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by missosoup 2459 days ago
You can't really do problems of meaningful complexity without either a calculator or forcing your class to do a large amount of arithmetic which is really not what you're testing. And at the same time you can't really twist those problems around to not require arithmetic, without also making them abstract and too different from what's encountered in the real world.

Try doing matrix multiplications for hidden markov chains without a calculator. I dare ya.
1 comments
jacobolus 2459 days ago
Nobody should be using a handheld calculator for nontrivial matrix multiplications. In “the real world” literally nobody does this.

Making students do nontrivial matrix calculations on a timed in-class exam just tests their calculator skills. There are a wide variety of alternative types of problems which will better probe their understanding of the course.

If your students are trying to learn about numerical linear algebra, consider getting them implementing the relevant algorithms in computer code.

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missosoup 2459 days ago
> Making students do nontrivial matrix calculations on a timed in-class exam just tests their calculator skills [...]

> consider getting them implementing the relevant algorithms in computer code.

Cool, so we went from a statistics exam with no programming experience required, to a programming language exam with a theme of statistics. Because what? Because calculators are bad mmkay?

Yeah I'm not sure this idea has been thought through.

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jacobolus 2459 days ago
I thought your big concern was “what's encountered in the real world”?

Seems to me like the concern is “what someone decided should be in the curriculum 30 years ago and nobody ever bothered to change even though it is now an anachronism”.

But anyway, I am suggesting writing programs could potentially be part of the homework, not part of exams. (At least, writing computer models was far more useful for learning about statistics than any textbook problem I ever did. YMMV.)

On timed in-class exams, there are many relevant pen and paper exercises that could be posed. Posing problems requiring a handheld calculator is a generally poor way to track whether students understand the content of a course. Then again, personally I think timed in-class exams are terrible. YMMV; some teachers seem to love them.

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