Student finds that memorization is not learning
Matt Dial
Issue date: 10/8/09 Section: ViewPoint
Mental regurgitation is one of the least spoken of sicknesses in the entire medical field. Which is astonishing because of the fact that no studies show that more than half of college students suffer from this disorder.
It especially finds its way into the system during midterm and final weeks, when a student is most vulnerable to procrastination.
I was recently hoping for a case and did not see the symptoms.
Unfortunately for me, it was too late and my test score had reached my desk and was glaring at me with a plethora of multi-lettered questions with an "X" marked on them.
That test score really confused me.
The main reason was because what I thought I deserved and what was actually on the processed wood did not match up.
So, after class I maneuvered my way to my professor's desk and began to speak with him about partial credit. It was more than obvious that I understood how to do the problem, I just took it too far and over thought the process.
That work was laid down like an iron fist on the page.
The conversation began as an understanding and then his comments began to take this conversation in a different way.
He talked to me about how it is a multiple-choice test and I did not mark the right answer.
He then told how he would have to give others that credit as well.
I explained in a civil manner how it was an observation that a beagle could understand that I knew how to do this problem and my work showed that.
All the while, I knew what I wanted to say, "Give me those two points!"
I earned those two points by bleeding onto the page an equation that will be meaningless to me in the next two months.
By the end of the conversation we had both come to an understanding - there was no need to understand the work, as long as you can bubble in the right letter.
It was not about application in this casual debate of quantitative, and at times qualitative, gentlemen; simply giving him the correct letter would suffice.
It especially finds its way into the system during midterm and final weeks, when a student is most vulnerable to procrastination.
I was recently hoping for a case and did not see the symptoms.
Unfortunately for me, it was too late and my test score had reached my desk and was glaring at me with a plethora of multi-lettered questions with an "X" marked on them.
That test score really confused me.
The main reason was because what I thought I deserved and what was actually on the processed wood did not match up.
So, after class I maneuvered my way to my professor's desk and began to speak with him about partial credit. It was more than obvious that I understood how to do the problem, I just took it too far and over thought the process.
That work was laid down like an iron fist on the page.
The conversation began as an understanding and then his comments began to take this conversation in a different way.
He talked to me about how it is a multiple-choice test and I did not mark the right answer.
He then told how he would have to give others that credit as well.
I explained in a civil manner how it was an observation that a beagle could understand that I knew how to do this problem and my work showed that.
All the while, I knew what I wanted to say, "Give me those two points!"
I earned those two points by bleeding onto the page an equation that will be meaningless to me in the next two months.
By the end of the conversation we had both come to an understanding - there was no need to understand the work, as long as you can bubble in the right letter.
It was not about application in this casual debate of quantitative, and at times qualitative, gentlemen; simply giving him the correct letter would suffice.
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