Tuesday, March 03, 2009
A Public Service Announcement
PDM graded another batch of physics tests today. He has a suggestion for you. (These students are tomorrow's aspiring engineers.) Don't drive over any bridges designed and built after 2008. Yes, it was that bad, and has been all semester. And the one before that. And the one before that. And the one before that...
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10 comments:
Pfft... what could physics possibly have to do with the design of a bridge? ;)
LL pifft 'd that means he is a secret Bill de Cat follower.
Fermi - I could depress you and PDM some and copy and paste some of the discussion from my western civ online class to your email. Doc is regurarly entertained by this class and has a few things he could add about the college students today.
Oh, excellent. As if our infrastructure is bad enough...
Although I'm not surprised, my faculty friends have been telling such tales for years.
they're far too busy twittering
there was a Dr. on some TV show talking about what endless video and PC stimulation does to the brain - how the lack of quiet moments and in person conversations creates "decay" in the brain
I always feel so old and crusty saying this, but students really are getting dumber. Or less attentive. Or lazy. Whatever it is that results in some of the answers given for PDM's midterm. I wonder if they have gotten worse since I taught in 2003-04. I distinctly remember a pre-lab quiz about measuring velocity using a ballistic pendulum. By that time I had gotten so defeated by students' lack of preparation that one of the questions was simply, "What is goal of this week's lab?" One gem of an answer was, "We do pendulum." Not only are students not paying attention, they are reduced to caveman speak by their truncated language skills.
LL - the kind of physics these kids are doing has absolutely nothing to do with design of a bridge. And therein lies the problem.
Red - I don't think PDM would be surprised by the content (or lack thereof) of student discussions. Ack. Pffhtthftpthpft.
Kat - PDM has been telling the same tale for years as well, but it seems to get worse all the time.
Dianne - when they aren't twittering, they are cheating (and not doing that particularly well either). It is really shocking to me how many students he catches. You know there must be more that are getting away with it.
Natalie - I don't think it is the raw material that they are missing. So I'd vote lazy. And inattentive. If they applied themselves and worked harder, then they would do much better. And now I sound just like my Dad.
Having listened over the past couple of years to some of the lunacy my now 17-year-old stepgranddaughter pops off with -showing her general lack of attention to learning anything about many of the subjects she has supposedly been studying in junior/senior high school, nothing surprises me these days. When kids too often don't even know directions, how to read a road map, which was is east, west, etc., why would anyone think they would be the least bit interested in learning higher order things too? ARRGH!
Fermi - as far as the cheating - you would be floored about it. Here at this campus I can look around any exam room at any given time and tell you who is cheating and how. It is insane the risk these youngin's are willing to take.
It is past midnight and therefore it is FRIDAY and time for your CAT BLOGGING... no cheap shots this week~
Catblogging? Done! Just remember... you asked for it.
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