Each Thursday during the first 10 weeks of the semester, you will take a timed exam called a “WOD” to assess how well you learned that week’s material. The goal of the WOD is to help you assess whether or not you have learned the material from the previous week, and to help you determine if you need to improve your study habits for future weeks.
If you do poorly on a WOD, there are a number of things you can change to improve your performance on future WODs:
If you are not putting in consistent time on 314 (i.e. 2 hours a day, 5 days a week), you should start doing that.
If you are not working on 314 during your high quality periods of the day, you should start doing that.
If you are not studying the readings and taking notes on the screencasts, you should start doing that.
If you are not doing (and/or repeating) the practice WODs, you should start doing (and repeating) them.
If you are not attending the Branden WOD, you should start attending it.
If you are not asking (smart) questions when you have problems, you should start asking them earlier and more often.
WODs are graded in an all-or-nothing format, and there are time constraints. This creates pressure to really study the material for that week. End-of-semester evaluations indicate that, on average, over 80% of students come to recognize that this pressure, while initially uncomfortable, does incentivize them to work hard to learn the material.
It is also my experience that in every semester, every student passed at least one WOD, and there was at least one WOD in which every student passed.
Prior to the pandemic, Thursday WODs were performed under “controlled conditions”, in which it is extremely difficult for students to cheat. and so only practical way to address the time pressures of the WOD was to simply study more effectively. WODs are designed so that if you carry out all of the 6 activities above, you will pass them!
Beyond the grade, a bigger reason to learn how to learn effectively and thus pass the WOD is because the final portion of the course involves a team project where you need to know all of the material covered in the WODs in order to be an effective team member. If you don’t know this material, you will not be an effective contributor and your grade on the final project will also suffer.
During the first part of Spring, 2021, the WODs must be held in an online fashion. This means the WODs are no longer under “controlled conditions”, and thus some students might be tempted to respond to the pressures of the WOD by cheating. Succumbing to the temptation to cheat is really problematic for a number of reasons:
Once you cheat on one WOD, you don’t know if you know that material, and since WODs build on each other, it increases the temptation to cheat on future WODs since your “base” knowledge is not firm.
Cheating initially feels more “efficient” than studying (since it generally takes less time to cheat than to study). But, once you have to work on your team project, your lack of skill will be obvious and harmful to your participation. It is possible to fail the course even if you pass all of the WODs if you do not contribute effectively to the final project.
It’s generally difficult to keep cheating a secret. Once it gets out that some students are cheating, then others might feel compelled to cheat to “keep up”. By cheating, you are eroding the learning environment for everyone.
Of course, if we catch you cheating, you will fail the course, so there’s that risk.
While these are good reasons to not cheat on the WOD, we have decided to make a significant change to the WOD format for Spring 2021 to reduce the “pressure” to perform, and (hopefully) reduce the pressure to consider cheating. The change is that you will be randomly assigned a different partner from the class each week, and you are free to verbally discuss the problem with your partner during the WOD. At the start of the WOD, the instructor will pair up everyone in the class and assign each pair their own breakout voice channel to work in.
More specifically:
You may only use your assigned voice chat channel to verbally discuss the WOD with your partner.
You may not screen share. You may not use any other voice, screen, or text chat channel (in Discord or otherwise). You can only talk to your partner.
You must have your microphone enabled during the WOD. This is so that it’s clear if you have other people in the room with you providing help.
You may not communicate with any other person (except the instructor, via DM) during the WOD about the contents of the WOD.
If someone other than your assigned partner tries to communicate with you about the WOD, you must not respond.
If your partner attempts to screen share with you, please contact the instructor via DM immediately.
You will sign a “Rules of the WOD” form prior to each WOD where you promise to follow these rules.
Note that if you come to the WOD late, then you will not get a partner. So, don’t be late!
Many students who go on to receive an A in the course fail at least one, and sometimes several WODs. This is extremely important to understand: Failing one or more WODs only negatively impacts your grade if you fail to use this feedback to improve your learning process! The project portion of the course results in many additional points, which can offset several failing WOD experiences. We have designed the grading scheme for this course so that, by the end of the course, failure on a few WODs does not prevent you from getting an A in the course. But, if you cheat, and do not learn how to learn, then it is far more likely that you will end up with a poor grade (as well as having not learned the material, which is far worse in the long run).