Bartosz about Chapel

[Sean Kelly]

That hasn't been my experience, even at a community college I attended. I think it's really up to the teacher though, barring a school like Caltech that actually has policies to encourage better teaching methods. Ironically, some very well-respected schools seem to be big offenders. Berkeley, for example, uses scantron tests almost exclusively, from what I understand, and combined with the drive to achieve, I've heard that cheating there is rampant. It's not size though. I attended a CSU that had smaller classes and no standardized testing. 

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On Nov 13, 2011, at 6:04 AM, "Nick Sabalausky" <a at a.a> wrote:

> "Walter Bright" <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
> news:j9mjc8$2rln$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> On 11/12/2011 9:15 AM, bcs wrote:
>>> The/a solution to the cheating problem at anything but the last set of 
>>> classes
>>> is to make the next set of classes *painful* to take if you don't know 
>>> the
>>> materiel from the prerequisite. The point of the class after all is to 
>>> teach you
>>> the materiel (whatever that amounts to) and if you've got the materiel 
>>> how you
>>> got there is irrelevant. That all depends however on a carefully tuned
>>> definition of "got the materiel".
>> 
>> Caltech also had a policy that you could not only place out of any class 
>> by taking (and passing) the final exam for it, you would even receive 
>> *credit* for it. I've seen many that did the former, but none other that 
>> went as far as the latter.
>> 
>> However, very, very few students ever managed to pass those exams without 
>> taking the class :-) I never even bothered to try.
> 
> That's one of the main reasons I lost all respect for schools. With Caltech 
> apparently being the one exception, schools never care whether or not you 
> know the material (despite what they've convinced themselves). What they 
> care about is 1. whether you're shelling out those tuition $Gs, and 2. 
> whether you actually went through the class (and played "simon says" all the 
> way through).
> 
> At all the schools I've been to that allowed testing out:
> 
> 1. Like you said, they gave no credit.
> 
> 2. They went to great lengths to prevent you from even *trying* to test out. 
> They *officially* allowed testing out, but realistically they never 
> *actually* granted permission to try. What they would do is hem and haw and 
> try to talk you out of it until you hopefully gave up and went away, and if 
> that didn't work, they would just outright deny the opportunity (or come up 
> with some obscure rule to hide behind). What make it all the more 
> infuriating, and patronizing, is that they would insist they were doing it 
> all in the name of "helping" you.
> 
> 3. Most of the teachers were so bad at what they were doing, and at writing 
> good tests, that even if you did luck out and manage to get the opportunity 
> to try, there would be a very good chance that even an expert in the field 
> wouldn't be able to pass without knowing all the irrelevant details and 
> idiosyncrasies of *exactly* how the instructor presented the material.
> 
>