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Otago HSFY chat - archive

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One thing I hated about the exams were the 'fill in the blanks' type of questions. For CELS we had a question that was an actual lecture slide I think, and we had to complete the missing labels..
 
It sounds like maybe we agree with each other after all skyglow :)

skyglow1 said:
This is only my opinion, but I feel as if the current course structure almost punishes students who are prepared to learn outside lecture material and go further with their learning. There is too much on the line, and those few marks could be the difference between getting and not getting in.
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Agreed, and I think this is a flaw in the system. Were you at the med lecture I heard about where Matt Bevin was moaning that "if I were to tell the HUBS class that humans have 3 lungs, in the exam they'd tell me that humans have 3 lungs"? I love that story in the fact that it is scarily close to the truth and exemplifies the spoon-feeding nature of health sci. I also told that story to my parents and laughed at the look of despair on their face when they heard about this behaviour of people who could be joining their profession.

Yes I agree that the current structure of HSFY is flawed. I would love to see more independent learning, but not in the form of "we won't tell you what's gonna come up in the exams". One of the most important things is that the exams themselves need to change in the way they are written. Then we could really start giving the students more freedom in their learning.
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Yes. I think the GLMs were on the right track but could definately be improved. An example of what I would like to happen would be to take 2-3 lectures out of HUBS (I choose HUBS because I reckon it has the most spoonfeeding), give us learning objectives (in more detail than the current lecture objectives), tell us to learn them on our own, but in turn have more flexibility in the marking of the associated section of the exam. Or maybe say that one for one of the questions in the final exam you'll have to write an answer to a question on "x" or "y" or "z" (you choose) but in more detail than is covered in lectures.

Something like that anyway.
 
greenglacier said:
It sounds like maybe we agree with each other after all skyglow :)



Agreed, and I think this is a flaw in the system. Were you at the med lecture I heard about where Matt Bevin was moaning that "if I were to tell the HUBS class that humans have 3 lungs, in the exam they'd tell me that humans have 3 lungs"? I love that story in the fact that it is scarily close to the truth and exemplifies the spoon-feeding nature of health sci. I also told that story to my parents and laughed at the look of despair on their face when they heard about this behaviour of people who could be joining their profession.
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Yup I think we do agree :lol: No I wasn't at the lecture, but it perfectly summarises what healthsci is like. I love how Matt Bevin has such a good grasp on the learning process that students undergo. It's unfortunate that the nature of the course drives students to do such things. I remember thinking often when answering questions in an exam "forget the 'truth', only think what is the answer for the question". All that mattered was getting the question right. Everyone I've met in med understands the importance of independent learning and practises it, so I don't think it will be an issue for those entering the profession from what I've seen.

greenglacier said:
Yes. I think the GLMs were on the right track but could definately be improved. An example of what I would like to happen would be to take 2-3 lectures out of HUBS (I choose HUBS because I reckon it has the most spoonfeeding), give us learning objectives (in more detail than the current lecture objectives), tell us to learn them on our own, but in turn have more flexibility in the marking of the associated section of the exam. Or maybe say that one for one of the questions in the final exam you'll have to write an answer to a question on "x" or "y" or "z" (you choose) but in more detail than is covered in lectures.

Something like that anyway.
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Yup some sort of essay style questions where students could demonstrate that they could see the bigger picture, and they could choose between a list of questions to respond to. The marking would definitely be more complicated if they want to make it fair too.

Funnily enough the GLMs were renamed from SDLs which were self-directed learning modules as you may know. That title obviously sounded too scary to students and staff! :lol:
 
skyglow1 said:
The marking would definitely be more complicated if they want to make it fair too.
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I'd support almost anything that requires more intelligence and skill from the markers. The people who mark our exams scripts are highly knowledgable and qualified academics, and are incredibly nice (one of the HUBS teaching staff told me that she once spent 30 minutes marking a single HUBS essay - the writing was really messy and she spent that whole time just deciphering it so that she was sure that she could give it the full mark it deserved). In my mind having them mark "fill in the blank" questions, or having them mark extended answer questions by ticking off a list of pre-defined points as they are made is a huge waste.
 
Fill in the blanks are way too easy, and I agree that more essays would be good
 
yeah^ that agrees with skyglows learn little itsy bitsy details thing in HSFY

edit: i like essays, you can express yourself more and dont have to get that one single point right to get any marks
 
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While HSFY might seem a bit flawed you have to keep in mind that they're dealing with an massive number of students so they have to keep strategies in mind that will make grading efficient, and they always have in mind that the UMAT will cut through the students decisively regardless of their academic marks. I can attest to the fact that "extra" reading especially when done because of a genuine interest (and not just to score higher than others) is something that has benefits that last way into the future, but in a course like HSFY the risk with rewarding extra-learning is that they could inadvertently penalise too many students too harshly. So while not ideal I think they may have considered it.. just my thoughts

Didn't read the entire stuff going on above but in case we're discussing favourite papers etc here's my 2 cents: hubs & bioc = awesomeness that could blind; epi = great content but not well run; cels = nice; phys = not bad; chem191 = burn in hell till the end of time

skyglow please tell me there won't be any electron movement arrow diagram stuff (module 4) from chem191 in med please? :cry:
 
if they had changed healthsci to how u guys want it i wudve had to get off the tv couch..we dont want that do we. Test cricket is beautiful :drool:
 
lock_on said:
they mustve scaled chem191, no way did i actually get what i got (in terms of raw score)
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My CHEM191 mark wasn't scaled:

Exit tests = 30/30 = 15%
Terms test = 30/30 = 15%
Final exam = 97/100 = 67.9% (agree that that was a seriously tough exam by the way)

Total = 97.9% = 98%

Final mark on PIMS = 98%


The only one of my marks that I know to have been scaled was BIOC.

Having said that, some scaling did occur in other papers. I just know that it didn't affect any of my marks - for example apparently there was some scaling in PHSI191 but that didn't affect me - I had 100% before and after. Also apparently that was just minor, and around performances far lower than A+.



I loved BIOC, and not just because of Tony. It had the relevance of HUBS but was more interesting (especially module 6 :drool:) and actually required some genuine thinking, rather than just being spoonfed.
 
Epic discussion about how HSFY is slightly flawed. :D
 
greenglacier said:
My CHEM191 mark wasn't scaled:

Exit tests = 30/30 = 15%
Terms test = 30/30 = 15%
Final exam = 97/100 = 67.9% (agree that that was a seriously tough exam by the way)

Total = 97.9% = 98%

Final mark on PIMS = 98%


The only one of my marks that I know to have been scaled was BIOC.

Having said that, some scaling did occur in other papers. I just know that it didn't affect any of my marks - for example apparently there was some scaling in PHSI191 but that didn't affect me - I had 100% before and after. Also apparently that was just minor, and around performances far lower than A+.



I loved BIOC, and not just because of Tony. It had the relevance of HUBS but was more interesting (especially module 6 :drool:) and actually required some genuine thinking, rather than just being spoonfed.
Click to expand...

Those are awesome grades dude! (y)
 
There is hardly any Chem191 stuff I thought.
 
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