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308 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-30-Nano-project qualifying exam process: An intensified dialogue between students and faculty


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Introduction: Joe Blitzstein and Xiao-Li Meng write : An e ffectively designed examination process goes far beyond revealing students’ knowledge or skills. It also serves as a great teaching and learning tool, incentivizing the students to think more deeply and to connect the dots at a higher level. This extends throughout the entire process: pre-exam preparation, the exam itself, and the post-exam period (the aftermath or, more appropriately, afterstat of the exam). As in the publication process, the first submission is essential but still just one piece in the dialogue. Viewing the entire exam process as an extended dialogue between students and faculty, we discuss ideas for making this dialogue induce more inspiration than perspiration, and thereby making it a memorable deep-learning triumph rather than a wish-to-forget test-taking trauma. We illustrate such a dialogue through a recently introduced course in the Harvard Statistics Department, Stat 399: Problem Solving in Statistics, and tw


Summary: the most important sentenses genereted by tfidf model

sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore

1 Joe Blitzstein and Xiao-Li Meng write : An e ffectively designed examination process goes far beyond revealing students’ knowledge or skills. [sent-1, score-0.548]

2 It also serves as a great teaching and learning tool, incentivizing the students to think more deeply and to connect the dots at a higher level. [sent-2, score-0.491]

3 This extends throughout the entire process: pre-exam preparation, the exam itself, and the post-exam period (the aftermath or, more appropriately, afterstat of the exam). [sent-3, score-0.968]

4 As in the publication process, the first submission is essential but still just one piece in the dialogue. [sent-4, score-0.174]

5 Viewing the entire exam process as an extended dialogue between students and faculty, we discuss ideas for making this dialogue induce more inspiration than perspiration, and thereby making it a memorable deep-learning triumph rather than a wish-to-forget test-taking trauma. [sent-5, score-2.367]

6 We illustrate such a dialogue through a recently introduced course in the Harvard Statistics Department, Stat 399: Problem Solving in Statistics, and two recent Ph. [sent-6, score-0.366]

7 The problems are examples of “nano-projects”: big picture questions split into bite-sized pieces, fueling contemplation and conversation throughout the entire dialogue. [sent-9, score-0.504]

8 This is just wonderful and it should be done everwhere, including, I hope, in my own department. [sent-10, score-0.073]

9 I am so tired of arguments about what topics students should learn, long lists of seemingly-important material that appears on a syllabus, is taught in a class, and is never used again, and so forth. [sent-11, score-0.336]

10 (The exam problems described in the article are a bit on the theoretical side for my taste, but I presume the same ideas would apply to applied statistics as well. [sent-12, score-0.797]

11 qualifying exam, which I took a year before Xiao-Li took his. [sent-17, score-0.473]

12 It was an intense 12-day experience and I learned a huge amount from it. [sent-18, score-0.089]


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