Dear Meghan:

Thanks for the email. Sorry for your confusion. Thursday I

offered the class the option of take-home quizzes weeks 8 and 9 of

the quarter to permit more time to work on the final project, with a

quiz the first meeting (Tuesday) of week 10 and final project

demonstrations the second meeting (Thursday). By a show of hands I

found a lot of students preferred the in-class quizzes. My problem

with just in-class quizzes is that I can't test student abilities to

do simple programming to solve problems very well with the multiple

choice quiz problems, so I needed a take-home component to the quiz

for this purpose, to be turned in for grading in Sections. The five

problems proposed were adjusted downward to two on the grounds that

they would take a lot of time to do, but I've since worked the

problems and found they can easily be done in a few minutes (I took

10 minutes to do the problems and 15 minutes to type them out). Therefore

I decided my original problem selections from Ch. 2 and Ch. 3

were correct and these were re-instated. They are due next week in

section, and I'll pick some from Ch. 4 and Ch. 5 for the take-home

portion of quiz 9, that will be due the following week. The

in-class and take-home quiz 10 will be comprehensive. The take-home

portion is due Wednesday, Mar. 17, by 11am, the scheduled time of

the class final (there is no final). Got it? Check the webpage

regularly, since I post it to keep the class informed (note that two

of the Ch. 11 MEX problems bomb, for example).

The in-class quizzes were re-instated due to popular demand

by a number of students after class and through email

correspondence, as I announced in the webpage posting of this week's

lectures well in advance of class. Most students got the word and

were in class for the lecture and in-class quiz 8a. Since some

didn't, I'll hold off posting the solution till after class tomorrow

and give anyone that skipped class yesterday a chance to make it up.

It was on Chapter 10 material, so you should read this over in the

text since I'll be talking about Chapter 11 with quiz 8b on

that material, and won't have time to repeat much of the Tuesday

lecture.

See you in class!

Regards,

CHG

> Dear Professor Gibson,

> I am a student in your ames5 class and I have some questions regarding y

our

> class structure. When I left class on Thursday what had been decided was

> that for week 8 and 9 there would be take home quizzes and week 10 there would

> be a review test, and an exhibition session. This new structure was fine to

> me, although I don't think it was right to change the structure so far into

> the quarter. However, I talked to a friend in the class today and she

> informed me that you have yet again changed the structure and gave the class a

> quiz. This does not seem fair since on Thursday the policy had been agreed

> upon. Now since I spent my class time working on my programs and take home

> quiz, my grade will still suffer because you changed the structure over the

> weekend. How was I supposed to be informed of this change, since the

> structure decided upon on Thursday allowed people to miss class if they felt

> it unnecessary, I found it more helpful to actually work in the lab than go to

> class? What can be done about this situation? I just don't think it is fair

> that you can change the structure of the class on a whim, and then keep

> changing your mind - it is very confusing. I hope this can be worked out

> somehow.

>

> Sincerely,

> Meghan Carmody