Brief notes from second year “wrap-up” session, June 2001
Points raised (N.B. is was not clear whether there was a student consensus on the points below but certainly there was little dispute between students in the meeting):
There seemed to be too much coursework at the end of year 2.
Weightings were inconsistent. Much more work was required in 2B11 to get the same weight mark as for 2B10.
The pattern in many courses was a series of short courseworks with a more substantial one at the end. Maybe some courses could vary this pattern? (This came after the meeting)
Responses: We need to teach before we can test. Some coursework has a large formative element so may require a lot of work for a few marks. Past experience suggests it is difficult to co-ordinate coursework better.
There seemed to be too much content in B46 and too many lectures - around 40. Some maths seemed not to be relevant whilst other relevant stuff (e.g. random number generation, complex numbers) was not covered.
Response: We liaise with maths and would provide this feed-back.
Why were model answers not published? Having no guidance on answers made revision very difficult. Some guidance on the main points that were expected to be covered in an answer would be very useful.
Response: We want to avoid giving the impression there was only one correct answer. We want to avoid students learning "model" answers by rote.
There seemed to be inconsistent advice from tutorials. Some students had been encouraged to start planning for a project, others had not. Some tutorial groups did not meet very frequently (this was said after the meeting)