Computer science students successfully boycott class final

If I've gone to all the trouble to study for an exam anyway, just in case, then I'd much rather actually <i>take</i> the exam to check my knowledge. The article tries to paint this result as a case of solidarity and coordination, rather than slacking and intimidation. "on the day of the exam, all the students arrived half an hour early and stood outside the doors to make sure no one went into the exam room"; what is this, a picket line?<p>I had a few classes that had three exams and a final, and the grading policy dropped the lowest exam score. Even when I got 100% or more on the first two exams, and got explicitly told by the professor that the exam was optional and I didn't need to show up, I still took the last one, because why not check the knowledge I studied?<p>Given the intimidation factor, I'd probably end up asking the professor if I could take the exam outside of the normal class time anonymously, and leave people to guess based on who isn't in the same class the next term.

"In a programming course, it’s exceedingly difficult to judge one’s knowledge of a subject by a written 50 minute exam. It ends up being a test on nit-picky details and doesn’t accurately determine the good programmers from the great, or the not so great." -- Student<p>Whereas of course boycotting an exam reveals so much more about one's programming knowledge!

"Boycott" is the wrong word here. The students certainly <i>organized</i> themselves, but they were not <i>boycotting</i> -- they were taking advantage of a grading policy that creates an optimal strategy for the students if they work together and cooperate.<p>What these students learned by working together like this is almost certainly more important to their intellectual growth than the exam itself. The professor for the class seems to recognize that, which is also a good thing.

Previous submission of canonical URL (1 comment):<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217463" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217463</a><p>Previous submission of same story with good reporting from different source (no comments):<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217066" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217066</a><p>The professor has changed his grading policy, as noted in the submission I saw earlier from the other source.

Wait a moment, if all grades are relative to the highest, then aren't all grades a fraction using the highest grade as the denominator?<p>The reason this situation seems unusual: The prof's grading system has a division by zero bug.

Impressive feat. Too bad the class wasn't in Game Theory, that would've been even more isomorphic than the Harvard Intro to Congress class incident.<p>EDIT: Isomorphic used in the sense of the event ("boycott", cheating) being similar in form/geist to the class taken. I'm sure there's a better word for it.

Game theory says that no one cheating and deciding to take the final would be the obvious outcome because the students have no <i>incentive</i> to cheat the system. If they skip the test, they get 100. If they take the test, they get up to 100. No advantage from taking the test.<p>Now, if the maximum score for everyone skipping the test was lower than 100, then things would be interesting.

I had a 10th grade bio teacher who always gave 50 question multiple choice exams (i.e. 2 points per question).<p>She always offered a 'shoot the moon' option. If you could get <i>every</i> question wrong you would get 100 for the exam instead of 0. Of course if you got one question correct, you would end up with just a 2 for the exam.<p>As I recall there were several successful attempts during the year.

I remember some friends of mine who did the same thing, except that one kid managed to sneak in and take the exam. Everyone hated him, but his class rank skyrocketed.

I find that the social bullies and self appointed dictators in social groups often try bully people into submission by shaming them for not complying with "what is good for the group". Such cowards are often hiding behind the well being of "the people" and try to make non-comformists look bad. Because if you aren't doing what is good for "the people", you somehow must be evil.<p>Well guess what, you don't owe people shit and they don't owe you shit. You are not responsible for other people unless you are in charge of them, working for the common goal or unless they're your family members. Your classmates are none of these things and you owe them absolutely nothing.<p>It's funny the way bullies will often be the first to betray the group and how it's suddenly "every man for himself" when shit hits the fan.

I don't feel this is really a "boycott" - it's not like they're objecting to him, the course, the university or the rules itself. They're just collectively exercising a loophole. I wanted to call it "conspiracy," but that implies secrecy, when the whole organization was very much in the open. Perhaps "openly collude."<p>Anyway, I like the reaction from the professor and the head of the CS department. It's nice to read about people reacting reasonably and seeing the forest.

That makes the point of grading a student's result senseless. I don't even mean the 'boycott' but that Froehlich adapts the grades to the highest received. That would mean if everyone is lazy/stupid they'll all be evaluated better than they are. So why have a grading system in the first place if it doesn't enable you to compare results indepently.<p>(btw I would vote for a grade free teaching system anyways)

Wait, so if you were the one student who did take the exam you would get 100% and everyone else gets 0?

In my Intro to Computers class we had guest speakers. One speaker/professor was in charge of statistics. Many of the first year CS students left the class. He stopped the 10th one asking where he thought he was going? The student said he had better things to do.<p>This enraged the professor who went on a loud rant about how this really is important and we were awful for not paying attention. He then stormed out.<p>A week later the usual class professor emailed all of saying we had to study the topic on our own since half the class had walked out.<p>I emailed her and the rest of the class that if any of his topic were on the test I would make sure they both were fired at least reprimanded.<p>By the offended professors own words, half the class was still there and interested in the topic. Basically, he walked out on us.<p>His topic was not on the final.

My son had a required CS course at UC Berkeley taught by a professor who didnt want to deal with undergraduates. To discourage them he graded his exams more or less as follows: 5 points for getting an answer completely correct, no errors at all; -5 points for any error in the answer, no matter how trivial; 0 points for not answering. Not answering any question was probably a B, but there was such an uproar from the students that the class was turned into pass/fail. My son opted to take it the following semester from a different prof.

And he is not changing his grading system for next year? Next year the students ought to try not even going to class.<p>The positive reinforcement and acceptance of publicity could be compared to the media making a big deal out of Columbine. Whenever bad behavior is made into a spectacle, it will be copied. I will be completely surprised if we don't see more of these events in the coming years, not just because it is possible, but because JH is being fucking stupid by publicizing this.

I should have graded my political science classes this way; would have saved me an awful lot of red ink.

this is glorious!