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[JDM] Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender (fwd)



On Thu, 22 Jun 2000 Mark.Hourigan.Ftmba99-00@Cranfield.ac.uk wrote:

Hi,

Your message didn't go to the list, but it looks like to tried to send it
to the list, so I will include your message here and send it to the list.

And a reminder.   Lotus Notes seems to be doing something funny with the
list addresses.  If you want mail to go to the list be sure to send to

 som-jdm-course@Cranfield.ac.uk

otherwise it will not go to the list.  People have been sending to
 jdm-course@Cranfield.ac.uk which is not a valid address and to
 owner-som-jdm-course@Cranfield.ac.uk which is a list administration
address.  Please use

 som-jdm-course@Cranfield.ac.uk
 
> Livia,
> 
> I personally don't think we should have had an exam.  A report of some sort
> re reviewing a business or personal decision in the light of the insight
> the course has offered in decision making would be more beneficial to me.
> 
> Understanding concepts does not mean you can use them in life, so open or
> closed book is not that important to me.

Mark,

The view that you have is a popular one, but as a teacher I find that
reports are probably the worst way to judge whether someone has really
grasped the material.  One of the things that I had in the instructions
for the exam was

 Your answers should demonstrate an \emph{understanding} of the
 concepts and ideas introduced during the course from either the
 reading or material presented during the course itself.

 One sign of not understanding the concepts is listing many irrelevant
 concepts in a ``shot-gun'' approach to answering questions.  You will
 be marked down for listing concepts from the course in answer to
 questions to which those concepts are not connected.  If you believe
 that the concept is connected, you should explain how.

In reports the shot-gun approach is almost inevitable.  There is also a
bigger change for BS-ing.  While report writing and BS-ing are important
skills, I prefer that you learn those someplace other than in my course.

If the concepts from the course really sink in, it should change they way
you thing about almost everything.

Reports are also very hard to compare with each other because everyone
does a report on something else.  While an exam where people chose 4 out
of 6 questions gives some flexibility to you to skip things that you are
less certain of, but ensures that a wide variety of things are covered.

In a report people could pick one single concept from the course and
expand on that in a particular case.  (Most cases will involve only one or
two concepts).  That way as an evaluator I won't know whether a good
report using concept X means that the person understood most of the
material or just studied X vary carefully for the report.  With the exam
you didn't know before what concepts you needed to revise, and the exam
made sure that you had to show an understanding of several.

But one advantage to teachers is that reports take less time to grade than
an exam like this and take no preperation time for the teacher!  Still, I
think that I will stick with the exam.

Livia


-- 
Livia Markoczy                              | Cranfield School of Management
L.Markoczy@Cranfield.ac.uk                  | +44 (0)1234 751 122 (x3757)
http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/public/mn/mn795/ | FAX: +44 (0)1234 750070