Who's Going To Uni?

[Sergeant Wilson]

On 10/08/2022 at 22:05, ICTChris said:

I’ve never cheated at any exam ever or anything else. You are all clearly amoral degenerates.

^^^Never took any.

[SlipperyP]

Never venture in the hi brow threads but here goes.

Was seeing a girl in Dundee around '93 and she went to Abertay and took me out to the Union a few times (cheap drink), which was ok, but not my seen at the time.

One evening we went, must have been Friday.  

If nobody knows the Union, it's up to or 3 flights of stairs and you walk in with a long bar to the left dance floor to the right, seating further on.  

We stayed had our drinks to excess, I may have taken a E or 2, can't remember (probably did).  Directly across from the bar, there was a wee shelf that you could put your glass, this shelf had a brass poll (railing) that ran the full length of the shelf about 30m.

I noticed the bolts on the brass railing we loose, so took them all of manually at different segment, for it all fall on the floor, other side of the drinks, to the crash and bouncer running around as if there was a earthquake happening.  Not a sole knew what I was up to.

After party we had a few toffs in the house (her friends), they are all wildly laughing and giggle about the destructing that happened.

 I pulled out my jacket pocket every nut and bold from the railing, must have been about 30 in total. I was their friend for about 5min until I started spats on the electric cooker.

 

[Suspect Device]

Not sure if I am going to Aberdeen uni. Still awaiting confirmation even though I have achieved the results that my conditional offer required.

I assumed that I'd be told today but.....

 

[mathematics]

6 hours ago, Suspect Device said:

Not sure if I am going to Aberdeen uni. Still awaiting confirmation even though I have achieved the results that my conditional offer required.

I assumed that I'd be told today but.....

 

Give it time, it’s a busy period for feckless admissions staff.

[Suspect Device]

On 18/08/2022 at 22:51, mathematics said:

Give it time, it’s a busy period for feckless admissions staff.

The feckless admissions staff finally got their finger out.

 

[scottsdad]

1 hour ago, Suspect Device said:

The feckless admissions staff finally got their finger out.

 

Congratulations!

[coprolite]

1 hour ago, Suspect Device said:

The feckless admissions staff finally got their finger out.

 

That must be 12 hours attendance a week,  max. Well Jell

 

[scottsdad]

We're doing our induction/welcome/freshers week starting September 5th. Have taken the decision that absolutely none of it will be online. All of it will be in person. 

[coprolite]

6 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

There are ways around that to spot a cheat.

Firstly, there are a few obvious websites that students use to cheat in this way. Personally, I'd be sitting on them watching new questions coming in to see if there was a serious problem.

The next thing could be to introduce fewer lectures and more project and tutorial type classes where students work in the class itself and submit work at the end of the hour. Then you can add in regular mini-vivas where the student is grilled on their understanding of a topic. That's useful for catching out people cheating on their lab reports for example.

IMO universities need to get away from this idea of 50+ minutes lecturing and onto more progressive active learning programmes. Right now, university learning is simply too passive from the student's perspective and has been for generations.

TBH, I'm not sure I would even have formal structured exams. There really are very few places in the real world of work where that would be a thing.

As someone who did quite well out of minimal coursework and lots of last minute cramming,  this sounds shite. 

[Suspect Device]

22 minutes ago, coprolite said:

That must be 12 hours attendance a week,  max. Well Jell

 

 

Aye, seems pretty light in terms of lectures but not got the timetable yet.

St. Machar for a beer, Bobbin for food.

[Jacksgranda]

19 year old granddaughter is off to Wales on 26th August, but can't get into her Halls of Residence until 1st September.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

41 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

We're doing our induction/welcome/freshers week starting September 5th. Have taken the decision that absolutely none of it will be online. All of it will be in person. 

Pretty early start. That must be eating into the Profs holidays.

[scottsdad]

3 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

Pretty early start. That must be eating into the Profs holidays.

He doesn't do the induction stuff. 

[mathematics]

33 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

There are ways around that to spot a cheat.

Firstly, there are a few obvious websites that students use to cheat in this way. Personally, I'd be sitting on them watching new questions coming in to see if there was a serious problem.

The next thing could be to introduce fewer lectures and more project and tutorial type classes where students work in the class itself and submit work at the end of the hour. Then you can add in regular mini-vivas where the student is grilled on their understanding of a topic. That's useful for catching out people cheating on their lab reports for example.

IMO universities need to get away from this idea of 50+ minutes lecturing and onto more progressive active learning programmes. Right now, university learning is simply too passive from the student's perspective and has been for generations.

TBH, I'm not sure I would even have formal structured exams. There really are very few places in the real world of work where that would be a thing.

All sensible suggestions, with caveats:

1. watching websites: some academics do this. However, there are loads (with more appearing each year), with possibly thousands of uploads per day (these are international websites), and some staff just don’t have the time, or the conscientiousness.

2. Lectures are dying off (for better or worse) and most face to face sessions are now interactive all singing all dancing amazing learning experiences. Staff don’t have the time allocation for marking all that formative or summative assessment. Mini-vivas for all would be perfect, but again staff just don’t have the time.

3. Formal structured exams also dying off (for better or worse) at some institutions. This is leading to the massive increase in cheating. 

 

[mathematics]

25 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

19 year old granddaughter is off to Wales on 26th August, but can't get into her Halls of Residence until 1st September.

Where abouts?

ETA, I’m not being a creep, just spent a few years working in Wales.

Edited August 22, 2022 by mathematics

[mathematics]

34 minutes ago, coprolite said:

As someone who did quite well out of minimal coursework and lots of last minute cramming,  this sounds shite. 

Definitely fits the arty types better than science and engineering types.

[Jacksgranda]

1 minute ago, mathematics said:

Where abouts?

ETA, I’m not being a creep, just spent a few years working in Wales.

Aberystwyth, I think.

[scottsdad]

19 minutes ago, mathematics said:

All sensible suggestions, with caveats:

1. watching websites: some academics do this. However, there are loads (with more appearing each year), with possibly thousands of uploads per day (these are international websites), and some staff just don’t have the time, or the conscientiousness.

2. Lectures are dying off (for better or worse) and most face to face sessions are now interactive all singing all dancing amazing learning experiences. Staff don’t have the time allocation for marking all that formative or summative assessment. Mini-vivas for all would be perfect, but again staff just don’t have the time.

3. Formal structured exams also dying off (for better or worse) at some institutions. This is leading to the massive increase in cheating. 

 

I am making a new course for this year and am keeping the "flipped classroom". So when students show up to my class, they are not sitting down to get a lecture. I've recorded that as a video and they can watch that at home. No, in class it is all about the tutorial; interactive learning, tasks, Q&A, etc. I think this is better. If it isn't I'll revert to the traditional in a year or two. 

We are going back to invigilated exams. For the past 2 years, for too many students what we have learned is their fast googling and paraphrasing skills rather than if they have met the learning outcomes for a course. Our university discipline committee used to meet 4 times per year. It is meeting weekly now, the number of cases has exploded so much. That was my morning. 

You can (like @oaksoft) question the value of a traditional exam. But it does interrogate if the student has learned and understood what has been taught. 

[scottsdad]

Got a couple of Open Days booked to take Scott to next month. Dundee and Napier. Edinburgh College of Art is online only.  Will probably add one or two more in October also. 

Any Dundee, ECA or Napier students/graduates with any insight? Good places or not so good to be a student? 

My niece loved being at Dundee. 

 

[Mark Connolly]

6 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Got a couple of Open Days booked to take Scott to next month. Dundee and Napier. Edinburgh College of Art is online only.  Will probably add one or two more in October also. 

Any Dundee, ECA or Napier students/graduates with any insight? Good places or not so good to be a student? 

My niece loved being at Dundee. 

 

@Shandon Par