Since the examination period here at Maynooth University begins tomorrow I thought I would use the opportunity provided by my brand new YouTube channel to present a video version of a post I did a few years ago about how to solve Physics problems. These are intended for the type of problems students might encounter at high school or undergraduate level either in examinations or in homework. I’ve tried to keep the advice as general as possible though so hopefully students in other fields might find this useful too.
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How to Solve Physics Problems
Posted in Cute Problems, Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff, YouTube with tags education, How to Solve Physics Problems, Physics on May 14, 2020 by telescoperLeaving Off
Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags Leaving Certificate, Leaving Certificate 2020, Maynooth University, Maynooth University Library Cat on May 9, 2020 by telescoperSo yesterday the Government of Ireland announced that this year’s Leaving Certificate examinations will be cancelled. That decision seems to have surprised quite a few people but to me it looked inevitable once the Covid-19 Roadmap was published last Friday. If you recall these examinations would normally take place in June but this year had been initially been postponed to happen in late July and into August. Now they’re cancelled altogether.
Not many details are available about the scheme proposed to replace the examinations but it will be based on an assessment made by schoolteachers based on previous performance moderated in some way by the Department for Education & Skills, which has oversight of the process.
Most of the reaction I’ve seen on social media from students is that they’re delighted they won’t have to sit the examinations. Questions arise however about how fair the new system will be, especially given that it is being assembled at such short notice.
I note that the Government press release states that
Students will also retain the right to the sit the 2020 Leaving Certificate examinations at a date in the future when it is deemed safe for state examinations to be held.
The Leaving Certificate isn’t just about entry into Third Level Education but it does raise specific issues for that sector. One is how many students who would potentially enter Higher Education in September will defer until they can take the Leaving Certificate proper. If many do that then the implications for University finances in the short term are significant.
Another issue is that Universities have been planning on the basis that because of the delayed Leaving Certificate, newly enrolled students would not be arriving until November. Now it looks like they will come in September along with the returning students, so we now need a Plan B.
On the face of it, it seems good news that we will no longer have the staggered academic year required in Plan B to contend with. On the other hand, if institutions have to operate with strict social distancing measures in place when they reopen, as is likely, the increased number of students in September will make this even more difficult – especially since first-year classes are the usually larger ones. I can’t see any way of coping unless a significant part of our teaching is done remotely. Recorded lectures and virtual tutorials look set to be part of the “new normal” for some time.
The decision to cancel the Leaving Certificate raises other questions but I don’t want to get into a discussion of the rights and wrongs of that decision (in which it seems Ireland’s universities had very little influence) . All I will say – and I’m sure that I speak for all my colleagues at Maynooth University – is that we will do our utmost to operate the new admissions system in a way that is as fair as possible to potential students, and to deliver the best education we can with the resources available within whatever constraints we are under in September. Whatever we do won’t be perfect, but we’ll do our best.
Until then there is no need for students or staff to get even more stressed than we are already, so I hereby invoke the calming influence of Maynooth University Library Cat.
The Riddle of the Leaving Certificate
Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags Coronavirus, Covid-19, Leaving Certificate, Maynooth University on May 3, 2020 by telescoper
I’ve been studying the ‘Roadmap‘ outlining the gradual relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions that, all being well. will begin on May 18th. There are five phases of this process, each lasting three weeks. At any point the process can be stopped or reversed if the data suggest things are going wrong.
It’s quite consistent with how I imagined it might work when I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago:
As a physicist I see the change being rather like an adiabatic process, carried out in quasi-static fashion, in a series of reversible steps…
Some measure of social distancing will remain even after the completion of all five phases, and will probably stay in place until a vaccine for Covid-19 is available.
I first noted this in Phase 1:
Which suggests that some staff may be allowed onto campus. At my University (Maynooth), however, teaching will have finished by May 8th. By May 18th the exam period will have started but it is not obvious that the above can be interpreted as allowing staff into their offices to mark examinations and project assessments. Speaking for myself I would find that useful. I suppose we will find out fairly soon what it means.
On the whole the Roadmap seems to me quite reasonable. It is rather broadbrush in character, which is understandable, though that does mean many details need to be worked out. There is however one very surprising omission which leads to a serious contradiction and is causing considerable confusion.
According to the Roadmap, Irish schools will not reopen until Phase Five, which commences on August 10th, just in time for the start of the 2020/2021 academic year.
On the other hand it has already been announced that the School Leaving Certificate examinations (which start in June in a normal year) would commence on July 29th. Moreover the Education Minister has previously indicated that these examinations would only happen after two weeks of classroom teaching for students who have been having only remote teaching during the Lockdown.
If schools are not to reopen until August 10th then it is not possible for the Leaving Certificate to start on July 29th. Even if the classroom teaching bit is scrapped there won’t be anywhere for students to sit the examinations!
There’s no mention of the Leaving Certificate in the Roadmap which suggests that the Government hasn’t thought it through yet. It seems to me virtually certain that a u-turn is coming up and the Leaving Certificate is going to be cancelled after all. Students will probably welcome this outcome but I’m not sure what it would mean for this year’s University admissions!
On the other hand I am informed by a reliable source that the Government is adamant that the Leaving Certificate will go ahead on 29th July as planned. The question is how?
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Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth on April 24, 2020 by telescoper
A deserted St Joseph’s Square, resplendent in the spring sunshine.
Tomorrow is going to be interesting! Saturday 25th April was scheduled to be an Open Day at Maynooth University for undergraduate admissions which would normally have led to thousands of students visiting the Campus. Obviously current restrictions make that impossible but rather than cancel it the University has decided to proceed with a virtual Open Day.
Like other Heads, I put together a presentation and introductory video about the courses we offer, our research and other things about the Department. Our virtual visitors will be able to watch these videos as well as take virtual campus tours and talk to student ambassadors. Along with other Heads of Department I’ll also be online tomorrow from 10.30am to 3pm to answer questions from prospective students.
We have no idea how any of this will work which is why it will be so interesting. What we do know is that the Virtual Open Day has attracted interest in the national (eg here) and local (eg here) media in Ireland. Obviously I’m hoping it will go well, although it is pity our virtual visitors won’t be able to stroll around the lovely campus and see our teaching and research facilities.
Anyway, in the event of any potential students of Mathematical or Theoretical Physics reading this, do register and say hello (virtually) tomorrow!
Update: I’m told about 5,500 people attended the online event which is more than we would usually get.
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Posted in Covid-19, Education with tags Bandana, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Face Mask on April 22, 2020 by telescoperThere is quite a controversy these days about whether or not to wear a face mask in public to help prevent the spread of Covid-19. The way you should think of this is not to protect yourself but to protect others from being infected by you. On the other hand there is a shortage of proper medical face masks which no sensible person would want to exacerbate.
Yesterday I saw this little video on YouTube that shows how to make a mask from a bandana and two elastic bands:
The instructions are so simple that I even managed to make one myself, though it’s not as neat as the one in the video.
The thing about all the folding is that it puts several layers in between your nose/mouth and the outside world. It’s important to use quite large elastic bands too, otherwise it will pull on your ears.
It’s quite comfortable so from now on I think I will wear one whenever it seems appropriate. The only disadvantage I’ve found so far is that it results in the audio quality on my video lectures being somewhat degraded…
Follow @telescoperHow Reliable Are University Rankings?
Posted in Bad Statistics, Education with tags arXiv:2004.09006, League Tables on April 21, 2020 by telescoperI think most of you probably know the answer to this question already, but now there’s a detailed study on this topic. Here is the abstract of a paper on the arXiv on the subject
University or college rankings have almost become an industry of their own, published by US News \& World Report (USNWR) and similar organizations. Most of the rankings use a similar scheme: Rank universities in decreasing score order, where each score is computed using a set of attributes and their weights; the attributes can be objective or subjective while the weights are always subjective. This scheme is general enough to be applied to ranking objects other than universities. As shown in the related work, these rankings have important implications and also many issues. In this paper, we take a fresh look at this ranking scheme using the public College dataset; we both formally and experimentally show in multiple ways that this ranking scheme is not reliable and cannot be trusted as authoritative because it is too sensitive to weight changes and can easily be gamed. For example, we show how to derive reasonable weights programmatically to move multiple universities in our dataset to the top rank; moreover, this task takes a few seconds for over 600 universities on a personal laptop. Our mathematical formulation, methods, and results are applicable to ranking objects other than universities too. We conclude by making the case that all the data and methods used for rankings should be made open for validation and repeatability.
The italics are mine.
I have written many times about the worthlessness of University league tables (e.g. here).
Among the serious objections I have raised is that the way they are presented is fundamentally unscientific because they do not separate changes in data (assuming these are measurements of something interesting) from changes in methodology (e.g. weightings). There is an obvious and easy way to test for the size of the weighting effect, which is to construct a parallel set of league tables each year, with the current year’s input data but the previous year’s methodology, which would make it easy to isolate changes in methodology from changes in the performance indicators. No scientifically literate person would accept the result of this kind of study unless the systematic effects can be shown to be under control.
Yet purveyors of league table twaddle all refuse to perform this simple exercise. I myself asked the Times Higher to do this a few years ago and they categorically refused, thus proving that they are not at all interested in the reliability of the product they’re peddling.
Snake oil, anyone?
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Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags Covid-19, ireland on April 16, 2020 by telescoper
The Irish Government’s information booklet about Covid-19
Although we are currently in what is meant to be the Easter holiday the new normal continues in the form of a plethora video conferences and email exchanges punctuated by the occasional bit of rest and relaxation. We’ve even got a virtual seminar tomorrow and a virtual Open Day on Saturday 25th April to add to the fun.
One of the things making life stressful for academics these days is uncertainty about the future. Will the current lockdown actually end on May 5th? Will our plans for remote examinations work out OK? Will the Leaving Certificate actually go ahead this summer? When will the next academic year begin?
None of these issues is on the same scale as those confronting health workers and others on the front line fighting this pandemic, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t causing anxiety.
My own view is that we need to concentrate as far as possible on the next step and not get carried away by the ifs and buts about what comes after. There are too many imponderables on the horizon, so just focus on what you can control. We have three more weeks teaching here at Maynooth before the end of the Semester so let’s do that as well as we can. After that there is the exam period so let’s try to get through that with as few glitches as possible. We’ll just have to cross other bridges when we come to them.
For myself, I am sceptical that there will be any reduction of the current restrictions on May 5th and if there is, it will be slight at first. As the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said today relaxation of the lockdown will take places gradually over a number of months. As a physicist I see the change being rather like an adiabatic process, carried out in quasi-static fashion in a series of reversible steps…
Follow @telescoperLockdown Prolonged, Leaving Certificate Postponed
Posted in Education, Politics with tags Covid-19, ireland, Leaving Certificate, University on April 10, 2020 by telescoperI’ve just listened to the latest update on the Covid-19 situation in Ireland. One entirely predictable announcement made this afternoon was that the current restrictions on movement will continue until Tuesday May 5th at the earliest. Monday May 4th is a Bank Holiday in Ireland.
I would personally be surprised if the measures now in place were eased before June, actually, but it seems sensible to wait and see if the situation improves before making a decision on further extensions.
(Incidentally, I am keeping track of the Covid-19 numbers in Ireland on a page here.)
Another announcement made today is likely to be more controversial: that this year’s School Leaving Certificate examinations, due to start on June 3rd, will postponed until “late July or early August”.
Among many other things, this will cause those of us involved in University teaching quite a few problems to solve. A lot of thinking caps will be getting dusted off right now!
On the normal cycle, Leaving Certificate results are available in mid-August and successful students begin their University courses in mid-September.
Assuming that there is a delay of two months in sitting the exams and no time can be made up in the marking and moderation process, we’re looking at students not being able to start their courses until mid-November, just a few weeks before the normal end of the First Semester. I have heard suggestions that new students could start in October but these have not included any explanation of how to speed up the process enough to make this possible.
It seems possible to me that, because starting in November would create more problems than it would solve, new students might actually have to defer entry until January, which means in turn that their Second Semester would have to take place during the period June-August. That, in turn, will require staff to abandon any plans for summer research activity and, for some science disciplines, will involve labs being kept open when they are usually closed for upgrades.
Presumably the proposal will be that returning students will follow the usual academic year timetable, but there’s a problem there too if students have to repeat modules from the 1st year which are to be taught on a different calendar.
I’m sure that none of these problems are insoluble but I’m equally sure that the powers that be haven’t really thought about them. Ireland’s current Government does not give the impression of being that interested in universities or the staff who work in them. In recent weeks lecturers have worked exceptionally hard to switch to online teaching and assessment only to have these efforts conspicuously ignored in a recent statement by the Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’connor. No doubt the Government will again just take it for granted that we’ll sort things out on their behalf.
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Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags Maynooth University, Online Teaching on April 8, 2020 by telescoperSince the cancellation of in-person lectures and tutorials at Maynooth University a few weeks ago, we’ve all been trying – mostly without much a priori knowledge – how to teach students using exclusively online methods.
In the Department of Theoretical Physics we’re all trying different things and trying our best to learn from student feedback how to improve.
Maynooth University recently launched a survey of students that was completed by about 3000 in 24 hours, which is a very good response.
The results are very interesting. When asked what works best for them the responses were:
- 39% prefer PowerPoint with sound;
- 27.2% prefer recorded video or screencast;
- 18.6% prefer text materials (Word/Pwpt); and
- 12.2% prefer live video or screen cast.
I’m sure that there is no single “best” way of doing this. What works will depend a lot on the discipline (and the kind of material to be presented) and on the lecturer (and how comfortable they are with different approaches), as well as on the student.
I’ve always felt that students being different individuals all learn in different ways so the best approach is to offer as broad a mixture of approaches as possible in order to try to offer something for everyone.
For my part what I’m doing is making a PDF of the lectures available for the students to study in their own time, but also record short (15-minute) recorded video explainers of the key concepts using a piece of software called Screencast-o-matic.
Here’s a still from one of my Computational Physics videos:
You see they get the notes with a pointer moving about on it as I talk, but also have to endure an encapsulated video of me waving my hands and blabbering on, for that authentic lecture experience.
The video and audio is not ideal because of lighting and background sound issues in my flat which is why I felt keeping the recordings short would be useful.
I recorded the one shown above (and several others) before I figured that it works better to use the natural light coming in through the window than electric lighting. That means that I now do my recordings in the morning, when I can face the sunlight in my sitting room.
I should add that we also have a laboratory for this course. The students are given a script to work through then some (Python) coding exercises to complete. They have to do these at home but myself and a demonstrator are online via Microsoft Teams to assist the students who can share screens and output files to help us diagnose any bugs.
Anyway, what works for you?
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Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags Coronavirus, Covid-19, Maynooth University, theoretical physics on April 4, 2020 by telescoperIn the light of the Covid-19 restrictions currently in place, Maynooth University has issued updated guidance to students about the rest of the Semester.
Of particular concern to students is what will happen to their examinations, usually held in the second half of May.
Here the guidance begins:
The university examinations will not take place this semester in the usual format. The examinations will be replaced by remote assessments, including assignments, timed remote assessments and in some cases video interviews. As far as possible assessments will be completed by the scheduled dates. We plan to have resit examinations in August as usual.
There has been a lot of work and discussion going on behind the scenes to come up with ways of doing without the usual in situ examinations and the solutions proposed will no doubt vary considerably from discipline to discipline.
In the case of Theoretical Physics the vast majority of our examinations will be in the form of a timed assessment as mentioned above. What this means is that a test of similar format to the usual examinations will be made available in the form of a pdf file for students to download at home at a specific time. They must then scan and upload their answers, within a given time limit, extra time being added to formal duration of the assessment to allow for doing this.
There are two main potential difficulties with this approach.
One is that the students will not be invigilated and may cheat, either by referring to notes or other material (e.g. online) or by colluding with others. I believe the former risk can be mitigated (a) by the time limit and (b) by designing an assessment that emphasises problem-solving rather than rote learning (which, frankly, is what we should be doing anyway). Collusion is more difficult to deal with but we can at least require students to make a declaration that the submission is their own and reserve the right to interview afterwards.
The second (and, I believe more serious) source of difficulty is on the side of the student. This approach will require students to have somewhere at home where they can do the test, as well as access to the Internet and a scanning device of some sort. They will only have to download a relatively small pdf but the upload may cause problems. A scanned pdf would be easier to upload than, for example, pictures taken using a phone camera (which may be rather large files).
Still, given that there is a period of six weeks before these assessments are due to take place, I hope the vast majority of students will be able to put appropriate arrangements in place. We can also provide a dummy test so they can check that everything works satisfactorily.
These proposals are not ideal, but few things can be in the situation we are in. I do think this is a reasonable approach for our students because at least it means they can prepare using past examination papers knowing that the timed assessment will be similar in form. I think dumping an entirely new and unfamiliar kind of assessment on students now, at a time of already high stress, would have been grossly unfair.
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In the Dark 