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Examinations, Past and Future

Posted in Biographical, Education, mathematics, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on June 7, 2023 by telescoper

No sooner is yesterday’s departmental Examination Board done and dusted (after just two and a half hours) when attention switches to school examinations. The Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate examinations both start today, so the first thing I need to do is wish everyone taking examinations the very best of luck!

Among other things, the results of the leaving certificate examinations are important for next year’s University admissions. As we gradually dispense with the restrictions imposed during the pandemic, it seems this year we just might have the results before the start of teaching at the end of September. That will make a nice change!

In the system operating in England and Wales the standard qualification for entry is the GCE A-level. Most students take A-levels in three subjects, which gives them a relatively narrow focus although the range of subjects to choose from is rather large. In Ireland the standard qualification is the Leaving Certificate, which comprises a minimum of six subjects, giving students a broader range of knowledge at the sacrifice (perhaps) of a certain amount of depth; it has been decreed for entry into this system that an Irish Leaving Certificate subject counts as about 2/3 of an A-level subject for admissions purposes, so Irish students do the equivalent of at least four A-levels, and many do more than this. It’s also worth noting that all students have to take Mathematics at Leaving Certificate level.

Overall I prefer the Leaving Certificate over the UK system of A-levels, as the former gives the students a broader range of subjects than the latter (as does the International Baccalaureate). I would have liked to have been allowed to take at least one arts subject past O-level, for example.

For University admissions points are awarded for each paper according to the marks obtained and then aggregated into a total CAO points, CAO being the Central Applications Office, the equivalent of the UK’s UCAS. This means, for example, that our main Science pathway at Maynooth allows students to study Physics without having done it at Leaving Certificate level. This obviously means that the first year has to be taught at a fairly elementary level, but it has the enormous benefit of allowing us to recruit students whose schools do not offer Physics.

As much as I like the Leaving Certificate, I have concerns about using a simple CAO points count for determining entry into third-level courses. My main concern about is with Mathematics. Since the pandemic struck, students have been able to choose to questions from just six out of ten sections. That means that students can get very high grades despite knowing nothing about 40% of the syllabus. That matters most for subjects that require students to have certain skills and knowledge for entry into University, such as Physics.

I’ve been teaching the first year Mathematical Physics course in Maynooth for about 5 years. At the start of the module I put up a questionnaire asking the students about various mathematical concepts and asking them how comfortable they feel with them. It’s been noticeable how the fraction that are comfortable with basic differentiation and integration has been falling. That’s not a reflection on the ability of the students, just on the way they have been taught. As well as making adjustments during the pandemic for online teaching, etc, I have changed various things about the teaching, in particular adjusting the way I have introduced calculus into the module. Another problem is that we have been forced to start teaching first-years a week late because of delays to the CAO process caused by the pandemic.

I’ll be on sabbatical next academic year so I won’t be teaching the first-years (or anyone else) in September. It’s time to hand these challenges on to someone else!

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On Whit The Marking Boycott

Posted in Biographical, Education with tags , , , , on May 28, 2023 by telescoper

This is a bank holiday weekend in the United Kingdom, but not here in Ireland. Over here the old Whit Monday bank holiday is marked on the first Monday in June (i.e. a week tomorrow) rather than the last Monday in May as it is in the UK. Whit Sunday is another name for Pentecost, a moveable feast, which occurs on the 7th Sunday after Easter Sunday and therefore moves around in the calendar. Last year, Whit Sunday was actually June 5th; this year it is May 28th (today); and next year it will be on 19th May. So sometimes Ireland has a holiday on Whit Monday, sometimes the UK does, and sometimes neither.

Anyway, tomorrow may not be a holiday here on the Emerald Isle but I’ve finished marking my examinations so one major source of stress has been removed and I can get on with other things next week. Best wishes to colleagues still ploughing through their scripts.

All of this reminded me that universities on the other side of the Irish Sea are currently gripped by a marking and assessment boycott called by the University and College Union (UCU) as part of ongoing industrial action over pay and conditions. This has already been going on for over a month.

I haven’t kept up very well with what’s been going on in UK universities but it looks like a deal has been struck over pensions which will result in benefits being restored to members of the USS scheme. Drastic and unjustifiable cuts imposed on the pension scheme were just one part of the UCU industrial dispute, however, and action continues with respect to the others. Accordingly, UCU has asked its members in higher education institutions which are part of the pay and working conditions dispute to cease undertaking all summative marking and associated assessment activities/duties. The boycott also covers assessment-related work such as exam invigilation and the processing of marks. 

The managers of some universities have reacted to this boycott with 100% salary cuts to staff participating in it. The gloves seem to be off and it doesn’t seem likely that a resolution will be reached any time soon. I support the industrial action, by the way, as I hope do colleagues in Ireland who are employed as External Examiners in UK universities and who should to carry out their duties which would be tantamount to crossing a picket line.

It remains to be seen what will happen to students who hope to graduate from UK universities this summer, especially those who need a specific grade to take their next step. These students have had a difficult time with both the pandemic and the industrial action, but something must be done to arrest the downward spiral of pay and working conditions for university teachers, otherwise there will no long be a higher education system worthy of the name.

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Terms Ending

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on May 26, 2023 by telescoper

So here I am, on a fine early summer evening, waiting for the train into Dublin for the last performance of the season by the National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall. I’m looking forward to it very much, as the second half is a piece I’ve never heard before. I’ll write more about it tomorrow.

There’s an end of term feeling in other ways, too. The examination period ended earlier this week, and most students have now vanished for the summer. Quite a few staff members will be marking scripts at home too. Campus has been very quiet for the last few days. The train I’m now on, the 17.10 from Maynooth to Connolly, usually very busy on a Friday, is almost empty today.

The one exception to the general lack of activity on campus happened on Wednesday when a mysterious ferret appeared on Campus. It even tried to get into the Science Building, but failed (I suppose) because it didn’t have a swipe card. It seems this critter was a family pet that had got out and went on an adventure. It was spotted at various locations around the town before being collected by its owner and returned safely home.

Artist’s impression of the ferret.

Despite that flurry of excitement, I managed to finish marking my examinations and other assessments, but the grades still need to be checked. They then have to be approved by the Departmental Exam Board in early June. They then get a final dose of scrutiny at the University Examination Board. Students will have to wait almost another month to get their results. It’s quite a slow process, but it’s right to be careful.

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MSc in Theoretical Physics & Mathematics at Maynooth

Posted in Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on May 25, 2023 by telescoper

Now that the exams are over I thought I’d take the opportunity to promote our new MSc in Theoretical Physics & Mathematics. The existence of this was only announced in April and it was fully opened to applications just a couple of weeks ago. The University’s social media people have been pushing it very hard recently with, so I’m told, some success! Here are a few examples of the images that have been used in the ads:

Anyway, this (new) postgraduate course will be run jointly between the Departments of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics & Statistics, with each contributing about half the material. The duration is one calendar year (full-time) or two years (part-time) and consists of 90 credits in the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). This will be split into 60 credits of taught material (split roughly 50-50 between Theoretical Physics and Mathematics) and a research project of 30 credits, supervised by a member of staff in a relevant area from either Department.

This new course is a kind of follow-up to the existing undergraduate BSc Theoretical Physics & Mathematics at Maynooth, also run jointly. We think the postgraduate course will appeal to many of the students on that programme who wish to continue their education to postgraduate level, though applications are very welcome from suitably qualified candidates who did their first degree elsewhere.

Postgraduate admissions in Ireland operate differently from the UK, in that there is a central system in Ireland (called PAC) that is similar to the undergraduate admissions system; in the UK PG courses are dealt with by individual institutions. You will need to apply online via PAC after the following the instructions here. The requisite PAC code for the full-time version of the course is MHQ56.

If you apply by 30th June you may be eligible for one of the University’s Taught Masters Scholarships!

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Days of Invigilation

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , on May 22, 2023 by telescoper

I’ve now collected the scripts from my second examination – held on Saturday – and will spend the next day or two marking them and combining the exam grades with grades from class tests and projects to produce a final score.

When I went to collect the scripts for my first examination on Thursday at the end of the examination, I had to wait a little bit for them to be collated and sealed in their official packet. While that was going on I chatted to a member of staff who was putting out papers for the next examination. She was giving out about how students often move the desks when they leave, requiring them to be put back in position before the next examination.

The invigilator also expressed irritation about the system of ID cards. Each desk in the examination room has a card with a unique number on it placed in the right front corner (as seen by the student). During the examination, students are supposed to place their ID card on the desk so an invigilator can check the identity of the candidate. The student ID cards at Maynooth are about the same size as a credit card, as are the cards with the numbers. Apparently many students place their ID card directly over the number card, obscuring the number and requiring the invigilator to lift it up in order to do the crosscheck. As things go, it seems a mild transgression, but I suppose it makes an already boring job even longer for the invigilators.

Years ago, academic staff had to invigilate their own examinations. I had to do this in my first teaching job at Queen Mary and, later, at Nottingham but more recently the job has generally been done by support staff rather than academics. I moved from Nottingham to Cardiff in 2007 and don’t think I ever had to invigilate examinations there., so I haven’t done it for 16 years or so. Nowadays we are just expected to be “on call” to deal with any queries that arise in the Exam Hall by phone.

I’m not sorry that I no longer have to perform this task, as it was always one of my least favourite jobs, and not only because I don’t enjoy seeing people under stress. Initially I thought supervising an examination might allow me time to do something useful, but there always seemed to be some interruption, such as students wanting an extra answer book, or asking about some issue with the examination paper, or wanting to leave to go to the toilet, etc.

The most dramatic interruption I can remember was when a student who suffered from epilepsy had a seizure in the examination hall. Fortunately we invigilators had been briefed as to what to do in such an eventuality, namely to move the furniture so the student didn’t hurt themselves but otherwise not to intervene until they went to sleep – which usually happens after a minute or two. We were told that such an episode was unlikely as the student was taking medicine to prevent them occurring. It was quite when it actually happened, but happily the student recovered quickly but was perfectly OK afterwards. Apparently he had been so busy preparing for the examination that day he had forgotten to take his medication in the morning.

Having given up on the idea of doing some other work during an examination, I used to take a few crosswords to do. These are good for passing the time because you can solve a few clues at a time. Other things I used to do included walking around counting the number of right-handed and left-handed students, for example, though I never did any detailed statistical analysis of the results.

The primary purpose of invigilation is to prevent cheating or other misbehaviour, and I only ever saw a few examples of that – most of them involving calculators with, e.g., graph-plotting facilities which are not allowed.

Anyway, I’m glad I no longer have to invigilate examinations, and that makes me all the more grateful for the people who do. Here in Maynooth there are three examinations per day during the Examination Period, with a brief period between to put out the next set of papers, which means a long day for those who do this job. Hats off to the dedicated staff of the Exams Office at Maynooth who carry out this thankless task three times a year!

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Between Papers

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on May 19, 2023 by telescoper
Maynooth University Library Cat, photographed yesterday by Joost Slingerland.

Yesterday morning final-year students theoretical physics students sat my first examination of the session, on Advanced Electromagnetism, and tomorrow another group will take my second, on Computational Physics 1. I collected the first scripts from the Exam Hall at the end of the examination at 11.30 and have actually finished correcting them. I don’t think I’ll come in tomorrow morning though. Correcting the second batch can wait until Monday. That doesn’t mean I get a break though because I still have to complete grading the Computational Physics Projects. It does mean, however, that I’ll probably be finished with examination marking for this session by the end of next week, in good time for the Exam Boards in June.

That won’t mean that I’m finished with examination matters for the year; I’ll have four repeat examinations to grade in August. When those are done, however, I won’t have to do any further marking of examinations or anything else to do with teaching for a whole year. My sabbatical starts on 1st September.

Meanwhile, Maynooth University Library Cat, has been patrolling the area in front of the Library, which is quite busy these days with students doing last-minute revision in the study spaces there. By the end of next week the examinations will be over, most students will have departed for the summer, many staff will be at home marking scripts, and campus will be much quieter.

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After the Lectures, before the Examinations

Posted in Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on May 11, 2023 by telescoper

This morning I did my last teaching session of the Academic Year 2022-3, a revision lecture/tutorial on Computational Physics. It was optional, as this is officially a study break, and was at 9am, but I had about 40% attendance which wasn’t bad in the circumstances. As is often the case with optional sessions, I think the students who came were the keenest and probably therefore those who least needed last-minute tips for the examination, but that’s always the way.

The Examination Period starts tomorrow, but most of the students who turned up this morning have their first examination on Monday. My paper is on Saturday next, 20th May.

Anyway, now that my teaching is over I thought I’d take the opportunity to wish all students the best for their examinations:

You shouldn’t really be relying on luck of course, so here are some tips (especially for physics students, but applicable elsewhere).

  1. Try to get a good night’s sleep before the examination and arrive in plenty of time before the start. Spending all night cramming is unlikely to help you do well.
  2. Prepare well in advance so you’re relaxed when the time comes.
  3. Read the entire paper before starting to answer any questions. In particular, make sure you are aware of any supplementary information, formulae, etc, given in the rubric or at the end.
  4. Start off by tackling the question you are most confident about answering, even if it’s not Question 1. This will help settle any nerves. You’re under no obligation to answer the questions in the order they are asked.
  5. Don’t rush! Students often lose marks by making careless errors. In particular, check all your numerical results on your calculator at least twice
  6. Please remember the units!
  7. Don’t panic! You’re not expected to answer everything perfectly. A first-class mark is anything over 70%, so don’t worry if there are bits you can’t do. If you get stuck on a part of a question, don’t waste too much time on it (especially if it’s just a few marks). Just leave it and move on. You can always come back to it later.

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Announcing the Maynooth MSc in Theoretical Physics & Mathematics!

Posted in Education, Maynooth on May 9, 2023 by telescoper

About a month ago I used the medium of this blog to give a sneak preview of our new MSc course in Theoretical Physics & Mathematics which had just been approved. Well, the course details are now public and now it is open for applications. For further details see here.

The new postgraduate course will be run jointly between the Departments of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics & Statistics, with each contributing about half the material. The duration is one calendar year (full-time) or two years (part-time) and consists of 90 credits in the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). This will be split into 60 credits of taught material (split roughly 50-50 between Theoretical Physics and Mathematics) and a research project of 30 credits, supervised by a member of staff in a relevant area from either Department.

This new course is a kind of follow-up to the existing undergraduate BSc Theoretical Physics & Mathematics at Maynooth, also run jointly. We think the postgraduate course will appeal to many of the students on that programme who wish to continue their education to postgraduate level, though applications are very welcome from suitably qualified candidates who did their first degree elsewhere.

Postgraduate admissions in Ireland operate differently from the UK, in that there is a central system in Ireland (called PAC) that is similar to the undergraduate admissions system; in the UK PG courses are dealt with by individual institutions. You will need to apply online via PAC after the following the instructions here. The requisite PAC code for the full-time version of the course is MHQ56.

Please note also that Maynooth University offers Taught Masters Scholarships for high-flying applicants. If you apply by 30th June you may be eligible for one of these!

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Changes in the Calendar

Posted in Biographical, Cardiff, Education, Maynooth on May 7, 2023 by telescoper

As I often do on a Sunday morning, I just sat down to look at my timetable for the forthcoming week. Until Friday 12th this is “Study Week” and my Outlook calendar is noticeably less cluttered than recently because teaching ended on Friday 5th May. Although I had a lecture and a tutorial on Friday morning I did find Campus was already much quieter than usual. Many students at Maynooth University rent rooms here for only part of the week and Fridays are generally quiet because some students leave on Thursday evening if they don’t have classes on Fridays, and I suppose some that do usually have Friday classes will have had them cancelled as the lecturer had finished the syllabus. My two classes on Friday were actually for revision, actually.

At any rate the cloisters of St Patrick’s House looked rather empty on Friday as I headed for a quick lunch in Pugin Hall before the final-year project presentations in the afternoon.

Incidentally, colleagues in other departments have reported a drastic decline in lecture attendance over the last few weeks. I can’t say I’ve noticed that myself but my classes are by no means statistically representative.

I will be doing two more revision classes next week, one for Advanced Electromagnetism and one for Computational Physics. don’t know how many will attend these but it’s the students’ last chance to ask me questions before the examinations, which are on Thursday 18th May and Saturday 20th May respectively. Friday 12th May marks the start of the Examination Period – for some reason this always starts on a Friday – during which many teaching rooms are unavailable so we don’t usually do revision classes beyond Study Week.

I won’t be teaching either of these modules next academic year. In fact I won’t be teaching anything next year, as I’ll be off on sabbatical. I’ll miss the teaching and am particularly sad that I won’t see the class in my 3rd year module again, unless some of them remain for Masters or PhD studies, as they will complete their studies next year while I am away. Since I am officially on leave from 1st September 2023, my final teaching-related responsibility for this year will be marking the repeat examinations in August.

In case anyone asks, I don’t know who’ll be delivering the modules I did this year, but the handover shouldn’t be too hard as there are complete sets of notes for all of them (and plenty of problem sets).

I don’t know which modules I’ll be giving when I return either, but I hope there’s an opportunity for a bit of a reshuffle. In particular, I’ve been doing Computational Physics for six years now and maybe it’s time for a fresh pair of hands on that one. It’s not that I dislike it at all – in fact I like it – but I think there are good arguments for a refresh every now and again. I’ve always taken the view that anyone employed in a physics department should be able to teach any subject up to the 3rd year so I don’t particularly mind what happens next. At any rate it would be nice to have a go at a few different things before I retire. Who knows, I might even get to teach some astrophysics or cosmology at some point?

It’s not just about undergraduate teaching, of course. Study Week or not I still have the regular meetings with my research students, a cosmology discussion group and a Euclid telecon. But my main objective between now and the arrival of my examination scripts to mark is to finish two manuscripts that are very late. I’ve no excuse for that other than poor time management by myself.

Looking further ahead, the launch of Euclid is scheduled for the first half of July and I hope to find time to organize some sort of public event related to this. I’m also attending the Euclid Consortium annual meeting in Copenhagen at the end of June. I’ve also been invited to contribute to the UK National Astronomy Meeting, which is in early July this year, in Cardiff…

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Assessment in the Age of AI

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , on May 5, 2023 by telescoper

The arrival of AI bots such as ChatGPT continues to cast a shadow over student assessment in the third-level institutions, as academics are realizing that these algorithms are getting better and better at the tasks asked of students, especially straightforward writing tasks (perhaps including simple calculations) as well as the traditional student essay.

Before going further I have to admit that I’ve never really understood the obsession in some parts of academia with “the Essay” as a form of assessment. I agree that writing skills are extremely important but they’re not the only skills it is important for students to acquire during the course of a degree. Learning how to do things seems to me to be more important than writing about things other people have done. While forms of assessment in science subjects have evolved considerably over the last 50 years, some other domains still seem to concentrate almost exclusively on “The Essay”.

Systems such as ChatGPT can produce text on demand (with a variable degree of success) using sources on the internet. This is not great at dealing with technically complex specialist topics but can produce plausible if somewhat superficial offerings in many circumstances where something less demanding is required. I know that staff in some science departments find that these systems can score essentially 100% on their first-year coursework assignments. Urgent meetings are being called and working groups being set up about this. Panic is in the air.

My immediate response to the situation is very twofold:

  1. Don’t panic!
  2. If an assessment can be aced by a bot then it should not contribute towards credit unless the students do it in a supervised environment, e.g. as an in-class test rather than a take-home assignment.
  3. More importantly, if a student with only a superficial knowledge can score a high mark on an assessment, what is the value of the assessment anyway?

It seems to me that the intervention of ChatGPT should cause academics to reflect much more deeply on what it is that they are trying to assess, and that should lead to new forms of assessment that can’t be performed by AI bots as well as the scrapping of many existing assessment activities, many of which (in my opinion) are pointless. There is so much inertia in academia, however, that such a radical rethink will be forthcoming on the timescale required.

All of which waffly nonsense reminded me of a joke I heard many years ago.

Q: How many academics does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: What do you mean, change?

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