Inlägg "MARKING COMPLETED The marking of home assignments ..." | Systemplanering (EG2050)

MARKING COMPLETED

The marking of home assignments part IV and the exam has now been completed. The home assignments and exams can be picked up from the student office (STEX).

I tried to find the course evaluation forms but didn't find it, so:

I find that the current structure of dividing the exam into part 1 and part 2 does not properly reflect the ability of the students. Especially when we are not allowed to justify our answers in part 1, which makes any small mistake we make crucial! This system penalizes students that have the ambition to get a higher grade since we try to finish both parts in the time given and by consequence spend less time on part 1, which leads us to make simple mistakes (most often non-conceptual!). In EG2060 Electricity Market Analysis, (which had the same exam structure as EG2050) the responsible teachers have acknowledged this poor method and have thereby completly changed it. In the long run this will only encourage people to set the bar low and go for that sufficient low grade as "hedging" (i.e going for the high grade), is in no way rewarded nor encouraged. This is my personal opinion, but I know a lot of students share it.

I totally agree with Daniel.

I understand that it's crucial that we know the basics within all covered subjects but as Daniel points out, the understanding of concept should be considered and not just the final answer. This is true for the Bonus assignments as well, they seem to reward the final answers and not the conceptual thinking.

In my opinion the system with 2 exams should be discarded for a solution with 2 separeted exams (preferably with part 1 as written test "kontrollskrivning"). Part one should be done until passed and the grade should then be based on the result on part 2 alone.

Thereby the students will get grade based on deep knowledge and the conceptual understanding av all covered subjects is secured by passing part 1.

The idea of the problems in part I of the exam is that if the student understands the concept, the final result should either be obvious or trivial to calculate. You are welcome to provide feedback on problems that you do not think correspond to this idea.

Dividing the exam in two parts is not an optimal solution, and I am considering to introduce an alternative examination next year, where we have three partial exams during the course. The problems in these partial exams should correspond to the first part of the exam. Students who pass the partial exams may then skip part I of the exam, and may write part II in order to get a higher grade. Students who do not pass all the partial exams will have to write part I in the exam (and optionally part II) in the same way as today.

Finally, so far no students have joined the course evaluation committee, but it is not too late. In connection with the meeting of the committee, the Electric Power Systems Lab will treat the participants to lunch. Please contact me if you are interested.