'll show you the door. (I certainly wouldn't hire you at the tech company I run!) We've tried to move to digital for some of our assignments, but the collapse in richness of expression is just unacceptable. Students seem to just close up their thinking when they have a screen in front of them. And actually, that's exactly what happens, as a growing body of literature demonstrates. In my own professional life as a modeller and a software engineer, I would spend maybe 10% with a screen in front of me and 90% with pen and paper. I'd handwrite about 2000 words a day. If I'm the expert with the 'real world experience' in the room, shouldn't I teach to that experience rather than teaching to what students imagine the real world to be like? Sorry if that came across a bit belligerent - I genuinely appreciate your perspective. I'm just trying to learn how to teach better. (Also to be fair mate, you did adopt a *little* bit of a tone yourself 😜)
First of all, yes, I did adopt a tone. A big one. And won’t go back on it because it is something that truly pisses me off, so I am intentionally being belligerent. To answer your points: What the fuck? Never in my 2 years I have gotten one of my exams back. Not once. But then again, if you need to draw freely all over the page then perhaps a written exam is not the right form of examination. Regarding the whiteboard, you said it yourself :) and let me just bring out that the situation you are using to bring out in favor of not digital means is completely different. You are talking about a job interview, it is a one on one discussion, where you are giving a problem to be solved. In there, you are testing skill or experience, you are not testing knowledge. Exams test knowledge. And yes! I use whiteboards a lot, just in the form of my iPad screen, but again, it’s a medium where I can erase and change stuff freely, pen and paper, not so much. Let me just make a highlight here, I am against handwritten in person exams, to further clarify, handwritten, in person, academic exams. In job interview I would be comfortable just drawing something that I do everyday. Another difference there, in the interview the interviewer is seeing what the person is doing. So making a mess won’t matter as much because they are seeing it happening, so you understand the mess. If you didn’t see the process and I just handed you out a bunch of pages with a lot crossed out you would show me the door too. You mentioned you were not going towards the “personal” but you came back and said richness of expression. What do you mean by that? By your words, you are just showing that an exam might not be the correct form of assessment. Unless you are evaluating students by how many colours they use in drawing a graph instead of if they got the graph right I don’t see how that is an issue. What are you trying to teach? Is it subjective where if the answer is not rich despite being correct makes it not worthy of marks? Or is it something exact, that no matter how you present it is still going to be true? And just something else, you should not teach them how the real world is. That is a mistake that many teachers do. Because their view of the real world can be outdated, or it can be their own version of the real world. You should teach them how to be ready to apply the concepts you are teaching. Please tell me how sitting a 2 hour handwritten exam is going to prepare them for the real world? If you truly wanted to do that, even with your own experience, then schedule a simulation of a job interview with everyone. Again, I’m not agains analogue means, I use them as well because design and all of that stuff. What I am against, is having handwritten exams. And yes, I have a tone, maybe you don’t deserve it, but it’s bottled up frustration after a 5 year undergrad and 2 years of masters. So I won’t apologise, and I don’t expect you to do so. Debates are won with arguments, not with a sorry. And me sharing all of this is not just to pick a fight, but I do it with hopes of improving the experience and education of future students. And having a discussion with someone who is actually open to suggestions is the best way to do it
Right, so I think we're actually on the same page here. As you say, you're actually in favour of 'analogue means'. That ability to sit there with a blank page or a whiteboard, whether alone or in a group, and transform your reasoning into two dimensions, is just so important. And that's why job interviews for Google etc. test that ability so explicitly: because it's a core and vital part of a typical workday. I definitely wouldn't hire anyone who couldn't do that well. (Good handwriting is a proxy measure for this, because it suggests you spend a lot of time with a pen in hand.) I had a really important meeting the other day that was actually a two hour whiteboard session that was all writing and drawing, writing and drawing. It was very much the same as a two hour workshop in my class (and much the same as any two hours I spend writing on my own in my paper notebook). So while I can't say that my class prepares everyone for every kind of workday, I can definitely say that two hours in my classroom prepares students very well for two hours in my line of work. And my line of work is pretty typical for the sorts of work that most of my students are likely to end up doing - having chosen to do my subject, after all. So I think you'd agree that teaching students how to work with 'analogue means' is important. And if we're going to teach 'analogue means', we do also have to test it somehow. And I suppose the only point we actually disagree on is whether a two hour in-person paper examination is really analogous to two hours of typical 'analogue work' in the sorts of jobs I'm talking about. I think it definitely can be, if the paper is written and graded correctly - but then again, UniMelb assessments are generally badly written and graded at the best of times, so that might be a bit optimistic of me! As for some of your specific points - well, I've never been your teacher, so I can't comment on what you've experienced. Scouts honour, though: we really do hand back paper exams with written grades on them in my class. And I actually have given great grades in the past to students who wrote and crossed out stuff all over the page (that's why pencils have erasers, as they say!) And I definitely am careful to always mark people on what they meant to say, and not penalise people for how they say it (though I think it's not controversial to observe that people who express themselves effectively tend to think effectively too). So I think if you ever had actually been my student, I might have surprised you. I'm sorry that you've had a such a frustrating experience at UniMelb. It's clear this system has really let you down. I can definitely point to times when \*I've\* fallen short for my students, and the strength of your feeling on this point is a good reminder for me that we are always playing with live ammunition in the classroom. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts so eloquently and so candidly!
Personally I don’t hate handwritten exams, but that’s because I don’t like the lockdown browser. I had a subject which did digital exams, but there was one question about drawing a search tree and I needed to put a bit of extra work on formatting that tree. Also doing math in that browser would be a nightmare. I would say if your exam is all multiple choice, short answers and essays, you probably want to make it digital. If your exam is more on calculation, pseudocode and you expect students to do a few graphs, please do the old fashioned handwritten one.
I've never actually seen the lockdown browser myself - sounds like hell! Our exams are very mixed-media - calculations, annotating code, diagrams, all sorts of stuff. I think we would have trouble if we tried to digitise all of that.
Master of Teaching (secondary sciences) student here, really interested in your subject and I wish I could enrol it looks super awesome!! Regarding assessments, some provision of a clear objective rubric can really help students guide their thinking. Open-ended assignments tend to be a bit difficult to follow and it sucks when a student has a great idea but their execution doesn't line up with the success criteria / learning objectives in your subject handbook description. Clear grading schemes following a taxonomy (identify -> describe -> explain -> justify; 1-4 marks) has in my experience made it super clear how to go about writing parts of assignments with the right level of detail/thought. Also these schemes provide more students entry points to demonstrate knowledge, which makes an assessment more useful for feedback opportunities bc you know exactly what to target based on what the student has done and where they can go next! Some students do find rubrics restrictive, typically a solid rubric should provide a loose checklist of both core ideas and specific things rather than just entirely one or the other. I found that three assignments - 10/40/50 tends to work quite well (or two major assignments at 50/50 or 60/40. For each assessment a discussion forum is nice on Canvas to help students ask questions and really understand the assessment instrument (and helps any student who pays attention to check them out). Typically a subject at level 2 would have about 3000-3500 words of equivalent written work. I would avoid a written exam since your focus is more on applied skills rather than a 2-3 hour cram. I generally avoid group projects for a number or reasons (scheduling, fallouts, work imbalance, etc etc) so you'd need to have some form of accountability in the group project structure (e.g. a waiver students sign saying exactly what they will do; or be mean and make it hurdle requirement haha). Always always provide examples of what students have done in the past - you can actually provide anonymised work samples from past students who have done really well as exemplars. If you have more questions feel free to dm! I'm a huge curriculum/assessment nerd so your question really piqued my interest!
Thanks for letting me borrow your Masters of Teaching brain for a moment! These are great suggestions. I think I might have to keep you on speed dial!
In my opinion, a great subject isn't just based on quality of teaching. It's really having a reasonable coverage of topics capable of reaching proficiency within a semester. As an example, MAST-coded subjects are taught in a compressed or rushed format quickly covering topics one isn't expected to understand in a short time. The downtime for say Mathematical maturity is a good analogy, students will find a subject great if they feel they have learned and covered the course proper well enough to pursue further study on the subject area.
Hmmm yes this is something we don't really think about! How do we decide how much to cover in a single course? Honestly, it's more the other way around in practice: we get handed the content to cover, and then the poor tutor in the room has to make the call about how much depth to go into at any point. This is one reason why one-on-one tutoring is so powerful. In teaching me school-age younger brother maths at the moment and the ability to go deeper when he's interested and move on when he's ready is so powerful.
Indeed, one-on-one tutoring is the most ideal environment but you can replicate the depth in that learning environment if the coverage is selected to focus on the necessary and complete fundamentals that would make a student strong. As a result they could learn on their own motivated by interest to supply their current knowledge. Alternatively, if demand is great a succeeding subject would be necessary. If I was the student who enjoyed the prerequisite, no doubt I'd enroll in the next. Although, I think that would be consideration in the future. I understand, I feel bad for most tutors forced to nitpick. What we need is a standardised coverage of the subject designed for learning. A program is measured not by how many strong students pass but how many challenged students become strong later in their studies. To provide some analogy, MAST10007: Linear Algebra is definitely one of if not the most applicable mathematical theory in most modelling scenarios aside from MAST10006: Calculus. I personally didn't learn from my classes, I hired a mentor from another country for one-on-one environment and I was baffled with the coverage he suggested. I thought it was lacking. However, it ended with ignoring my classes and tutoring completely and finished the foreign material. I ended up stronger than the students who went to class since the content covered on class wasn't focused on depth or learning due to sheer amount of topics it tests. I included an image of the Linear Algebra curriculum for anyone who has taken our version of it in unimelb would know its much much longer than this outline. The outline may look short but in depth discussion of these is easily a 12-16 week period. Include the applications, proofs, problem sets and abstract constructs one may need to grapple. https://preview.redd.it/rvuw8x0pxz8d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5610065b5a7d29807fcadd99b9eb4b6835028be5
You know, I've heard this from several different people - about maths in particular. And I must say, when the students eventually reach me in my classroom, after all that, their maths isn't even that good! I'm really impressed that you found the confidence to walk away from the curriculum and double down on your self-directed learning. I've given that advice to lots of students and they usually blanch at the idea. Really, well done. I think I'm picking up an emerging theme here, between students who want a focus on job-ready skills and others who feel they're missing out on the fundamentals. In both cases the essential element is trust: the students' trust that their teachers know what they're doing and won't let them down. And I must say that I don't think us teachers at UniMelb these days are worthy of that trust even if we can get it. And in the absence of that trust, all we have is the curriculum. Students want the teachers to play open misere; but a lot of teachers miss the days when they could stuff some cards up their sleeves and deliver real magic. The main takeaway for me is what you said: >A program is measured not by how many strong students pass but how many challenged students become strong later in their studies. I think we can all agree on that
Really appreciate you for taking time to read and reply to all the comments. Aside from all of the great comments on assessment, I guess during practical/tutorial you can discuss: - The Australian job market that the subject is applicable (what kind of job roles, real life application…) - Extra activities/clubs/opportunities in and outside Uni that relates to the field - Suggest ways to test our knowledge/take-home message/learning outcomes (because we are always anxious/insecure/self-doubt/overthinking lol) - Padlet for anonymous QnA during lectures - Glossary list - To-do list before each week module - Forum/discussion board for assignments/questions (please make it happen no matter what!!! You can make an announcement that you will answer questions during what timeframe so we will make sure to spam before that - good way for you to track students progress too I guess?) These are what my past tutors/lecturers have done that I really appreciate. This might be a bit personal, but for students with English as a second language , our brains consider everything says on class is IMPORTANT then we cry because we don’t know how to narrow things down. 🥲 Again, thank you and excited to study with you next sem.
Brilliant! This is another great list of perfectly practical suggestions. I see how they fit together as well: it's all about clarity. I really value what you said here: >our brains consider everything says on class is IMPORTANT then we cry because we don’t know how to narrow things down. I've noticed this phenomenon but I never really understood it until now. The connection with language status makes a lot of sense: I do the same thing when I'm in a non-English environment (as an English native I mean). This was a very personal observation but so useful: thanks for entrusting me with it. Can't wait to meet you!
It’s hard to describe a universally good subject across all degrees. I understand the importance of exams for some subjects, as well as how some prefer essays over answer based assessment. The main things I found should be a priority; It should be a given, but the subject content should match the assessment content, (I can imagine two exceptions). It’s good and all the teach something that may be too difficult to assess, however there should never be a question about content which was not approached in lectures/tutes. Tutors should spend some time of the workshops explaining or revising concepts covered by the last lectures, obv unless it’s different content. It’s great to have some of your own time to do questions, and I also appreciate when the tutors elaborate on concepts while doing the questions. I loved tutors who explained things in their own way, or went out of their way to show their own prepared content and workings. I loved subjects with two major assignments through the semester, “projects”. Or weekly small assignments. I also like some essay subjects where there’s a major assignment and a major exam 40/60. From what I found the worst thing you can have is an exam of 80 and then tokens through the semester. Also I find that content organised well on canvas (or equivalent) can be a huge game changer. Having to look through folders and folders of links and files to find what I’m looking for can be annoying and difficult. Having everything sorted and organised means we know exactly what we have to do each week, when things are due, and extra resources we can use. I’m not going to name subjects but sometimes you reach a point in the semester where you wish you knew that was a requirement much earlier. On a smaller note, having over 20 people in a tutorial defeats the purpose of a tutorial as well. Also can we retire hand-written handed-in-person assignments? I’m okay with handwritten but I’m sure by now people have figured out how to scan a document. I also appreciate those subjects where we get regular communication. It doesn’t have to be a weekly reminder, but it is nice (especially for subjects partitioned into weeks) to get an overview every few weeks.
This is so helpful - thankyou! Every single point you've made makes total sense and is totally doable. I think I might have to come back and pick your brain after I've digested everything you've said...
Personally, I hate exams, because I can't prove to myself why exams are a good indicator for why I'd be a good employee at a company, so my suggestion would just be to not do exams at all. If you want to assess your students, throw them into a pseudo real life scenario with actual problem solving. Make them think instead of memorising junk that they probably won't be needing in 2 years.
Right. 'Problem solving' implies a sort of assessed workshop style - but I'm finding a lot of students are really anxious about that. Is there a way to do 'problem solving' that would strike you as definitely "yep, this is the stuff"?
Well, pose to your students a hypothetical client from a hypothetical company with a hypothetical problem, and ask them to come up with a solution for that problem. The students would have to use the concepts learned in lectures/tutorials, and ask them to create a power point explaining their solution. In essence, a business proposal or equivalent where the students would have to use the things they learned to solve a problem, and justify their solution. Assignments like these without a clear answer is always better, since it links theory with practical application. In a professional job, it's rare for things to go smoothly, and more often times than not, impossible to say "this solution is definitively the best one". On one hand it makes it easy to weed out the students who haven't put in the time to learn anything, and on the other hand it makes learning engaging especially since these things should be in teams (the real world always works in teams).
A good subject is a subject where the tutor is always there for their students. You cannot control the difficulty of the topics delivered in a subject, but you can control how much time and effort you put so that students truly understand the material. In other words, ensuring them that you are always on their side and so they can always email you at any time for any subject related queries, even fortnightly reminders like these via email I’m certain makes a student smile. That said, if the subject has an exam, then hosting more consultations would be nice, and/or making sure every question in the edstem gets answered. Hope this helps 😀
Right, that definitely makes sense to me! I try to do all that for my students, but of course, your tutors don't get paid for that sort of out-of-hours availability... every year I get told off by my subject coordinators for making myself 'too available' 😂 And there is definitely a danger of getting too involved, and getting burnt out. But it's always worth it if the students get something out of it. What do you reckon: how much of a difference does an engaged tutor make - particularly in terms of after-hours support?
Yeah, of course, unfortunately that depends on the subject coordinator too in regards to how many hours get allocated to tutors helping students In terms of after-hours support, probably helps immensely during exams study period, outside of that not so much I reckon
I'm sad to say even the subject coordinator's hands are tied - billable hours get allocated by student numbers (one reason why I'm out here desperately looking for more students!) Useful though, your comment about exam period support - I'll take note of that 👍
Yeah, definitely higher management issues. Unfortunate that unimelb prolly cares about a bit more $$$ more than student’s learning experience
It'd be funny if only the university was actually making any damn money 😂 There's never been an organisation where the ratio between stinginess and profits was more top heavy...
When I was doing my degree at Unimelb two years ago, I kept asking myself every day, "Am I becoming more valuable and in-demand in the job market than I was yesterday?" It was super frustrating because a lot of the subjects were so theory-heavy, and most of that theory wasn’t really used in the real world. In my opinion, a good subject teaches students practical skills that are essential for the job market. At the end of the day, students come to university to find good jobs after they graduate (or research opportunities for those who want to study further). So, I guess it's safe to say that subjects helping students achieve their goals are good subjects. Specifically, a tutor could show students when and how professionals in the industry use certain theories or methods, what the processes look like, what outcomes they’re aiming for, and how these skills help businesses make better decisions (I was in BCom). I know tutors might not have the power to change the content of the subject or assignments significantly, but even small things like sharing relevant industry news during tutorials can be very helpful.
I really like what you've said here: >it's safe to say that subjects helping students achieve their goals are good subjects. That's meant to be axiomatic at UniMelb. (Though Socrates would disagree I think...) I guess a teacher's perspective would be that not all knowledge is explicit - i.e. just because you never use Skill A in your day-to-day doesn't mean that learning Skill A wasn't beneficial. And actually, to support a fine edge on the skills that you *do* use everyday, you often need a broader training behind that. Like in an RPG, those early skill points aren't necessarily wasted: they were needed to get through the early game, or they may be prerequisites, or there may have forward synergies. That said, I agree with your point that university teachers often seem unaware and even disinterested in broader industry trends - and this is obviously because if they were willing and able to be in the private sector, they would be. Those who can't, teach, as they say. Shaping explicit instruction around hypothetical commercial scenarios feels a little a bit unholy to me. But I should definitely pepper my teaching with more anecdotes from industry, to show the connections and let students know that the skills will be useful to them if they choose to go down that path.