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Comment by eviks | Hacker News Reader

The easy bad solution: this also gives little incentive to do homework and thus actually learn, instead perpetuating the bad practice of cramming learning before one big "controlled environment" exam.

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From my own university experience . . . admittedly, many years ago . . . for me, the assignments were a distraction from learning. Regardless, it's not the professor's job to force students to learn; it's the student's job to learn if they want to.

> for me, the assignments were a distraction from learning.

How? I can vaguely see it if the assignments were truly out of step with the material, but I cannot understand how relevant assignments are a distraction. In mathematics, and in all CS courses I have taught, assignments are at the core of what you are learning, and the best feedback (to yourself and your teacher) that you have a working knowledge of the material.

If I already understood the material, assignments became busywork that took time away from learning other things. I was not there for grades; I was there to learn. For this reason, I rarely did the assignments and I willingly took the hit to my grade. It is important to understand that not everybody learns in the same way. I have no problem with assignments as a method of learning. I have a problem with being "forced" to do them when I don't find them terribly helpful.

That's a separate issue, but then the solution is not to have assignments at all to avoid distraction, not have them without grading.

The other dichotomy is also strange, especially since the only person with an actual job is the professor - it is in fact his direct responsibility to structure the course, including incentives, to achieve the best learning.

The assignments just teach different things. Arguably the most important things, because they are what is most required to succeed at a job. The theory matters at work too, but actually writing code that works tends to be what matters most.

At the university level, should you really take students by the hand like that and trick them into learning? You have to learn to learn at some point.

How is your argument relevant to cheating? And why are the universities not at the university level since they mandate this practice?

You were saying that assignments are needed otherwise students won't do them and then fail the exam. That's what I was answering to. And it's relevant to cheating on assignments because the thread was about not grading assignments to avoid people cheating on assignments.

I don't understand your second question. Currently, university assignments are graded to hold students by the hand. I'm saying they shouldn't do that.

> And it's relevant to cheating on assignments because the thread was about

The thread was abou that, but your argument wasn't, it suggested an alternative reason for rejecting assignments, so would be true regardless of cheating, thus not related to this thread

It's related in the sense I think stopping cheating should take priority over taking students by the hand.

But I guess I let through that yes, I don't think we should take students by the hand at all and you're right that's a whole different debate.

No, that works well IME. If it's worth something towards the final grade, even 1%, most students will do it. It can be hard to persuade some of my students not to spend multiple hours attempting to get 0.1% more of the course grade by doing another quiz attempt when they've already achieved 90% - I think they're better off moving on to the next thing.

Make the homework compulsory but valid 0 points.

Then many will submit blank papers, or things so low effort that they're as good as good as.

Still needs to be passing...

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