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Marking Over

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , on June 9, 2025 by telescoper

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof…

I’ve just graded the last of my assignments for this (academic year). I had a bigger class than usual for Computational Physics this time round, so it took much longer than usual to mark the project component. It always takes a while because I not only have to read and grade the reports, but also look at the code they submit and run it to check that it works. I uploaded the final grades to our system just now and although I finished later than planned I was relieved to see that I’m not the last lecturer to do so!

What happens next is that all the marks from all the modules will be collated and cross-checked. Then we will have a meeting of the Departmental Examination Board (on Thursday morning) to go through the results in the presence of our External Examiner. Since this is the end of the academic year, we will also look at the final grades of those students who are completing their studies this year in order to consider the classification of their degrees. There may also be some who are not qualified to graduate and may have to repeat failed examinations or other assessments. Another (pleasant) duty of our Examination Board on Thursday will be to award prizes for the best performance, not just for finalists but for students at every stage, including the first year.

I was teaching a module for the Department of Engineering last Semester so I should attend their final Examination Board too. Many of our students at Maynooth take joint degrees, in which case their final degree classification depends on grades from two Departments. For that reason, there is an overall Examination Board at which the marks are combined. Fortunately, only the Head of Department (who is not me) has to attend that one.

If all goes to plan, students will receive their final marks on Friday 27th June. It’s a lengthy process so as to allow plenty of opportunities to check and validate the different stages. After that, on Tuesday 1st July, we have a consultation day at which students can ask for advice about repeat examinations, etc, and after that we have to make sure repeat examinations are available. The repeat examination period is Wednesday 6th August to Tuesday 19th August.

Between the end of this week and the repeat exams, perhaps I’ll get a bit of time to do some research…

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The Leaving

Posted in Biographical, Education, mathematics, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on June 4, 2025 by telescoper

Today is not only a significant date for me (in more ways than one), but it’s important for many young people in Ireland because the Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate examinations both start today, so the first thing I need to do is wish everyone starting their examinations the very best of luck!

Among other things, the results of the leaving certificate examinations are important for September’s university admissions. This year the grade inflation that occurred during the pandemic years will be reduced, though it is not yet clear how. Whatever happens is likely to have a big impact on student recruitment to third-level institutions.

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, with many students taking more than this. This gives 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.

One can choose to do Leaving Certificate subjects at Ordinary or Higher level and there’s quite a big difference between the two, especially in Mathematics (of which more below).

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.

There is however a big problem with Mathematics. It was decided some years ago that students would get 25 extra CAO points if they got a mark of at least 40% in Higher Mathematics. This has led to more students taking the subject, which is good, but there are signs that this may have led to a decline in standards. If, for example, the marking is such that a fixed proportion of students get the top grade but more weaker students take the examination, that means that standards fall at the top end. For more discussion, see here.

Anyway, our Theoretical Physics & Mathematics course requires a good result in Higher Mathematics for entry. Will changes to the marking of Higher Mathematics this year make it harder for students to make the grade? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Moreover, since the pandemic struck, students have been able to choose to answer questions from a limited range of sections on the mathematics examination papers. That means that students can get very high grades despite knowing nothing about a big chunk 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 taught part of our first year Mathematical Physics course in Maynooth for about 5 years. It was noticeable how the fraction that were comfortable with basic differentiation and integration was falling. Will this trend accelerate? Again, we’ll just have to wait and see…

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Lá Saoire i mí Mheitheamh

Posted in Biographical, History, Irish Language, Maynooth on June 2, 2025 by telescoper

It’s a Bank Holiday Monday here in Ireland, which makes for a nice end-of-term break for some of us. Not all staff had exams early enough to finish in time like I did, however, and no doubt some had to spend the weekend marking exam scripts. I am fortunate to have been able to accomplish everything I intended over the weekend – nothing at all – and today I’ll be able to recover from that exertion.

The June Bank Holiday (Lá Saoire i mí Mheitheamh) in Ireland is the equivalent of last week’s late May Bank Holiday in the UK, in that both have their origin in the old festival of Whitsuntide (or Pentecost) which falls on the 7th Sunday after Easter. Because the date of Easter moves around in the calendar so does Whit Sunday, but it is always in late May or early June; this year it falls on Sunday 8th June.

As if in celebration, the honeysuckle in my garden has started to flower:

The day after Pentecost was traditionally a holiday known as Pentecost Monday or Whit Monday. This enabled people to attend extra church services and organize local fairs and cultural events. Pentecost Monday became a public holiday in Ireland following the Bank Holidays Act 1871 which applied before Ireland became independent. Following the Holidays (Employees) Act 1973, this holiday was moved to the First Monday of June. This new date was first observed in 1974. This is why
we have the first Monday in June off work instead of the last Monday in May.

Although I’m only at beginners’ level in Irish, the phrase Lá Saoire i mí Mheitheamh gives me a chance to bore you about it. It’s actually quite a straightforward phrase until you reach the last word. “Lá” means “day” and “Saoire” means “leave” or “vacation” so “Lá Saoire” means “holiday”; “i” is a prepositional pronoun meaning “in” and “mí” means “month”. So far so good.

The word for June, however, is Meitheamh (at least when it is in the nominative singular case). Irish is an inflected language, which means that words change form according to their grammatical function. As an Indo-European language, Irish is distantly related to Latin which has six grammatical cases for nouns (actually seven if you count the rarely used locative case). Irish has only four cases – there’s no ablative and, curiously, no distinction between nominative and accusative. That leaves nominative, dative, genitive, and vocative. The dative – used after simple prepositions – is only rarely distinct from the nominative so basically the ones you have to learn are the genitive and the vocative.

In Latin cases are indicated by changes to the end of a word, but in Irish they involve initial mutations. In the example of “mí Mheitheamh” meaning “month of June”, requiring the genitive form of “June”, the initial consonant “M” undergoes lenition (softening) to sound more like a “v”. In old Irish texts this would be indicated by a dot over the M but in modern orthography it is indicated by writing an “h” after the consonant. This is called a séimhiú (pronounced “shay-voo” ). Note the softened m in the middle of that word too but it’s not a mutation – it’s just part of the regular spelling of the word, as is the -mh at the end of Meitheamh. There’s also a softened “t” in the middle of Meitheamh which makes it vrtually disappear in pronunciation. Meitheamh is thus pronounced something like “Meh-hiv” whereas “Mheitheamh” is something like “Veh-hiv”.

Gheobhaidh mé mo chóta…

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Congratulations, Dr Gallagher!

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on May 26, 2025 by telescoper

This week is off to a good start! This morning my postgraduate research student Aoibhinn Gallagher passed a viva voce examination on her thesis Cosmological Structure Formation Using Wave Mechanics. There will be a few formalities to deal with, some minor corrections to make, various forms to fill in, and the result has to be approved by the examination board, and so on, but basically that’s a job well done. Congratulations, Dr Gallagher!

Left to Right: Dr John Regan (internal examiner), Aoibhinn Gallagher (PhD candidate), and Prof. Cora Uhlemann (external examiner).

P.S. You can get an idea of some of the content of Aoibhinn’s thesis here.

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Getting there…

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on May 23, 2025 by telescoper

Despite having to take time out today to attend an Emergency Meeting of IFUT (about matters which may or may not be public soon), my marking duties are about halfway done and roughly on schedule. For one module, I have 60% of the assessment scores for 32 students and, for the other, about 40% of the assessment for 23 students. I make that about 51.6 of the total. The last piece of the puzzle won’t arrive on my desk until Wednesday morning, by which time I hope to have completed 100% of the 32, leaving just 60% of the 23, amounting to about 16.7% of the total, to be done in the second half of next week. I hope this clarifies the situation.

Meanwhile the weather has taken a turn for the worse, no doubt because of the imminent Bank Holiday weekend in the UK. Monday 26th is a holiday there. In Ireland, the next holiday is on Monday June 2nd, Lá Saoire i mí an Mheithimh See if you can pronounce that! Next Friday (30th May) is the day of the season finale of the National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall, which is Mahler’s 9th Symphony. I hope I’ll be finished marking in time for that so I can relax over the holiday weekend after what will have been a very hectic week and take some time off the following week to do a bit of travelling to attend to some personal matters.

Next week will start off, however, with the PhD viva of one of my students. I won’t be attending the actual examination, of course, but will be there for the subsequent formalities. It’s a distraction from grading, but a nice one.

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Operation Marking Garden

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , on May 21, 2025 by telescoper

Posts will be a little thin for the next ten days or so here as I am preoccupied with correcting examinations and other assessments. I am spending most of the time doing that at home to avoid interruptions. I’ve also taken the opportunity afforded by this fine spell to do some laundry which I can peg out to dry outdoors. I think this is called multi-tasking. Fortunately (barring yesterday’s thunderstorms), the weather has been nice enough to do the marking outside, in my little garden.

Yesterday evening’s thunderstorms

A few years ago I posted an item about red valerian which grows in profusion around here on verges and embankments. Red valerian (aka spur valerian, kiss-me-quick, fox’s brush, devil’s beard & Jupiter’s beard among other names) is not to be confused with True Valerian, which has white (or very pale pink flowers). I mentioned in that post It’s red valerian (aka spur valerian, kiss-me-quick, fox’s brush, devil’s beard & Jupiter’s beard among other names). I mentioned in that post that I’d like to have some in my garden. Well, it seems that the seeds I planted have grown, perhaps spurred on by the rain yesterday evening:

red valerian

It’s not exactly a profusion, but it’s a start.

UPDATE: 31/05/25 On my way into Dublin by train I saw Red Valerian and True Valerian together by the railway tracks.

Anyway, I spent this morning marking until I remembered a couple of things I had to do on campus. That’s only 20 minutes’ walk for me so I went there at lunchtime, getting a haircut on the way. I stayed for lunch in Pugin Hall and then came back to continue with my correcting duties.

When I took a break for tea I suddenly remembered (for some reason) that the debit card on my UK bank account was about to expire and I hadn’t updated the address since I sold my house in Cardiff. Strangely, I couldn’t update my details online but instead had to use the telephone banking service. One can change to another address in the UK using the online banking app, but can’t do that if you’re moving abroad. Although it took longer to do than I had anticipated it might, the person I spoke to was very helpful. Fortunately they hadn’t yet despatched a replacement card and/or PIN so all was well.

So there you are. Another exciting day in the life of an academic has passed.

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After Lectures and before Examinations

Posted in Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on May 15, 2025 by telescoper

This morning I did my last teaching session of the Academic Year 2024-5, 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 30% 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 morning, but most of the students who turned up this morning have their first examination on Monday 19th May which happens to be Computational Physics.

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 working out, including numerical results obtained 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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Maynooth University Library Cat Update

Posted in Maynooth with tags , on May 14, 2025 by telescoper

I was on a mission to the South Campus just now and found Maynooth University Library Cat behind bars. He’s actually just resting in the semi-shade behind the gate to conserve energy before the exams start on Friday morning, at which time he will need to make himself available for last-minute consultations and therapeutic petting.

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Botanical Garden

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , on May 13, 2025 by telescoper 
How many kinds of sweet flowers grow
In an English Irish country suburban garden?
I'll tell you now of some that I know
And those that I miss you'll surely pardon..
Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium)
Cowslip (Primula veris)
Scarlet Pimpernel (Lysimachia arvensis)
Meadow Foam (Limnanthes douglasii) aka Poached Egg Plant

These are all wild flowers, often considered to be weeds, but I like having them in my garden!

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Marking Time

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on May 12, 2025 by telescoper

So here we are, then, with only a few days before examinations start (next Friday, 16th May). The examinations for my two modules take place on Monday 19th and Tuesday 27th May, and after that I’ll be busy with marking for a while.

 

Marking doesn’t just mean written examinations. I have been teaching a module on Computational Physics to 3rd Year students here in Maynooth, and 40% of the assessment for that is a mini-project (usually done in groups of two or three). Early on the term, I put up a list of  16  projects and asked them to pick first second and third choices so I could form groups in such a way that most students get to work on a project they have actively chosen.

Anyway, the deadline for projects to be handed in passed last week so I’ve got a stack of those to mark which, you will realise, why I am indulging in a displacement activity by writing this blog post. My plan is to mark these during this week so that they’re done before the written examinations come in, which means by next Monday (19th). This year we have had a bigger class than usual, so this I have quite a lot of marking to do.

Last week also saw the deadline for the last assignment in Particle Physics to be handed in. I want to mark those as soon as possible, but I’m not sure I’ll have time this week, but I should be able to do them before the exam on the 27th.

Incidentally, one of the submissions of the last assignment came with a note that this was the last assignment the student had done in Maynooth and that the first one he had done, when he was in his first year, was also set by me.

 

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