The problem with our exam system is numbers and lack of knowledgeable people to correct the answer scripts. Answers must be in a form that can be corrected uniformly to avoid unfairness. No critical essays or analytical problem-solving can be corrected so.
If the JEE was written by about a thousand students, you could have had a major section in the exam that asks the student to write a critical analysis of some problem and solutions for the same. Marks can be awarded on the basis of the originality of the solution offered and the nature of the critique. This would probably ensure that only really good thinkers are admitted and also eliminate the coaching culture. However, the problem is the numbers.
Similarly, state universities must cater to a few lakh students and also take into account political realities. Lecturers and students from the districts vehemently oppose "tough" questions. They oppose introduction of more comprehensive syllabi since many lecturers are not learned enough to teach the basic concepts in the subject.
At the valuation centre, we are told to try and pass everyone and to give marks if the key words are written on the paper, no matter in what context. (This also explains why students think I am a nitpicker if I object to sentences where the d-orbital is in the electron).
Hence, it is not possible for the university, even if it recognised the problem, to change the exam system.
Perhaps a two stream BSc would solve this, but I really don't think so.
There could be a pass course and an honours course. The pass course can continue as it is doing, but the Hons course could be allotted to a few select colleges and students expected to study seriously. Only those truly interested in the subject must take it up.
However, after a couple of years, it will be seen that all students want to enrol in the Hons course and then couple of years later will want the syllabus to be diluted and questions not so "tough" in that too There will be a political storm and the university will convert the pass course into an Hons course.
3 comments:
You seem to be obsessed with electrons and d-orbitals, and you always appear to emphasize the importance of learning electrons are in d-orbitals, as if d-orbitals are some baskets which contain eggs (electrons)! It is time that you realize neither electron is in d-orbital nor d-orbital in electron. It is the spatial projection of an electron probability density that we call orbital.
Well, it is important to know that eggs can be in a basket, but the basket cannot be in an egg. More than this, I do not hope for.
This is the time of the year (exams) when I obssess about covalent bond in a nitrogen atom, increase of pH on the addition of 0.1 M HCl to a base, and so on.
As for probability density , angular component of a wave function, etc, students do learn basics of atomic structure, but when it comes to structure and bonding in molecules, they do have to use electrons in a p orbital or a d orbital exactly like eggs in a basket. In fact, we even draw 5 little boxes for the degenerate d orbitals and put electrons as upward or downward arrows.
While I do understand how you teach the concept of chemical bonding, I wrote only after your repeated reference.
As Einstein once said, make things as simple as possible but not simpler.
Quantum mechanics is quantum mechanics only because it has no analogue in classical mechanics. If orbitals are baskets, eggs are electrons which spin as earth spins around itself, then I do not know how many people down there turning in their graves right now...
above anon.
Post a Comment