I totally fail in B&M school, and despite the fact that I find my current online U hist/anth courses more rigorous, I do drastically better on them.
It's just a better model for me.
re: HowlerKarma
There is very little multiple choice in my online courses, but when comparing my 200level intro to anth course with a 4th yr top-tier Canadian university anth student's 400level courses, our multiple choice questions covered wider ground, required more complex thinking to answer, AND were more specific (despite my course being general, and hers being a set of specialist courses).
She'd have failed my exam. She didn't even recognize many of the subjects covered, though she had great algorithms for answering very specific types of questions within those areas, just not a lot of deep understanding, or connected understanding from one area to another. So... somewhere in there, I think I said something like... there ARE differences even between multiple choice question sets.
I'm always shocked by the superficial way in which most B&M courses expect readings to be done. It makes those courses _harder_ for me, because I find it hard to read that way... I tend to try and actually understand, which means I find errors in the texts, come up with novel lenses, and generally, fail to report what the teacher though were the easy answers, having assumed I was supposed to go deeper. This happens despite the fact it's a known problem.
My online courses usually expect you to have basically memorized the texts, and to be able to actually draw conclusions during the exam, even for multiple choice sections. (for example, IDing traits on skulls never covered in the texts based on an understanding of terminology presented combined with the exercises in IDing other traits)
Now, essay questions are often given in advance (you get, say 100 questions, 9 of which will be on the exam, pick 3 to answer), which I also find useful, because you can really write a much better essay that way, and it encourages you to really delve into the stuff that applies to multiple questions. It becomes a rewarding game to see the underlying patterns.
PS: for people for whom this is NOT a good modle, it seems like they don't use the same study strategies I do, and so they don't reap the same benefits. Often, they find the marking a bit bewildering, especially in the history courses, where you really are expected to present real higher-order thinking on the exam, since YOU KNEW THE BLOODY QUESTIONS. A LOT of people flunk out of hist at my school for that reason (and because they just don't grok that they need to reference EVERYTHING).
Last edited by Michaela; 02/19/13 07:03 PM.
