Problem N+1
by Tom Temple
Oct 6, 03:44 PM
In many MIT classes each problem set has been augmented by an additional problem.
How long did you spend on this assignment?
My answer is always of the form,
Let t be an appropriate amount of time to have spent on this problem set to adequately achieve my learning goals. I spent 1.3 t on this assignment.
Could it be that I am the only person who thinks this question is inappropriate? In any case, other students have been putting in answers that use absolute units and in so doing risk looking dumb or lazy.
Before going on, I should make a distinction for the Dartmouth crowd. The classes at MIT are harder although the kids are equally smart. This sets up the situation where a much higher fraction of the class might be struggling on some matterial.
As it would happen, the undergrad controls course (roughly ES26) hasn’t been doing very well on the problem sets. At the end of the lecture, the Profs (there are two) went on an angry rant about how they would be willing to fail the whole class.[1] Worse still, their average time spent has been less than the correct answer to problem N+1. It isn’t a matter of the shit being hard, it’s a matter of not putting in the time.
I was sitting there dumbfounded looking at all the children just taking it. Finally, I raise my hand.
Tom: I would take those time figures with a grain of salt. Since they are self-reported, it would be reasonable to expect a pretty strong bias.
Prof: Blah, blah… honesty.
Tom: Kids don’t want to look stupid.
Prof: Blah, blah… you guys shouldn’t corrupt the data.
Tom: You corrupted the data yourself just now with this hostility. Now that everyone knows what you’re looking for everyone is just going to put 12hrs down next week.
I would love to see how many kids spend exactly 12 hours on this weeks problem set.
1 Highlight: “You can’t work for Boeing if you can’t invert a 2-by-2 matrix.”
Oct 6, 07:48 PM
I don’t think this question is inappropriate, although I do think it’s stupid. It doesn’t tell you anything about how well the students understand the material, so even if they answer it completely faithfully, it’s useless as a guide to grading or interpreting homework results. It obviously doesn’t help the students learn anything.
Judging by your description of the instructor’s hostility toward the class, it therefore sounds to me as if Question N+1 is just a stupid head-game, of the sort that someone smart enough to be teaching engineering at MIT ought to have left behind in middle school. You can’t teach for a decent university if you don’t have the first clue about teaching. Infer what you will about my opinion of undergraduate instruction at MIT.
This is what we get for basing the entire academic promotion system on the ability to crank out research. Worst thing is, this particular crank’s probably funded by my tax dollars. More’s the pity.
Oct 6, 08:34 PM
You can’t teach for a decent university if you don’t have the first clue about teaching.
You’re going to have to define what you mean by “can’t”.
Oct 6, 08:45 PM
I meant it in the same sense as the first “can’t” in the professor’s “you can’t work for Boeing if you can’t invert a 2-by-2 matrix.” In other words, in this context, it’s a synonym for “have no right to”.
Oct 7, 10:14 AM
I don’t dissagree at all that the teaching at MIT isn’t as good as that at Dartmouth. But defense of this prof, I think this problem N+1 came down from on high because several other Aero/Astro classes do the same thing (hence the “my answer” quote). Also, prof Deyst gives very clear, comprehensive lectures. He has great historical Aero-anecdotes. That’s why I show up. He’s good but he’s no Jayanti either. If you ask a question, you tend to trip him up and he can’t maintain the “It’s simple, really.” atmosphere that is so crucial.
He comes in around the Kotz level. The other prof is bad.
Oct 7, 02:56 PM
Was the other professor the one who chewed out the students over the stupid extra problem?
See, I can understand that somebody might ask a question like that out of some kind of departmental policy—in fact, that wouldn’t surprise me at all. But I feel like if he really recognizes how idiotic that question is, he wouldn’t rant and rave to the students about their answers to it. Just ask the question, ignore the answers, and move on.
Everybody who teaches has to deal with some stupid institutional crap that nobody likes—but that doesn’t excuse somebody for wearing jackboots and stomping on people, even if they’ve got perfectly good manners when the grant reviewers are in town.
Or, to put it another way, “A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.”