Grading, Homework, and Exams

For a materials scientist and engineer, mathematics should be a readily available tool for exploration and a language to compactly describe concepts. It is particularly useful in materials science which serves as a bridge between so many physical and engineering sciences--just as mathematics does.

To encourage mathematics as a tool for exploration, I have decided to emphasize worked problem sets over exams. A student's entire grade will be based on homework--there will be no exams. There is a potential downside to the no-exam concept: that students will not have an studying opportunity to tie material together. It is my hope that, because students will be using this material in 3.012 and because I can make the homework a more relevant and difficult, the advantages of no-exams will prevail.

I also think that student cooperation on homework 1) is a useful way for students to work and learn together; 2) teaches professional skills; 3) creates camaraderie between students within the same major; 3) is inevitable. There is a built-in conflict between student homework cooperation and a just method of assigning a final grade.

I have decided to make each assigned homework have two parts.

individual

There will be an individual part that each student will do their own work--these will include simple problems from the textbook.

group

There will be a group part of each homework assignment. Students will be randomly assigned² to groups of size 5 or 6 and each group will turn in one solution for the entire group.

As part of the individual task, each student in the group will be required to turn in their own evaluation of the distribution of effort on the group section.