The Homework Question Debate

Good idea.

I don't have a response well thought out so I'll just ramble a few ideas.

It must be easy to know where to post homework. The students asking for help have shown that they don't read and follow the current rules related to homework. They probably won't put much effort into rules after something is implemented. Thus, finding the homework place should be as easy as possible.

Many posters won't post to the correct place. Could the "REPORT" button system be expanded to include a "REPORT AS HOMEWORK" button. That would probably get homework moved to the correct place faster.

The homework help rules should be VERY EASY to get to from the homework area.

A key point to the system would be that we might choose to help those that have shown that they have done their work. Only being able to post small low-resolution images is a problem when trying to look at someone's work. Being able to upload a larger scan/photo of homework and have a clickable thumbnail in the posting would be helpful.

Possibly have something similar to a voting system where voters could declare that the person has not made a good attempt at their work. We need some way to not be bothered with kids that post homework questions without doing any work.

Good postings should somehow hang around for a while. They would both be interesting and a good sample for new student posters. Maybe have a system to keep track of and allow easy access to the questions voted into the top 25 questions of the year.

What if one of us that has not shown up to class for 30 or so years wants to ask a homework style question? I almost asked a few a month ago when I pulled out my high school and college physics books and tried to design a macro lens system for a Raspberri Pi. Would that be General Discussion or Homework?

The bills at CR4 are probably paid by money from advertisers. Advertisers could tailor app notes and tutorials toward students (especially senior projects) and make a strong positive connection with the engineers of tomorrow (almost literally).

Grant and Mouser might be able to offer a couple of starter packages for data collection, motion control or other fundamental tasks. These could be tutorials on how to use a couple of eval boards from TI, Mouser, Arduino, Raspberry Pi or others with the focus of the tutorial being collection of voltage data, temperature data or similar. Also, use eval boards for motion control. So much information "out there" is either too simplistic or too advanced for a student who might devote a total of 10 - 30 hours to a project. Tutorials geared toward a sharp high school senior or a SETM college student could get them up to speed on a useful "core" in that time frame.

Maybe a statement that we will provide reference material links or example problems and evaluation of answers for those that show attempted problem solving effort...A 'how to search the internet' for help tutorial...A list of reference material for specific areas....A detailed explanation on how to post graphics and scans with editing...A student learning section...

That is a good idea,......

I suggest some stipulations. Such as if used to reference this site. ^{Maybe not a good idea for this will open the gates of heck.}

I don't mind mentoring, ^{which I think is what is at the core of this}...... occasional. But, I can't like most, ones effort (Time) is a premium.

I like the concept but with a few caveats.

First, the name of the area will be critical. "Homework Tutoring", "Homework Guidance" or some other short and sweet phrase that will let the student understand we will help them learn, help to remove a metal block, but we will not help a lazy student to cheat themselves.

Second, an intermediate query page that must be filled out first before the student can enter the actual homework question. This intermediate page could then identify the field in question (mathematics, electronics, software, physics, chemistry, etc.) and the grade level (pre-college, undergraduate, graduate, non-scholastic) of the student. This will help us to tailor our answers to a level the student should grasp. Those who wish to reply will not have to go through this page but this information will be somehow visible in the thread.

There are presently 52,300,000 homework help hits on Google.

I don't have strong feeling either way.

I don't mind helping someone by explaining a concept. But I won't just give them the answer. (If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, if you teach him to fish...)

It's those that expect the fish and don't want to even try and learn how to do it themselves that are the problem. Net anonymity doesn't just breed nastiness, it also breeds laziness.

Totally agree with the laziness. If the poster thinks they have sincerely tried all avenues of approach to the homework, have the asked their teacher(s) for help?? That should be the first thing done, after all, isn't that what the teachers are there, being paid, for? Then, maybe, they will have the necessary instruction to learn what they need to learn, rather than getting "advice" from sources that may be speculating as the questions are very often incomplete or vague.

Credit to those who try to assist. Absolutely nothing wrong with passing on all our collective knowledge accumulated over the many years, but, personally, I do my mentoring a little closer to home as I like to be able to see the results. No greater feeling of satisfaction than helping someone learn something new.

In some cultures you don't pose questions in public.

"Only stupid people pose questions"

I know in our western culture it is seen as being intelligent if you are able to pose the right question that helps you to solve the riddle, but there are more non-western cultures.

So the smarter find other routes to pose a question.

Also, in some cultures, the teacher or professor is always right. Always. Asking a question which may show him wrong or in any way embarrass him is just not done.

Also, we shouldn't forget that online study courses have become more common where teacher access is more limited (or non-existent).

And some expect the fish to be prepared in five-star fashion, on a sardine budget.

It couldn't be any worse than the current 'Homework Question Debacle'.

Some students, on the other hand, ask legitimate questions. These also can be pushed aside as being "homework," but they are often posted by students who truly want to learn.

I don't think many of us here have a problem with that, and I commonly make mention of that in homework like questions, but there is a fine line. Sometimes it is a case of the poster simply not being clear enough on what they want (that almost never happens right).

I would be happy I suppose for a separate student tutoring section, but again there would be those fine lines again between offering help and doing it all for them. I can see some heated comments by regulars against posters regarding what constitutes homework cheating help on CR4.

Do we also add a section for "I and not properly qualified and don't know how to do my dangerous job, help me keep it by answering this question.....".

Perhaps we should just leave it and instead request clarification from posters posting homework-like questions on CR4 first to help weed out those that are lazy from those that genuinely want to learn, BEFORE jumping to conclusions and being nasty.

Why bother?
Universities in Australia pass 90% of the Indian and Chinese students, no matter what mark they get.
This was revealed on a recent TV program.
The corruption is endemic.

Seriously?

What's the pass rate for the other students?

The pass rate is really 100% for all students who complete a course. You can have multiple attempts at passing subjects. If you fail just do it again until the course is complete.

If you stop aiming for completion, for whatever reasons life may throw at you, then that is not a failure its just indefinite deferment....

WOW!!

Good to have a separate area for students. In addition to Home work Questions , few more sub sections under student are such as final Project works, literature reviews, Creative ideas ,carrier prospects, etc can be considered to be included .

Woh now lets not get too carried away, many of those already fall under existing categories and we don't want to overcomplicate things.

First recruitment for colleges and universities should not be done merely by grades obtained in theory papers after nearly 12 years of schooling. Aptitude test should be done. Lecturers should have had at least 20 years of field experience. Syllabus should include engineering materials,tools,equipment,technology,design,estimating,report writing,site visits,workshop training,repairs etc etc.Questions in final exams should be based on problem solving at site not on theory.

I, personally, have no problem with those homework questions.

We sometimes need to step back and question why the poster is having problems in solving it himself.

Finding third party support for a solution you came up with is also part of the day to day job an engineer has to perform.

95% of all issues an engineer needs to solve have been solved upfront, if the solution is free for everyone to use (expired patents, ...) he should not reinvent the wheel.

I have problems with all these questions from people fishing for background information on companies trade secrets or for documents that they should pay for (DIN, CEE, NFPA, ...)

I think it could be good for two reasons.

The ones that are good students, but either had a bad tutor, or missed some days due to being ill for example, will be helped. They will be a better student because of the timely help.

The lazy dumb ones will be helped on one day, one question, it will make them even lazier and even more dumb....they will fail anyway....our helping them may just speed up the process....

I like the idea. Just how do you go about it. In and open forum where everybody is giving advice. To much from different people and at levels, that may over welm those that really want to learn. We may loose them altogether.

It maybe better that they be mentored one on one. Maybe a section where they can post the question. After reading it we can decide to be their mentor and do so in our forum mail boxes.

If I understand well you would add an interim level down the ladder?

Unless you are out of the interim level you can't post a blog entry without backup of a Guru?

How to appoint a Guru?

Or do you want to send all of us each time a mail and we require to vote?

I would stop annonymous blog entry's as a first start to reduce the amoutnof ennoying questions and spams.

Okay nothing should be base on whether someone is a guru. It's based on the number of posts not their knowledge. Most the people that have the most posts is not because they answered a lot of question. They just like to chat a lot with the other members. Be the first to emit that I am nowhere near the most knowledgeable among the gurus.

Each of us can make a decision by the content of the question. The knowledge to mentor the poster. Each of us know where are strength are.

May be set each question up as an email box where mentor and the OP can chat. Maybe put that chat on a bulletin board. The others can aid the discussion by emails to the mentor.

If someone is real in their interest to learn what difference does it make that it was AP.

I have mixed emotions regarding this, having been in the teaching seat.

First question that comes to mind is, why isn't the student approaching the Professor or his Aide for additional help and guidance? If a student cannot understand the fundamental theory and other information that is presented during a lecture, then the onus is upon him or her to raise their hand and ask pertinent questions. If they need more guidance and the professor's has tight time restrains, then the student should set-up an appointment with the Prof or his/her Aide.

There are upper Classmen, who have previously taken the course(s) in question, who DO perform Tutoring services.

In closing, IMO, too many of these students seeking help in CR4 are just plain lazy or don't want to take the time to perform Web searches, and that they want the solutions handed to them on a Silver Platter, free of charge and/or effort. You CANNOT LEARN the material by being "spoon fed" answers.

Count me out on this idea, because I have more important things on my plate to deal with. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind one iota mentoring young engineers, but they must first step up to the plate and give it their best shot.

SMH....

I done know if this has relevance to your post: I thought would brush up on a subject I had in high school, so I went to the local J C, ( my way of learning has always been to to get the material first, study it, and seek help from a tutor to grasp sticking points I didn't quite understand)and asked them about the process. Their contention was that I should take an assessment first( like only they could tell me where I was weak and I didn't know my own mind) , enroll in the course, spend the $500.00 for it, do the best I could, try and keep up with the class and the professor and if I got a low grade, I could always repeat the process ( another$500.00) . The schools administration actually tried to discourage me from studying first, then enrolling in the class. It seems like this ass backward system is geared toward making a profit potential for the school at the expense of the students. I can see how students under financial pressure seek homework assistance from online web sites.

1) Re Studying first: Teachers don't like the work involved in helping you "unlearn" what you thought you learned. I've had that experience in teaching High School Algebra to students who learned their Elementary school math through the state approved math curriculum.

2) Pre-assessments are valuable tools if used correctly. They are really the only way the teacher and the administrators know if they have been effective. It has nothing to do with the student. (If the only assessment is post, then how do they know if you already had the info or they taught you the info?) (Related off-topic personal rant: Standardized Testing of Students: Why is a such a good tool never used properly, at least that I've heard of?)

3) School financing can be complicated. Depending on the state and the classification of the student, the school may lose money on some students who pay to take classes. This has to do with the rates that states subsidize the schools, with some types of students having a lesser or even no subsidy. So, yes, even "non-profit" state supported universities and colleges have business models which look at student head count as measures of income, and they actively recruit those that bring in the higher $$ amounts, and state subsidies are a big part of that $$ amount.

I know I'm guilty of jumping on the NO HOMEWORK band wagon a time or two and having read through most of the posts, it is probably a good idea, however I see an opening for abuse by the student posing a question as a legitimate request for assistance.

I do think that most of us that post here would weed it out and the post would languish.

Who knows?

Try it?

There is an economic opportunity here: 1. A student posts a question in a given discipline. 2. The question is assigned to online members of a particular group. 3. The student slides his debit card thru the cell phone debit card reader. 4. The cr4 member gets the lion share of the cost and cr4 mgmt gets balance. People asking questions and those answering are placed in a rotation. The system will encourage larger groups and the ranks of cr4 members will grow exponentially

...and no one will use the service and instead go to a free site.

Seriously we have enough trouble getting them to set up and sign in as a new CR4 member (which is free). If people working for multimillion dollar sites or projects want free answers on CR4 rather than paying consultants what hope would we have to pry money from students hands.

I used to recommend CR4 site to all Polytechnic & Engineering faculties & students as the best engineering site to all disciplines of engineering & technology.

The discussions deal topics from fundamentals, applied questions, advanced levels & problem solving healthy discussions.

In my opinion this site, will become a global engineering reference for knowledge sharing for budding & experienced engineers.

It is all up to the professional quest of the participants.

The uniqueness of CR4 is its applied & practical value worth.

"I think the main issue for 'guidelines' isn't necessary with the seeker, but rather the provider."

No, the guidelines are already published in the FAQ's.

"Are there specific rules for posting?"

Problem is, nobody reads them.

Finally, you should know that nobody, yes nobody, goes off on a student who explains their problem and asks for help arriving at a solution.

If Admin decides to become the 52,300,001 homework help site, so be it. It is their web site and we are here at their pleasure.

This site is far more civil than most of the forum sites out there.

Of course no one reads them.

Like, does anyone here read any furbished manuals before posting a call for help?

Not sure what that emoticon means but I liked its look...

Thank you all for your comments. It gives me a lot to think about!

If we do roll out something like this, I'm leaning toward using a separate area similar to the Break Room forum in the CR4 Fans user group. This would keep the area separate, ensuring that everyone who is there wants to participate (by being a member), rather than chiming in because they see the post on the homepage.

It is interesting that no students chimed in on this thread. I think that goes to show that they are just coming to us for help and disappearing. This new format might be a great way to encourage them to stick around in the future.

In terms of getting students to use this area rather than the main forums, there are several things that could be done. One idea is a huge pop-up for new members when they try to post asking IS THIS HOMEWORK? if so post over here in our student area. (This method could also be applied to getting commercial stuff to the right place!) If we can't implement that, moderators can be instructed to delete homework posts and ask the posters to repost in the correct area.

I think it would be valuable if some members were interested in supporting the group. One clear problem with student questions is that they don't provide much information. For example, if we could have a "first responder" who asks for that info, it would be useful. The tone should be less "you should know better" and more "help us help you." I'd also like to try to get some companies involved, because that could prove to be a mutually beneficial relationship.

Anyway, thanks for weighing in. Lots to consider!