Announcement Education Forum Split - Feedback Requested

[Greg Bernhardt]

Hello glorious PFers,

We are looking for feedback and suggestions regarding a possible change to the Education forums. For one thing "Open Practice Problems" will be retired. Its purpose has pretty well fizzled out.

That leaves a possible open slot to add a new sub forum. The initial idea is to split the Academic Guidance forum into two. The split is fairly determined by the prefixes inside. So we'd group Schools, Programs, and Courses into a forum then Studying and Testing etc into another.

We would like you hear your thoughts whether that is a good idea or bad idea (keep as is but remove OPP) or maybe we're close but you'd tweak it or maybe you have a totally different idea for a new sub forum in Education.

All suggestions considered but none promised. If you simply want to show support for the initial idea you can simply "like" this post. Thanks!

 

[Khashishi]

I think it's unnecessary and too much fragmentation.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

How is the "school and courses" group different from "testing"? Practice problems may be done away with, I support that.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

How is the "school and courses" group different from "testing"?

The former is questions about specific schools/admissions and specific courses school's provide and the latter is for questions regarding various exams and testing taking advice/tips etc.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

The former is questions about specific schools/admissions and specific courses school's provide

Doesn't that match a bit with Academic Guidance?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Doesn't that match a bit with Academic Guidance?

The initial idea is to split the Academic Guidance forum into two. Meaning there won't be a general "Academic Guidance" forum

 

[Wrichik Basu]

The initial idea is to split the Academic Guidance forum into two.

Oh yes, that may be a good idea.

Otherwise, I've got another idea. A forum of Education Planning may be added, so as to help teachers make lesson plans for students, and serve as a general forum for discussing education systems and the changes they need. Though I don't know how many users will be attracted by that.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Oh yes, that may be a good idea.

Otherwise, I've got another idea. A forum of Education Planning may be added, so as to help teachers make lesson plans for students, and serve as a general forum for discussing education systems and the changes they need. Though I don't know how many users that will attract.

Good idea, but would that not go under
https://www.physicsforums.com/forums/educators-and-teaching.192/

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Good idea, but would that not go under
https://www.physicsforums.com/forums/educators-and-teaching.192/

I didn't know about that.

Actually PF already has so many forums that I can't find anything new. So I'll support your idea.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Since a great many messages that belong in Academic or Career guidance belong in the others, and the poor mentors must have sore fingers from moving them, maybe they should be merged. Then two new fora could be created.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Then two new fora could be created.

What do you suggest?

 

[fresh_42]

I don't think this would be necessary, but if we do it, I think we'd rather separate the two by "not yet inscribed at a university" and "inscribed at a university". Other differentiating criteria will in my opinion lead to confusion, so why not set the separator at a point where education fundamentally changes anyway.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

I greatly support the creation of the "School, Universities, Programs and Courses" forum. I have 0 idea about US universities, except that I know the names of Berkeley, Harvard or Stanford. Someone else might want to know about Indian universities like IIT, where I might be of help. So, that'll be of mutual benefit.

 

[jim hardy]

Might unearth lesser known schools that way.. Could help kids of lesser means. Heaven knows i could never have afforded tuition at an Ivy League place.

 

[robphy]

If there is such a division,
I think Courses should go with "Studying and Testing" and leave the rest as "Schools, Universities, and Programs".

 

[StatGuy2000]

I personally feel that there is no need to split the Academic Guidance forum. I would argue that we should keep Academic Guidance as is, but just remove the Open Practice Problems. I don't necessarily see a need to have too many sub-forums -- this would lead to a more streamlined website.

 

[ChrisVer]

I think that splitting the Academic Guidance forum is unnecessary. But then again I don't have much of an inspiration for an alternative...

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Great feedback all, keep it coming!

 

[Bystander]

"Open Practice Problems" will be retired. Its purpose has pretty well fizzled out.

Would it be possible to do this stepwise? Something along the lines of the SA/HH nominations; "why is there air" questions can be "deep-sixed" immediately, and others (unanswered Qs) can be retained until a consensus is reached regarding retention/"deep-six."

 

[bhobba]

Might unearth lesser known schools that way.. Could help kids of lesser means. Heaven knows i could never have afforded tuition at an Ivy League place.

These days I believe Ivy's and similar schools like MIT etc give a free ride to, I think the figure is, but don't quote me on it, anyone whose family income is under $60k and on a sliding scale up from that. When I was interested in such things years ago Harvard started the ball rolling and was expected similar schools would soon follow.

It would seem getting into such school's is the issue - not paying for it.

The big problem is the number of such schools are fixed, but with the number of people going to college increasing, the number of applying for places at these schools keeps going up. Parent's often don't understand this and still push their kids to get into these ultra selective schools. Harvard for example has 5% admission rate. Personally my favorite school is Harvey Mudd - it's a better at 13% - but still not easy. Then we have schools like Georgia Tech that IMHO are just as good as the Ivies - but with much higher acceptance rate ie 26%. And maybe just a smidgen below that (13th ranked STEM school) Virginia Tech has an an acceptance rate of 71%. Its important those seeking academic advice know this.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Would it be possible to do this stepwise? Something along the lines of the SA/HH nominations; "why is there air" questions can be "deep-sixed" immediately, and others (unanswered Qs) can be retained until a consensus is reached regarding retention/"deep-six."

I don't follow

 

[bhobba]

Deleted - as the post it responded to was deleted.

My post was purely in response to Jim Hardy's comment about the cost of Ivy's.

If anyone wants to discuss other issues it raises such as if you really need to go to one in the first place to get a top notch education, please start a new thread - it's not what this thread is about.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Let’s stay on topic please

 

[CrysPhys]

This may be slightly off-topic, but since you're considering restructuring Academic Guidance, I have a suggestion for restructuring both Academic Guidance and Career Guidance. They should both be split into US and non-US. OP's should be required to state the country they are in, the country they plan to study in, and the country they plan to work in. In many threads, there are many responses specific to US practice ... and then it turns out the OP is from India or Italy or wherever (not stated up front). Same thing on the flip side: an OP seeking advice on grad school or finding a job in the US and receiving responses from members outside the US not familiar with US practice (not stated up front). Lots of unnecessary confusion constantly arising from different national practices.

 

[bhobba]

They should both be split into US and non-US..

Absolutely.

I am in Australia and the situation here is very different to the situation in the US. I know the US quite well because at one time answered a lot of questions about colleges on Yahoo answers and the vast majority of people that asked there were from the US, so I quickly learned all about the US situation.

Both are entirely different with many different issues - take a look at the thread about if Algebra should be a requirement to graduate from Community Colleges in the US.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Bystander]

I don't follow

1. Homework Statement
For a neuron with the transfer function given below deterimne the weight updates

Here is the issue I met.Could you refer to attache

Couple samples of "immediate" waste of space; both are "drive-by" postings, both are poorly phrased, and both contribute nothing to PF. Delete them. Can be contrasted to

Homework Statement

I need help rationalizing the following:

which is again a "drive-by," but does have redeeming qualities, the request for explanation/rationalization of bond angles. A "keeper."

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Couple samples of "immediate" waste of space; both are "drive-by" postings, both are poorly phrased, and both contribute nothing to PF. Delete them. Can be contrasted to
which is again a "drive-by," but does have redeeming qualities, the request for explanation/rationalization of bond angles. A "keeper."

I apologize for being dense, but how is this in response to my OP? Help me connect the dots :)

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I may understand now and this confusion is due to missing information. The OPP forum contents will return to their respective parental homework forums. They aren't being deleted.

 

[Bystander]

I apologize for being dense, but how is this in response to my OP? Help me connect the dots :)

"Open Practice Problems" will be retired. Its purpose has pretty well fizzled out.

OPP forum contents will return to their respective parental homework forums. They aren't being deleted.

Okay. Just misunderstood you.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Okay. Just misunderstood you.

My OP did not include that missing information. Cheers! :)

 

[mfb]

Instead of splitting by country (which wouldn’t lead to homogeneous forums anyway - Italy and India are as different as India and the US), we could use thread prefixes for common countries (and „other“ for the rest/multiple countries).

 

[Pythagorean]

Instead of splitting by country (which wouldn’t lead to homogeneous forums anyway - Italy and India are as different as India and the US), we could use thread prefixes for common countries (and „other“ for the rest/multiple countries).

I think the point is volume control. If you segregate US from non US, the non US won't get lost in a sea of US and volume should be low enough that each non US isn't flooding the other. May need to add UK and/or CAD too.

Imo, though, there should instead be a neuroscience forum separate from biology :p

 

[CrysPhys]

Instead of splitting by country (which wouldn’t lead to homogeneous forums anyway - Italy and India are as different as India and the US), we could use thread prefixes for common countries (and „other“ for the rest/multiple countries).

I think the point is volume control. If you segregate US from non US, the non US won't get lost in a sea of US and volume should be low enough that each non US isn't flooding the other. May need to add UK and/or CAD too.

Yes, I realize that the rest of the world outside of the US is not homogeneous. There would be an initial US/non-US split. Under non-US, there would be tabs for specific countries (or multiple countries or regions).

 

[fresh_42]

I don't think that a regional separation is helpful. I've seen many threads which aren't related to location. I think this makes sense as the process of studying and the issues caused by human misunderstandings or incompleteness is pretty much the same all over the world. Of course there are also posts which are specifically due to the framework (degrees, tuition, qualifiers etc.) but even those are often general enough if one disregards the names of tests. A split by country seemed artificial to me. In the end we have to rely on a good description of the situation anyway.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Regional separation is not really attainable in our setup because you can't have multiple prefixes. Having separate forums for both will dilute globally applicable advice. Interesting idea for the future though!

 

[TeethWhitener]

For one thing "Open Practice Problems" will be retired.

Are the unanswered problems just going to go back to their respective subfora? I still enjoy playing around with them when I have a spare moment (increasingly scarce though they may be).

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Are the unanswered problems just going to go back to their respective subfora?

Yes and you can always find them by sorting the reply column. We certainly still welcome and encourage their answering.

 

[dlgoff]

I feel this way:

I personally feel that there is no need to split the Academic Guidance forum. I would argue that we should keep Academic Guidance as is, but just remove the Open Practice Problems.

 

[CrysPhys]

The former is questions about specific schools/admissions and specific courses school's provide and the latter is for questions regarding various exams and testing taking advice/tips etc.

The issue that's likely to arise with this proposed split is confusion over where threads on entrance exams (such as SAT's and GRE's) should go, since they are exams that are used for admissions.

 

[CrysPhys]

Regional separation is not really attainable in our setup because you can't have multiple prefixes. Having separate forums for both will dilute globally applicable advice. Interesting idea for the future though!

OK. But I highly recommend a sticky in each (Academic and Career) strongly recommending that OP's provide relevant country info up front and cautioning respondents about strong differences in national practices (that the practices they are accustomed to may not apply for others), and respondents should also identify what country they are talking about.

 

[Vanadium 50]

But I highly recommend a sticky

Stickies are routinely ignored, particularly by new members.

respondents should also identify what country they are talking about.

I agree, but everyone's seen threads where it takes for-ever for someone to finally let us know where he is.

 

[Ibix]

Stickies are routinely ignored, particularly by new members.

Could it be done via a template, like the homework one? No obligation to use it, but if you don't specify where you want to study, note that the advice may be wrong.

 

[CrysPhys]

I agree, but everyone's seen threads where it takes for-ever for someone to finally let us know where he is.

Yes, that's why it's critical that the OPs identify their countries up front.

 

[CrysPhys]

Stickies are routinely ignored, particularly by new members.

Well, my first recommendation was to split the fields into US/non-US. But that has been shot down.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Yes, that's why it's critical that the OPs identify their countries up front.

Sometimes people fill out their location field in their profile.

 

[CrysPhys]

Sometimes people fill out their location field in their profile.

Some do, some don't. Then the burden falls on the respondents to check the profile of the OP ... just to find out that the info isn't there. And even when it is there, it becomes obvious that many respondents don't check (such as respondents discussing options in the defense industry with an OP whose country listed in the profile turns out to be halfway around the world). And in many instances, the current country of residence by itself isn't sufficient (when the OP plans to study or work elsewhere). I answered a post on the "Patent Attorney" thread. Turned out the OP was a citizen of the Philippines, studying in Japan, but wanting to become a patent practitioner in Germany. You would think it would be obvious to include all that info in the first post, but I got that info only after some probing. I think that many OPs (and respondents) operate under the assumption that practices are uniform across the globe and that terminology (such as A Levels) is universal; hence the need for an improved process or (minimally) instructions.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Thanks for all the feedback! Looks like the best course of action is to keep the Academic Guidance forum as it is. However the OPP forum will still be ending and we've decided to bring the homework help forums to the top homepage level instead of sub forums. Thanks!