Discussions on this way of teaching

I feel that this system should not be so heavily weighted towards our course, instead used as a support service, or at most 10% of our final mark. Either this or as suggested in our 'lecture', devise a system of online quiz style questions where everyone must attempt them, and use these instead of the open post questions. This ensures everyone has to at least attempt them, or they can still fail the course. We should keep this system to develop a relationship with the wider mechanical community, and to help with our studies, but not as the major part of our assessed material.

I kind of agree. I don't think the grade achieved in the course should be so heavily dependant on the activity on the website. I also think the scoring system isn't fair, but I like the whole concept of the online community.

I think that peoples activity on the website could count as some sort of "coursework". People ask questions about topics they are unsure about, others go away and research them, and then we would have somewhere central where everyone could read and discuss each indivduals research.

 This could be open, meaning anyone could ask questions, or maybe Henry could start a topic once a week about something covered in lectures which needs to be looked at in greater detail. People could go away, research the topic in question, post on the website their findings which would compile an amount of information much larger than any one person would, and other people could discuss the research done by others. I think this would be easier to manage and could provide a basis for continual assesment (coursework in a way).

I am a bit unsure about the marking scheme personally. People could post garbage or go completely off topic to obtain marks. I think that the forum would need alot of moderators for it to work. Maybe students should have a weekly target of 25 points of something? To ensure that they are active and using the website. Anything regarded as off topic could be deleted by moderators maybe?

 I also have no idea where to post things on the forum. Do you think we could get a sub-forum just for the university Henry? or should we all just post in your blog?

 I quite want this to work, its something new and if people are willing to give it a try could be quite succesful. However as it is new I dont think it should count towards a large percentage of the course, definitly sub 30%, because at the end of the day it's a completely new idea.

I think that's a good idea, it's just such a new concept to weight so heavily. Maybe if you keep the same system but without it counting towards the grading, and see if it is a viable concept to introduce for next year's course at a lower level of grading?

Bit of a shame to see it switching back in my opinion. I'd be happy with the third choice but I guess its the majority vote to go back to the traditional way. Would it not be a sensible suggestion to try it out for 2 weeks and then complete the survey again? No one has really give it a go.

Is this the end of all the discussion about the teaching method so we can all settle down and start learning properly? I hope so, i'm looking forward to furthering my mechanics knowledge, and i think this is a much more sure fire way of ensuring everyone gets the marks they deserve.

im very happy with the new compromise that has been put in place, the idea about the lecture notes is good. good work henry :D