Yoonsuk Jung, Blog assignment #10

Interview research was a pretty difficult task for me. During the interview, the most difficult thing was to make my interviewees understand what I was asking about. I often got ambiguous answers from interviewees when I asked the same questions because it was really hard for me to get them to the points of the questions that I was asking. What is more, this experience of interviewing people reminded me of my influent English skills again. When I spoke to a person, when I needed to change the mood to something exciting, and when I jot down notes, I realized that my English skills are poor and I recognize the fact that I need to practice more English. Sadly, I can count how many times I asked the same questions to my interviewees to write down what they were saying! Anyway, I would to say all my interviewees thank you so much!!

Blog #10 Hayoung Choi

This was my first time writing research paper. I was afraid of writing research paper. I thought it would be hard to write than academic essay. At the first time I choose topic that why there is no football field in our campus. But it was too narrow to write a research paper. So I changed my topic to “what are positive and negative effects when we play sports?” During the interview, I was scared to asked stranger to help with my project. My first interviewee was Jerry Lee. I choose him to ask for help because he looks Asian. I feel comfortable to ask who looks Asian because I am Asian. I interviewed him in front of Hinman discovery center. He answered my question very kindly. He was baseball player since he was in a elementary school. So it was easy to ask about playing sports. Next, I interviewed one class mare and 3 friends and one neighbor. It was easy to ask my friends to help do my interview. I really enjoyed to interview about how other people think about playing sports. Especially Junsuk(Andrew) Kim gave unexpected answers that makes me funny.

Blog #10 Grace Kim

First of all, I really enjoyed this research paper. It was a great experience. I did not wanted to pick a topic that is not interesting. "Marriage" was my topic and I wanted to find out how college student think about marriage these days. I tried to interview as many people as possible but time comsuming was the problem. Library was the best place to interview people but they were all there to study. So it was a little bit hard for me to interview them longer than I wanted. However, my interviewees were very kind enough to answer all of my questions and gave me lots of comments. Also, I tried not to ask questions that are too personal. After this research paper, I found out lots of interesting ideas from college students and I was really glad to share my topic in the class. If I get chance to do another research paper, I'd like to interview more people so that I can see the real pattern and get more information.

Jacob Lee #10

The interview I did was quite fun and enjoying. I think it was because it was mostly done by the people I knew. I had fun talking with the people who were close to me and I got to know them better. Also the topic to me was interesting, so I had fun talking about how they used the internet. Moreover it made me obtain some interesting facts about the people. When we started to talk about the interview they did not have much interest, but soon after the question about what is the most favorable thing, they started talking with enthusiasm. For example, a friend of mine started to talk about facebook, a social site for friends to talk about and have fun. However, once she started we didn’t stop, even when we when way off topic I could not stop talking about it until I had class. Another long talk was that when a friend I knew like to watch Korea dramas. She fist talked about all these dramas that she knew and than the ones that were really famous Drama she could talk about it for hours, but I stopped it before she was starting to bust. Even though it was a great fun to do the interviews, because I cramped it up it was a bit time consuming to do this. I don’t have regrets of doing it but next time I should consider doing it before the due date is close.

Javier Rodríguez "Assignment # 10"

It was an amazing experience to have been in contact with students at Binghamton University and exchange experiences about my research topic. By doing this research I get in contact with people and talked about their opinion about the uses of information communication technologies. It was very helpful for me to have been in contact with other students. This last assignment allowed me to get in contact with a different situation of interviews. It is very helpful to know how to build questions to find information for get a deeper understanding about a topic. I have to say that every thing that we did about interviews it was awesome. Furthermore, this assignment allowed me to establish communication with other people around campus and get their opinion about issues that are currently affecting our society. It is very important to read information about a specific topic but at the same time, having contact with others and interact with them and having their opinions will help you to have a better picture about the issues. As a result, I did enjoy to have been doing this. At the same time, I learned a lot about information communication technologies and also to evaluate what people in my surroundings thinks about that and incorporate their opinions to my own research.

Vanessa Cruz Inoa Blog #10

The interview experience is really different for me because is the first experiences and opportunity on interview peoples in English. In the beginning feel nervous because write the answers of the people and understand the meaning of the words. But them of the first interview all others are really good. Enjoy the different personal experience and learn about others cultures. The different perception and reasons to people move to the United States. How culture change in the people mentality in a new places because the interaction with others learn more about different traditional and cultural concepts. The research surprising is the people talking more them two different language and friends quantity of different countries. Definitely has culture a lot influences in the development of the people in a new places. The new knowledge experiences is the consequences of integration, nteraction between peoples and places. I like the process to collect data, the interviews and the integration of all elements to preparer the research paper.

Blog Assignment #10 (Dahyun Choi)

Well, it was not the first time to do interviewing for me but it was the first time to write a reserch paper with the data which I collected. Since I inteviewed my friends and classmates, it was quite comfortable and I liked it.
At the first time, I decided to write a research paper about the problems of internet. However, when I asked the first interviewee, I found that my topic was too broad. There were too many kinds of problems of the internet and my topic was not really specific. So the interviewee did not really know what he had to talk about. When I asked him, he told me "Is it about problem of personal issues? or is it about difficulties of using the internet? like conncetion or speed?" So I decided to make my main question more detailed.
I enjoyed the interview since there were some answers what I did not expected. Moreover, it was nice to share experiences and ideas each other. The most surprising one was there was one interviee who answered different and opposite opinion compared to the rest of interviees.

Blog Assignment #10 ( Hiu Wing, Chu)

Be honest, I am not really enjoy this interview, because I hate to talk with stranger. However, I know this is my personal problem, so I shouldn’t complain anything. I remember the first people I tried to interview were an American. When I say “hi” to her, she try to pretend really nice to me, but after I told her that I want to ask her a few question, she rejected me immediately. This experience make me have a feeling that interview the same country’s people will be easier, so all of my interviewees are Asian.During the interview, I appear that almost 3 of 10 question have the same answer, It make me know that if I have chance to do it again, the first thing I must do is change those question and make my paper have more different data can support. Moreover, I surprising that happiness is something very personal. What I think is happy might not be the same for other people, such as one of the interviewee think that take a nap in the afternoon can make him feel happy, but in my mind, I just think that is waste time. But whatever their answer, they all agreed that happiness can help to improve their life quality and it is a feeling that they can’t lost in their life!

Andrew Kim "Assignment #10"

Since I had history paper due last friday, i started to prepared for this interview quiet late. But luckily, there were plenty of people going around on campus on sunday, and i could safely finish my interviews on that day. Before the weekend, I actually set an interview appointment with two Korean brothers who live off campus. They were studying in the library even though it was weekend and helped me conducting interviews. I really appreciated them and I feel like buying them a dinner sometime before summer break.

I interviewed mostly Korean people, and used Korean language, which was not very helpful to improvement of my English skill. However, i used English to one of the Koreans, because she was not accustomed to speak in Korean. Even though she is Korean citizen, she spent most of her life outside of Korea, moving around Switzerland, Malaysia, England, Etc , since her father is a diplomat. Interview with her was very interesting, even though her data doesn't reveal any unique patterns.

Lakshmi Blog assignment # 10

The interview was really interesting to me because I selected a topic what I was really into. The answers which I received from the interviewees were into my main question. By collecting data I found that there are new issues for the international students really have to be frustrated. I also didn't know about them before, as I don't get time to hang out with friends. The problems they had was unbelievable to me sometimes as I also didn't have any idea about them. I found myself in person that most of the American students are not helpful the way that they always try to show us, but not all the American students. It could be because of the living style they are used to, which we really cannot understant very easily. The interviewees really liked to answer to the question but several prefered to answer the question paper while I was with them, because they were not confident enough of their language ability. I was so satisfied about the work I did but was annoyed while I was doing my presentation about this in the class, because one of the students was laughing most of the time during my presentation and it made me mostly verge of tears although I started my presentation very confidently.

Blog assignment #10 Jehwan Lee

First when I interviewed person, I couldn't process naturally to question by question. More taking interview, getting better. Memorizing relation between questions was needed to find out interviewee's thinking. It was also helpful to remembering interviewee's opinion when I wrote essay. Anyway, my topic was illegal downloading and not many people had thought seriously so it was little difficult to find good participants. Among them, especially Korean knew expert knowledge. They said their opinion why illegal downloading have spead constantly very detailly. I also Korean and used to do illegal downloading but some of their 'theory' was really interesting. In addition, when I planed to interview, I didn't catch that release their name could make participants uncomfortable because it is about illegal action. Second participlant was stranger and he ask for his name to anonymous. And after that, I didn't ask participant's name to make comfortable so that people say their honesty opinion. Although almost interviewee was friends or neighbor, interviewing, questioning, explaining, analyzing was hard for me. On the contrast, a stranger's opinion was very simple so I could get exact what he said easily:)

Xian Li's blog assignment #10

Have an interview provide an excellent experience for me to communicate with others, especially talk with those students I am not familiar. Actually in my interview, we talked about their internet use and their confidence in the information from the web. What I am impressed is not the answers they gave to me, instead is the difference between students with different major. I always think that more and more students are familiar with computers, some of them may even acquire the programming skills even their major is not computer science. However, when I asked a question that what you will do to your website in order to make it more trustworthy, most of the students told me they think the question was difficult to answer, it is too professional. Even some students studying system science, which is a major quite related with computer science, told me they did not know much about the website design. It really surprised me. This is the first time I felt that computer science maybe look not that easy in other students’ mind:)

Blog Assignment # 10

All posts are due by Wednesday, May 7th at 10pm. All comments are due by Thursday, May 8th at 9am.

1. Write for 10-15 minutes about your experience interviewing. How did it go? Did you enjoy it? Why or Why not? Did anything surprising or interesting happen during any of your interviews? If yes, please explain.

2. Read all posts.

3. Comment on one post.

#9 Jacob Lee

How internet has effect campus stuednts' lifes

Do we see poeple useing post mails these days? I don't think so, we mostly use e-mail. When my parents talk about the how they did reseach was with books and walking around running to places, but know we see students in their room, looking up the internet. Even now the homework assinment we are doing is using the internet. So, to most student internet has became an essenitial skill and media that everyone should be able to use. I use the internet mainly for games and chatting, with a bit of school work. The reason I choose this topic is that I wanted to know what students usually use the internet for and wheter or not people are addictive to the
internet.

Javier Rodríguez "Assignment # 9"

Spatial Diffusion of Information Communication Technologies among College Students

I have chosen this topic because I feel so interested about this. I believe that computer and other technologies have an important role to play in education. The 21^st Century is marked by an era of globalization in which, there is an increasing interconnectedness between people and places around the world. This process is largely driven by the emergence of information based technologies that are rapidly diffusing among various groups around the world. However, not everyone has equal access to these new technologies. This has resulted in a digital divide, which varies among different groups and societies around the world. Ultimately, the onus lies on educators who are expected to adopt new technologies and encourage their students to accept a new generation of technologies that are full of advantages. As a result, I expect to evaluate through this investigation if college students at Binghamton University are encouraged by their professors’ or other different sources.

Yoonsuk Jung, Assignment #9

The world is getting smaller. In modern society, we can make a relationship with foreign people without any difficulties and also experience different culture and language free as communication and transportation develop. Therefore, my topic for research paper is “International Marriage”. The reason why I choose this topic is because international marriage is increasing and is no longer a big issue in our society than before. We can often see quite a number of foreign couples on the street or our neighborhoods. For these reasons, I wonder what kinds of problems international marriage has. What are people’ opinions about the international marriage? And how can they overcome language and culture barriers? After conducting this research paper, I expect to learn people’s various opinions, related problems, and advantages and disadvantages in international marriage.

Vanessa Cruz Inoa Blog # 9

For my research paper I decide writing about culture influences in new places. The culture is the expression of one country. Culture it is many statement of history and country legacy. The social identification between others coutries and peoples. For my is reallly important the people preserve their culture, becuase is a way to keep authonomy and pride by country . Every day living the culture change in different direction. The society movement to different place and the integration of new life styles. Is very important preserve the identity and love by own culture.

Hongchul : Assignment #9

Self-Study and Group Study: Which is more effective?
My research topic is mentioned above.
While some students prefer to study alone, others prefer to study with a group of students. Since there are plenty of advantages to both choices, it is not easy to say which is more effective to students. It depends on circumstances which students encounter.
In my case, group study is more effective than self-study for several reasons. First, I can achieve easily my learning goals within short time by studying together. Students in a group usually do a lot of preparation in order to pass an exam or get good marks. We give quizzes to one another, share materials and sometimes ask questions each other. By doing this, we can study without boredom. This is another advantage of studying in a group.
Next, while studying together, we can learn a sense of responsibility and interpersonal skills. When we study in a group, we should take our share and we can realize our own role in a group by asking for and receiving help one another.
However, I don’t think that most students prefer to group study. Actually I am curious about other students’ opinion.
My main purpose of this research is to know what are pros and cons of each way; self-study and group study. From this research I want to draw a conclusion which way is more effective to students considering field of major, gender, and nationality.

Lakshmi Blog Assignment #9

I have decided to research about "Iternational Students" for my final paper. I know it's a broad topic but I have to analize it to focus on for what I really want to talk about. I know as an international student how difficult this new environment is. I still couldn't come out of the shell I am really sticked in, and want to find out the exact reasons for the frustration of the international students suffer. Sometimes we think that a certain reason should affect our feelings but it would not be the exact reason. As we are too confused about the things we see and hear around us it's difficult to have a clear picture at once. I hope to do this research among various kinds of students, not only interviewing international students, but American students too. So, I thought it would be important and interesting to find out the frustrating reasons haunting around us which would sometimes be really helpful to find ourselves.

Andrew Kim "Assignment #9"

My topic for research paper is: "Campus life". Especially i want to look at this main question: Do students prefer to live on campus or off, and why?

The reason why I chose this topic is because recently, i have internal conflict in my mind where to live next year. Personally I don't have much good feelings about living on-campus mainly because of foods and facilities. Living on campus seems like no beneficial to me right now, but there would be also some unpredicted disadvantages if i live off campus. So I want to know other students' feelings about living on or off campus. Students have various positive and negative thinkings about campus life which can be measured from interview.
Additionally, it does not need much of external knowledges and it is easy to approach.. Perhaps i can write paper just by what i interviewed.

Ultimately, i want to measure which things should be improved how, in what ways, for
every BU students' welfare.(Even if the improvements are unattainable, i'll just write it, because this is ESL research paper, which is not for actual use.)

Things to consider about Campus Life:

facility(Dormitory,Lecture hall,Library,printer)
exercise- field,gym

Dining service- food, menu, foodcourt
transportation
nearby trading area
cost - room&board/ apartment fee if you live off-campus
employees- their service, kindness
International students -breakhousing
disabilities students -??

Ha young Choi blog #9

My topic is about sports. why I choose this topic is because I really like to play sports. Especially I like to play soccer. In binghamton University there are lots of soccer fields to play. But I am curious about why there is no american football field and varsity team which play football in binghamton university. I want to know BU students that whether they like we don't have any football field and team or not. And also want to know that wath kind of sports students like it most.

Blog Assignment #9 ( Hiu Wing, Chu)

My topic of research paper is "happiness". I choose this topic is because happiness can affect our quality of life. In our dailylife, we always face so many different pressure and problem to make us feel depress,but happiness can bring us pleasure, joy, exhilaration, bliss, contentedness, delight, enjoyment, and satisfaction those positive mental state feeling. Therefore, I want to know more what factors are important in achieving happiness and how can we achieving it.

Blog Assignment #9 Jehwan Lee

I choose a topic about illegal download on the internet. Theseday because of spreading internet user, sharing information and file ilegally is issued. The objective of illegal download file is various from secret technology of company to recent movie.Especially media contents is seriously active sharing person to person on the internet so it cannot be prevented. I am very interested in this issue because I have used programs to download illegally. However in the past, there were no restriction to download so there is no wonder people don't want to quit this illegal conduct even although they know what they should do. Also the copyright law to protect from illegal downloading should be more flexible to download because internet is becoming percieved the most big market to the world. Media contents take advantage of internet at the same time, a system that paying information fee to use media contents has to be created.

Dahyun Choi (Blog Assignment #9)

My topic of research paper is internet and I believe that it is really familiar to us. I am also interested in this topic and have been wondered how many people have had any trouble when they used internet. Since I have had some privacy problem when I used internet, I would like to know how other people think and react about it. Well, although internet has provided us convenience life, I think there are lots of problems caused by it like privacy, security, ethical issues and so on.
The questions that I may going to ask to the people are;"What was the problem when you used internet?" "What was the consequence of the problem?" "Did the problem effect the way in which you use internet? If yes, how did it effect?"

Xian Li's Blog #9

The topic of my paper is “trustworthiness of web information”, which is actually the research topic of my graduate study. As we all know, internet serves as one of the most important information repository. According to the survey, most people use internet as knowledge reference or for daily life information. However, because of the autonomy property of web sites, there is no guarantee that online information is trustworthy. The trustworthiness problem is extremely severe, because students depend on it as study reference, shoppers enjoy the convenience of online shopping and even when people feel ill they would like to search medical information on the web.

I choose this topic in order to collect students’ opinion on the web information trustworthiness, moreover get to know how common users identify a piece of information is trustworthy or not. There must be some features for their identification and all these features may help generate some heuristic rules which are going to help building a system evaluating page trustworthiness. I plan to interview students from different major as well as one or more professors. Hopefully, I can generate useful research conclusion.

Yulia Smirnova Blog # 9

My topic of the reseach paper is about Nutrition. I chose this topic because I am intersted in it. When I first time came to USA, I did not know what to eat. All food here is different with food in my country. Also now I have problem with food, I can't eat healthy in America. But this is very important for everybody, because we are what we eat. It will be interesting to know do american people eat healthy or do they know how to eat healthy?That's the questions that I want to know in my reasech paper.

Blog Assignment #9

Due date to post is Wednesday, April 16th by 10pm. Due date to comment is Thursday, April 17th, by 9am.

1. Write for 10-15 minutes about the topic you have chosen for the field research paper. Why did you choose this topic? What do you hope to learn from conducting research about this topic?

2. Read all posts.

3. Comment on one post.

Xian Li's blog assignment 8

I have written some research paper before and have some basic idea about what an engineering research paper looks like. I remembered Hongchu talked about the difference between engineer research paper and the APA or MLA principle in class. Actually it is the same as what I have found. In our research paper, all the references are listed with a sequential number in front of each reference. The cited journal papers, conference papers, and web links have almost the same format. In our own paper, if necessary to cite the idea of another paper, we only need to provide the number of the corresponding reference and put it in parenthesis. There is no need to provide the exact page number or section number. This style is widely used in Press like Springer and IEEE, ACM .etc. Therefore, I find the APA and MLP style a little complicated than what I know before.

Yoonsuk Jung, blog assignment #8

To be honest, I do not have much experience of writing a research paper so I am not sure exactly what to write about, however in my perspective, the main difference of between a research paper and academic essay is that a research paper is based on facts. Also, it would be summarized as some features. First, a research paper needs a typical format which is APA and MLA. Second, a research paper requires a writer to be critical and thoughtful skills in order to analyze his hypothesis based on datum or sources. Therefore, a research paper should be contained writer’ own interpretation or evaluation. Third, a writer has to survey and collect information that is reliable and related to a main subject in order to increase reliability of a research paper and persuade readers. When I write a general academic essay, I mean paper, I try to make my position clear through agree or disagree and express my though. A research paper would be stiff than a general academic paper and it would be complicate and difficult too. However, I think if we understand and practice how to write a research paper, we can be a skillful writer tool.

Hongchul : Assignment #8

Writing a research paper is to wrap up all kinds of stuffs relating to research including the concept of topic, research history, and own test results. Once we choose the research topic, we usually survey previous works or papers regarding our topic and try to find any immaturity in my research area. It is necessary to build and validate my theory which is to make up for the immaturity of my research area. Undoubtedly, there are many trial and errors in building and validating my own theory. By overcoming tough process, we can learn how to solve the problem and what the essence of my research is. In this point of view, since I am familiar with my research area, it is not difficult to write a research paper.
On the other hand, how about writing an academic essay? Frankly speaking, I am not used to write an essay since I don’t like to write a story. Especially, the topics which we are dealing with in the ESL class are beyond my concern and there are many unfamiliar nouns and definitions in the reading articles needed for writing. Also writing style in the essay is different that of research paper.
Although it is more difficult for me to write an essay than to write a research paper, I am sure that writing exercise can give me a chance to enhance my writing skill.

Blog #8 Hayoung Choi

In this semester, I only wrote academic essays. I have been writing academic essays in my esl 210 writing class. Yet I didn’t have a chance to write reserch papers. I thought only harder level classes are give a research paper assignments to students.
Like I wrote in esl class, I wrote academic essays, I read articles or stories in the book and wrtting about my thoughts, agree or disagree with the author’s point. Then I support my idea using examples like my experineces related to the topic. Gives more detail to my opinion.
I said previously in this writing, I never wrote research papers yet. I heard rules that how to write reaseach paper from my friends. Almost all of my friends said research paper is harder to write than academic essays. Research paper is about writing facts and informations form other books, journals and articles to support own idea. It seems to be harder to find appropriate examples from various sources. And also have to think abput plagiarism. Because we are using other’s writings. In my opinon, research paper is harder to write than academic essays.

#8 Jacob Lee

My whole life writing a research paper was a very rare event. To start with in Korea people do not write much, and the only thing they write about is what they felt after reading a book, or for test, which is nothing like a research paper. The first time I had encountered a research paper was with the biology class I took last semester. I did really bad on it, because it was the first time for me to write a research paper. The most significant different that I have noticed is that there are not much of my opinions, by itself. All the martial used in the paper must be supported by not my experience but by something that is strictly true or what most people think that is true. Especially for me the hardest part was that I always use to back up my views with my experience, but the research papers did not allow that also they it was not a good idea to use the would I, me, us, and other words that I mostly use in my papers. Another thing that is different from an essay is that it has an exact format that should be followed and that if you don’t you get penalties for it. Therefore, what I want to say is that compared to a free writing essay writing a formal research paper is not many people enjoy

Andrew Kim "Assignment #8"

In academic essays, i could use many of my personal experiences. After few minutes of concentration, old and almost forgetted experiences poped up in to my mind and made me enjoy writing. It also helped me a lot with supporting my ideas, connecting paragraphs smoothly, and enabling me to keep writing. Unfortunately, I can't use any of my topic related experiences when i write research paper. In terms of this, research paper would be somewhat more objective than plain academic paper.

So far, I don't have any experiences of writing a research paper and i think it would be kind of annoying. Research paper is going to force me to stay in library for a long time makes me read several books and articles. To read all those books and articles which are related to topic of the research paper, however, time would be not enough. So I might have to skim most parts of books, and inversely, pick only some important parts of the books and read those thoroughly. While read, maybe i have to quote a lot and put bunch of references side by side, which would be really boring task. I'm afraid i have to do that pretty soon, the time is coming.

Lakshmi Blog Assignment #8

I am confused about writing my research paper for the first time in my life. As we already keep going through writing academic essays it's easy to understand how to write such essays. Although I don't have experience in writing research papers, I think that it's more complicated than writing an academic essay. When we write academic essays we only consider about one or two articles. We give our perspective while considering the facts which could be agreed or disagreed. But in a reseach paper we have to go deeply into a specific subject matter and have to analize the specific facts comparing with other materials. To find out appropiate facts we should read lot of books, articles ,journals etc. The issues we focus to consider on those readings should well organized and should open a new path to a new research work and it would be more detailed with evidence provided. Although I feel this as how a reserch paper is I am still trying to understand it. It's good to know how to do research work then we can focus on some new findings through our major academic career. I am willing to do mine.

Vanessa Cruz Inoa Blog #8

Writing whatever paper is important, but exist different type of paper and one of this is research paper. The research paper it is a compilation of another papers and investigation. It is the process was need create; methods, hypothesis, data set, and another’s. The methodology to write research papers it is different, because it is more consistent and directly with the discovery. The founding represents important part of the research paper, because adjudged one part most important in the analysis of research. Need the research paper answering the question what have the hypothesis and check the information with the discovery. It is an exhaustive investigation and analysis of the study. The essay corresponded to interpretation of the reader and couples of important quotation in the reading and analysis of the same. For me the essay correspond to necessity of comunication a idea and personal interpretation The different between research paper and essay for me it is the process of analysis and interpretation. Because essay it is more liberal in the expression of ideas and research paper it is more scientific, is more necessary the investigation and founding.

Blog Assignment #7 ( Hiu Wing, Chu)

Be honest, I never write the research paper before, so I don’t have any in depth concept to tell about the different between research paper and academic paper. I just know that it is a piece of academic writing that requires a more abstract, critical, and thoughtful level of inquiry than the regular academic paper.
In my mind, I always think that research paper’s requirement is much more that academic paper. Because if you want to write a research paper, first of all, you need to know the material really well and you also need to find a lot of data and statistics to support your point and ideas. For example, academic paper can be a paper which gives your feedback after reading an essay, or talk about your own experience without any support, however research paper should present your own thinking backed up by others' ideas and information. Moreover, the length of the paper must more than academic paper a lot. Because writing a paper is really a terrible time for me, so I always try my best to escape the class which have long paper to write, that’s why I don’t have any experience of writing research paper. Furthermore, research paper needs more strict format and structure, like the APA style, to deal with the references sources. Although academic paper also uses MLA style for references, we won’t see many references in the paper most of time.
Finally, the last concept that I have in research paper is money! Many teacher’s salary is depends on their research paper, that’s why some of the teacher is more care about those paper than student.

Blog Assignment #8 (Dahyun Choi)

Unfortunately, I do not have an experience of writing a research paper in college yet but I assume that it might be quite different from writing academic essays. There would be more facts and conclusions of other resources and we may required to write the references which we learned last class. On the other side, in academic essays, I think there will be more my own thinkings, feelings, experiences and examples while the most text of a research paper consists of the work already done by someone. And as I assume there will be less agree/disagree about a specific text since it is a research paper.
For example, if I decide to research on grading system and write a research paper about it, I may write mostly about the facts and examples already found and explained from other writers rather than my own experience or feelings.
I think writing a research paper will be hard work to do since we may required to do lots of research and they should be relevant to my paper. And I did not have many opportunities to write it so it will be challenging to me. But I also believe that writing a research paper is necessary and useful in college life since I think there will be many moments to write research papers compared to now.

Blog Assignment #7 Jehwan Lee

The most difference between research essay paper and writing essay paper is that whether the writer write the essay based on fact or not. It is same both type of essay has author's opinion about topic. However, in research paper, the progress to reach conclusion is supported by the fact that people already know and recognize it is true. The conclusion is called hypothesis. For example, if I want to insist new theory about chemistry, first I would build hypothesis and write a reason to support it. Again, the reason should be "true" which all of people perceive. If the reason is logically support the hypothesis, it would be recognized theory. Because the support is fact, this type of essay is used to be taken in science. On the other hand in case of writing essay paper, there is no format such as hypothesis and theory. Even there is no absolute true in this feild although some common criteria is existed. Former format of this type is first intro to introduce what the author issue in paper, make support idea in body and summury in conclusion. Because there is no restrict to take idea, the author's logic is most important. Most of this type of essays are used in socialogy, humanistic academic feild.

Blog Assignment # 8

All posts are due by April 2nd, 10pm.
All comments are due by April 3rd, 9am.

1. Write for 10-15 minutes about writing a research paper and how it might be different from writing academic essays, which is what you have been doing so far this semester. Use examples to support your ideas.

2. Read your classmates' posts.

3. Comment on one post.

Yulia Smirnova Blog # 7

I think that hard classes are better. Because when you have easy classes,you don't study so well, you don't do your homework every time,you are always relax. However when you have hard classes all the time you try to make yourself better in these classes,try to understand everything, you do all your homework, try to do your best. I think so, because last semester I had harder that this semester. So I know that last semester was more active and difficult. But now I have more free time,I feel like I became a little bit lazier.I have more time to talk with my friends, to go out, to sleep, to eat. My life became slowly. Also last semester I studied more. So the first thing that I will do next semester I will take hard classes.

Andrew Kim "Assignment #7"

Harder class is sometimes frustrating, but it can be better for ourselves.

I'm taking American history class which is very challenging. In the beginning of semester, many of my friends asked me "Are you serious? Why don't you take that in another school?" The course that i'm taking is notorious for its huge amount of readings and writings even though it is 103 level course. Each week, I struggled with readings and most of time ended up with finish less than half of the assigned readings. I felt like being tortured first several weeks, because i couldn't say any words about the books in discussion class.

I was once thought about become historian, and was good at multiple choice world history. But everything was totally new to me in this short period of American history. It broke my arrogance and made me work hard. As a result, nowadays I feel like i'm learning something. Today i'm done with my history mid-term, which was divided into two day exam. (identification of terms on 3/17, three short essays and one long essays on 3/19.) It was my first all essay exam and was the hardest exam i have ever taken. I just wrote crazily and don't remember much about how i wrote it. But the important fact is that i wrote all the assigned essays, although i'm not sure about my score.

Xian Li's blog assignment #7

After taking a midterm exam, the topics we are talking in class recently become so vivid. I do not like a very hard class because it will not help the students understand the essence of the class. Just as our presentation, professors always require me to make things as simple as you could so that we can attract the audience’s attention. In order to make a class better, the best way is starting from something easy to understand and gradually adding challenges. Students like challenges but not too much at a time. Just as my examination today, I spent several days on reviewing. However, most of the questions are beyond the scope of our lecture notes. I confessed I was defeated and would pay more effort to the course. But I really felt scared of the course because it was that difficult. Therefore, I think “the harder, the better” is not correct, at least it should not be a guideline for teachers to give lectures.

Hongchul : Assignment #7

I am not sure that the harder class, the better class. Sometimes the hard class may urge lazy person to greater efforts, while it may discourage him from success in that class. It depends on circumstances. However, based on my experiences a certain level of laborious works considering student’s ability is necessary to succeed in the class.
First of all, it is common that most people are apt to delay their works if there are no limitations and constraints in the class. Strict grading is considered as one of constraints. When the teacher grades student’s works strictly, most students feel stressed about the grade. To get good grade they should be always on time to their class, keep the due data, and succeed in the test. To do so they can easily get the educational goal of the class. Meanwhile, it is observed that some students are lazy to do their class without any hard works and constraints in the auditing class. In this case, the hard class is beneficial to student’s work in their class.
On the other hand, if the class is too hard for students to keep up with the class, the hard class discourages most students from success in the class. When the students are not satisfied with their class due to the hard working, the efficiency of their works in class is too low so that they may not succeed in their class.
The Analects of Confucius says, “It is always safest to take the middle course.” I am sure that a certain level of laborious works within the student’s ability is indispensable for our class.

Vanessa Cruz Inoa Blog: # 7

All the class represents different vision of the education. In some time has class harder, class easy or class better compared with another’s. The class it is a methods of learning, a complement between student and professor. Some times also one class represents a student’s goal. I my own experience the class with harder are in the university are Statistics Analysis, class. The professors are excellent, she it is really nice person but the class material it is really harder. The understanding the process of the equation, memorizing and calculate the exercises aren’t easy and it isn’t my strength. For example to the class are necessary use computer program SPSS, I haven’t idea how use this program. . Oh my Lord, never in my life makes one course really difficult. The first test it is five pages, plus vocabulary definition of 7 words. For my important are learning in the class and understand the class material.

This it is an example of my own experiences, but really true for many students aren’t easy learn and understand some else class. The student development reflects the feed back of the class. The responsibility of improve, learn and discover are represent a compromise. Between the student and professor this is dependent of the class are good or bad the most important are the effort and dedication of both.

Javier Rodríguez "Assignment # 7"

Personally, I don’t think that harder class makes it a better class. As students we are accustomed to being stuffed with so much information. This means that most of the information that we received in school is imposed by our teachers. Furthermore, this type of education represents traditional ways of teaching. Today, many academics believe that education has the onus to prepare students to be able to answer objectives test which measure the capacity and success of each student. However, many educators think that harder test and harder facts helps students to improve their critical thinking. In some ways this information makes students lose their interest on class subject and incite them to don’t pay any attention to class which results in lower grades.

I think that educators are confusing challenging with memorization. Students with a better ability to memorize facts will do better in tests. Furthermore, in order to provokes commitment on students’ educators has to explain how these facts helps them to improve their knowledge and also how these facts can be applicable to their life.

In my own experience, I gain more interest on topics when they are related in some way to my live. If topics are not related to my interest why I should pay attention? In conclusion, a harder topic does not make a class better. In order to improve students achievements educators has the responsibility to illustrate that information in a different way to facilitate student’s understanding.

Ha young Choi Blog #7

If the classes are hard to study, that doesn’t mean that the classes are better than others. Students have to take the class that they can understand what professor teaches and enough challenged to do their homework. If classes are too hard to follow then students will get a bad grade and disappointed on their grade. They don’t understand the material fully. Then they could renounce the class or lose interests. If they lose interest, students won’t try hard to learn something from class. On the other hand, if the classes are too easy that they already know what professors are teaching, students won’t work hard to learn and have no interest in the class. In my case, I took calculus class last semester. I wasn’t prepared to take the class. The class was hard for me to study. I almost failed a first exam, when I saw my grade I disappointed my mathematical skills and my grade. I tried hard to get better grade on second exam. But I got bad grade that I did not expect. I got discouraged. As I have said, the level of classes are depends on ability of students to understand and feel they are learning something. If a student is good enough to take hard class then it is ok. But a student isn’t good enough to catch up the class then he or she shouldn’t take the harder classes.

Blog Assignment 7 (Dahyun Choi)

Sometimes harder classes make the students to do harder as I do. However, I do not think that the difficulty of a class and success of the class are not really related. Of course, there will be lots of works to do and these may help the students to take more time to think about the lesson. Sometimes the class materials are hard to understand and the learners find that it is hard to keep in the class. On the other hand, there could be bad situations as well. Instead of taking more time and effort, they may give up early. As the students feel less satisfied towards their performance, they may feel less achievement. As the result, they would just pretend to doing the works during the class or furthermore, they may drop the course. And I don't think that like these classes will be better or successful.
In my experience, when a class was too difficult and harder than I expected, I just dropped the course. I thought that I was not able to perform well. For certain amount of hardness of a class may be helpful to encourage the students. But I do not think that the harder classes will always lead to the classes better. I believe that a proper amount of difficulties of a class is important to both of the teacher and students.

Yoonsuk Jung, Blog assignment #7

Some people may believe that the harder class, the better standard because they can profoundly concentrate on their study rather than easy class. When someone experience or achieve his or her extremely difficult class, they can obtain valuable things such as a confident manner, endurance, and a high intellectual level of study.
However, it does not always closely relate to that the harder class, the better standard. When a student frustrated in his or her class because of huge difficulty, some negative effects will be happened such as negative attitude, losing interest or confidence of study, and gap of relationship between classmates or teachers. From my experience, when I was confronted by extremely difficult class, I felt stupid and a derelict. I did not want to do anything and lose a scholastic spirit even though I constantly suffered from pressure falling behind my other classmates. Therefore, it is difficult to judge which type’ class could benefit for students between hard and easy class and it also depends on students, teaching method, and subject.

Lakshmi Blog Assignment #7

As a buddhist I believe the middle path is the best way to recieve everything in the life. Education also should be in the same path. It should not be too easy or too difficult. When we talk about the word hard there are three stages in that word too. Hard, harder and hardest. So the middle word is harder. If the class is just hard it interpretes like easy. But when it is said harder it brings some kind of value to the education. It's not valuable when we get things easily. It should be much difficult then it is easy to evaluate too. When the class work is harder the students have to sacrifice their time spending on their studies. When they feel it is not that easy to acieve their goals they understand that they should read and should be prepared to get good grades. So I believe it is really important to be harder to be better.

Blog Assignment #7 Jehwan Lee

Generally people think that if the class is hard, it would be bad for students because it means take learning more than they can understand. On the other hands, I insist that this is not always true. When we treat individually harder material, we can get more knowledge and learn ability for solving difficult problem. For example, I used to take the method that I practice the problem more difficult than that of text book. If I study like that, I would understand that material because I learned deeper than text book suggest. But there are problems if this method are applied on whole class. First in this case, student's self-study becomes extremely important. In other word, if there is no motivation to try to understand that difficult stuff, students would be feel boring easily. Next, evaluating students will be harder. If the class is harder, usually the gap of each student's understanding material is bigger. Therefore, if the teacher evaluate usual grading system same as other class, it is possible that average grade is too low. The solution I suggest is that separate students by ability and teach them with suitable class level. It will make increase efficient of education.

Hiu Wing, Chu Blog #7

Many different factors can make the class become better, such as a good teacher and small class size, but I don't think the harder class can be one of these factors. First of all, the harder class might means the class exam are more difficult, or the course cover the harder material. However, it is not means that after the student took the class, they will become better and have the improvement.Therefore, if the class is too hard and students can not handle it, the class just will become useless, and meaningless.
Since when the meterial in the syllabus is so "challenged" that only have few students can understand it, then the remaining student in order to pass the class or get the good grade, they only can memorizing all the statements and answers without comprehend. Finally, they will delete those "data" in their mind as soon as possible and learned nothing at all. Then what's the point that we have to had a harder class in order to make the students better?
Furthermore, do you know what is the use of grade, like freshmen, junior, senior? Grade is use to seperate students into different levels by their abilities. Hence, why we still need to make the course harder after we assign the student to class appropriately? It doesn't make any sence!
Sometimes the harder class might help some genius, but not all of the student. As a result, the class harder will not make the class better.

Grace - Blog #7

It doesn’t mean the classes are better if the classes are harder. It’s all depends on the student’s ability to take the harder class or not. There are lots of different styles of classes. Some can be easy going because of the professor explains things well or because of the good TA. However, I think it’s all depends on how the student has the real interest in that class or not. Even if the class is easy, if you are not enjoying that class, you don’t have the motivation to participate well in that class. You won’t be excited learning new thing or for the fun assignments. The student will just wait for the class to end or stressing about the class works etc. Also, sometimes student think that taking harder class will make them look smart, “showing off”. However, it won’t make a better class. The class is consists of the professor and the students. Of course there will be some students who just take some classes they don’t like just to fulfill the requirements. However, harder class doesn’t mean better class because class suppose harmonies together; the professor and the student. Even though It’s not a hard class, if most of students try to participate more or enjoy the class and the professor is always helpful, then I think It’s better than the advanced classes where all the A+ students are at but they all just care about their own priority. Taking harder classes won’t make them better but having a mind for the class is more important and it will make a better class.

Jacob Lee blog #7

It is a bit vague to say that if classes are hard. In a class all the students cannot have the same level of education. Even with the same environment students have different thoughts and reactions to everything. However, I think that a class should be a bit high slandered than what an average student can cover. If the class becomes too hard students would start to give up and just leave the class. On the other hand if the class is to easy the students will not study and not prepare much.
I had a biology class which was not my taste. It was really a pain in the butt. I when to every class that was on a school day and all the discussions that were important to the subject. Thus, my grades were falling to the ground which was out of my expectations. I think that it was really hard to see that the average was 50%, which means that most students barely understood half of the material that the professor was teaching. Due to the reason most of the student gave up their grades and changed the grades to pass/fail.
My music class was different, the test were so easy that students did not even come to class, so most of the time the class was empty. I did not think the professor cared about attendance at all, but it was easy that most students almost ignored what the professor said.
Therefore, in my point of view, classes should not be easy, but also not too hard that it will make students give up the class course

Blog Assignment #7

All posts are due by 10pm Wednesday March 19
All comments are due by 9am Thursday March 20

1. Write for 10-15 minutes about the following: If your classes are harder, does it make them better classes? Why or why not? Support your ideas with examples.

2. Read all posts

3. Comment on one post.

****It's almost Spring Break!*****

Yoonsuk Jung, Blog assignment #6

A grading system is the simplest and easiest way to evaluate person’s ability in the world. However it cannot evaluate students’ inner value such as creative talent, potential capability, and cooperative spirit. Therefore, we can often find some problems like limitations in our grading system. First, our grading system is very strict and not flexible rather than fair. There is no fixed pattern or general form to evaluate our hidden abilities. It simply gives a grade like A, B, C, D, and F to students according to their test results. In addition, our grades can be differently evaluated by each different professor’s taste or preference. For instance, when I was a freshman, I took an economic class with my friend but the only different things were class time and professor. My professor focused on students’ class-participation like attendance, assignment, presentation, and discussion than exam. However, my friend’ professor only focused on two-exam results. The end of semester, we were under totally different situation. I cannot get a high grade even though I spent most my time to catch up my class and got a high grade each test. However, my friend just got a huge curve from his professor so he can easily get a high grade “A”. Second, a grading system can make trouble between students or between professor and student. The reason is that some students want to get a high grade from their class without sweat. It means that a student who does his or her best in class can be damaged. What is more, if a student did not get a high grade from his class, he complains or blames their professor’ method of grading. Therefore, a grading system could lead to a potential dispute between people who work hard and with honesty and people who lack in academic morals and cheat and copy others work getting grades that they do not deserve.

Jacobl Lee Blog Assignment #6

Living in Korea I had grades graded as numbers, at the end they gave us letter grades but when we got our reports it was in numbers rather than letter grades. However in American it was a bit different to what I am used to. They give out letter grades with curves. In my point of view people will become less competitive for their grades compared to Koreans who get the total average on their report card. People would less want to be the best, the number one, because how hard the person works he would get the same grade as the person who did less work and got an A. Working much more harder and getting the same grade even thought I got a higher grade. Also for students who fail the class might not care much about their grades, but on a report showing an F on the report card with a score of 30 is better then having the 30 grade. It could be less embarrassing. On the other hand, it would make the student more discouraged, because if he would have the same grade as someone with the grade of 50 when he got 30, the student would think it is the same thing. To sum up I personally think that letter grades are not the best grading system, thus show the exact grade average by number might kill the hope of wanting to get a better grade.

Blog 6 - Grace

There are many ways of giving grades depends on different countries' academic institutions. Among them, As, Bs, Cs grade system is the most famous and traditionally used. However it’s somewhat unfamiliar to me. I took an IB courses and it has 7 levels 1 to 7. Also, when I was in grade 7 to 8 in Korea, there were no such thing as As and Bs. My grades were mostly bases on the just how much I got from the exam or the assignment. So everybody was very competitive about getting perfect score in every subject. So It still effects me and I always try to get an A for everything and if sometimes I get an B, I feel really bad for myself. So I think it’s the problem of a bad impression for student too. For example, in my astronomy class there is no curve system. So if one get 79, it’s still an grade C. We can’t say 79 is a bad score but when it appears on your report card, it will still be an C and it will drop one’s GPA. Secondly, another problem of As and Bs grade system is that it’s unfair for a person who got the nearest score for the next grade. For example, the range of grade A was 90 to 100. Then if there was a student who got 89 for his math exam, then he will end up getting B just because he missed 1point. On the other hand, it’s an advantage of a student who got 80 on his math exam but end up getting B because he has 1point higher from grade C’s range and he just made it. If it was the case in Korean education, these both students will just remain the score they got. So there’s already 9 points difference which will make a huge gap for their average. I think As and Bs grade system is the most well known grade system in the states because it’s most reasonable and useful from people could think of. However, I think grade comes from how much effort you put in.

Blog Assignment 6 (Dahyun Choi)

I think the grade options are quite limited and it is just a tool for easier process in traditional academic situations. And these grade options cause several problems to the students and the education system. Since we define the grades as As, Bs, Cs and so on, it is easy to think that getting better letter grade is doing a good job. Moreover, if a student got a bad grade in a class, even though the student liked the course or participate in the class, it is the only way to define the students all of attitude, ability and skill. And we will assume that the student was bad at class. And I do not think sometimes the grading system is not fair. Grading is often subjective and it tends to made a teacher’s opinion without any objective reason.
When I took a Art class, I drew really hard. I took many time to do my homework and research assignment. Every time the professor evaluate my work, he gave me lots of praise and encouraged me. I thought I was very good at drawing. On the last day of the class, he asked me to give him some pieces of works which I drew and he said he wanted to use them as his material for the next semester. I agreed and gave my works. But, I was shocked after I got the grade. I got unbelievable grade for this course and I was confused. It was hard to accept so I sent him an e-mail about my grade. He said, he thought the grade was reasonable and he said he could not change it. But the grade was really bad and it was the worst grade I had. There was no way to prove it since it was a Art class and there was no quizzes or tests.

Javier Rodríguez "Assignment # 6"

Nowadays, education is going through an era of changes. Educational structures have the onus to develop new and better social entities. However, a letter grade is an old system which evaluates student's performance. This old system represents those members of a society who has the ability to memorize or apply certain concepts in class. On the other hand, we have a person who does not have the same ability to learn or associate in the same way than others do. Our contemporary grade system does not represent the capacities of every member on a society. Every member of a society (students') has many ways of learning. It so impressive how many college professor or others educators preach about a change but are doing nothing to make a change.

According to the article, "The Farce Called "Grading" many educators having the same paper to grade comes up with different grades. An educator uses their own criteria to evaluate student performance which is understandable. But this grade letter system needs to be changed for something that evaluate in an equal way those students’ who are doing their best to get better grades but does not have the availability to obtain them. Grading system needs to be transform to a system that evaluate student’s performance but at the same time evaluate students’ effort. This letter grade system just provokes in students an instantaneous action of memorization.

In conclusion, students’ just go school and memorize things for test. Therefore, those who have the ability to remember more will receive better grades. Letter grades are not representing students knowledge just represent the ability of these students to accomplish with academic requirements. But this evaluation system does not recognize these students’ who can apply this knowledge in other ways.

Ha young CHoi Blog #6

Usually not only one professoer can teaches a course. Several professors teach same subject and concept with different textbook, time and number of studnets. Because of different professor teaches a class there are different syllabus, how to rate grade and number of assignments. In this semester, I have been taking “principle of micro economics” course. I looked up the syllabus. I have 2 mid term exams and 1 final exam. I also have pop quizes more than 3 times in the semester I have assignment every week. Here is a problem, one of my friend have been taking same micro economics class but different professor. One day i was doing a assignment in the library and I saw my friend who is taking different class. I asked him “Don’t you have assignment due on Friday?” and he replied “We don’t have assignment this week. We only had 2 homeworks until now.” Our class had more than 4 assignments from begining of the semester. Last week, I took mid term exam and also my friend took the mid term exam. When I saw he’s test sheets questions are easier than what I took. He is learning little different from what I am learning in my class. Esspecially he got better grade than me. I feel bad and envy him because he got better grade. As a different professor teaches same subject, there are different grading systeam that professor want to grade. Therefore students are graded by different standard. It is not fare.

Vanessa Cruz Inoa: Blog # 6

I thinks is an old system was in the beginning has good acceptation and good result to education system. But in this time is necessary change the evaluation system in the education. Many people haven’t the same abilities for learn in one way. Because the studies show multiples forms of the people think and exist multiples form of intelligent. Not all the people learning with a book and pencil. For the more other people learn in the practice of make sometime. Today educations have a new direction, perspective and new issues. The technology is the best example in the education. Because, change the methods of evaluation and developing of new skill. Is more practice, technical and fast. The grading only represent a “note” is forming to education system evaluated, give and qualification the students. For prove the knowledge development the students in the school. Sometimes the students study for a test and put all the knowledge to good grade. But the result isn't good "F". This situation change the vision of the student and damage the hope. The grade in this case represent a symbol but not shows the effort of the student on study. Exist many situation with relation to effort and dedication of the student for have good grade. The important is recognize the teacher to students efforts and show interest on the class. This it coulbe help to reflect the vision of the education with respect to grade.

Hongchul : Assignment #6

Usually university curriculum mainly consists of regular grade-courses. It is common that grading is indispensable to increase the efficiency of study. Most students struggle with getting a good grade. It is assumed that the better grade, the better students. Although grading system has the bright side, I have an undesirable experience relating to grade.
In my first semester, I took the analytical method, which is one of the core courses which I had to take for my degree. It was really tough course. The Rumanian professor was very strict to grade homework and tests. After taking midterm examination, most classmates were depressed by the bad results. Compared to other courses the average was too low. Also final test result was similar to that. Nevertheless we hoped that professor would grade relatively considering average value. However professor didn’t do that. As soon as we received own grade, we chatted about each grade and began to complain about the professor. The number of students in his class was more than 20. Only two got a A and several students got a B. More than half of them got a C. He graded test results strictly without reference to average value so that most students might get a C. Some of students had a problem in keeping their status as RA or TA because of bad grade. It was a terrible class.
On the other hand, the professor complained that the students were not good enough to take his course. That is the reason why he did not teach this course any more since then.

Blog Assignment #6 Jehwan Lee

There are many kind of grading system in the world but recently almost public institute select the grading system which is simply cut the students by exam score. Let me compare the grading system of Amerca and that of Korea. In Korea, there also similar grading system terms are different. "A" is "Su", "B" is "Wu", "C" is "Mi"... It is used in high school and the grading system of university is same as that of America. I don't exactly know how grading in Korea university. However in America, this grading system are changing slowly to evaluate students more detailly. The basic frame is same but there are options to cover exam or something else. In my opinion, there are some bad options to evaluate every students equally. In my experience, I took the astronomy course last semester. There is very helpful option the AGO system which is home study grading system so if I steady solve the quiz that assigned automatically in internet, I could got 1 perfect exam score. On the other hand, I didn't know the option and I should take final exam the end of semester. In this case because I just didn't know the advanced of option early of the semester, I should take one more exam. That means the students who took the option don't have to study end of the meterial. The purpose of grade is evaluate student equally at the same time, also encourage learn meterial to student. In the contrast, I think that this option give an convenient to get perfect score and make students don't study whole meterial.

Xian Li's blog #6

In general, the grading system does provide an easy way to get an idea of how well a student works in his/her study. However, unfair grading often happens which degrades the confidence of the grading itself. Some teachers have personal bias on a student and keep the bias when they are giving grade to the student. Actually, I remember that when I was in elementary school and really not good at painting. My painting teacher thought it was because I did not work hard in her course and always gave me very low scores on my home assignments. One day, I asked my classmate who was very good at painting to help me draw a profile as the new home assignment, (I know it is cheating now:) ), and I turned it to the teacher. Finally, I get a very low score again. She pointed out lots of problems in the profile and said "I do think you have paid no effort on the painting course". From that time, I totally lost the interest in this course and felt very depressed. Grading is a really subjective thing and I think all the teachers should respect their authority and profession especially when giving grades to the students.

Andrew Kim "Assignment #6"

From 1994 to 1999, I attended a private elemetary school in Seoul. It's randomly chosen admission ratio was about 5:1, and i got accepted in rolling beads!! The school was very experimental. Once a month, for example, there was an "open class," which there was no lecture but students moving around the class room and study themselves in various sections. The class was consist of class related materials such as pictures, maps, dictionaries, quizzes which drawed our interests. Not like other public elementary schools, there were no monthly exams but just a few quizzes. Moreover, there were teacher's evaluations instead of numerical transcript. When i was young, I didn't like the evalutations because some teachers informed my parents about my troublesome behaviors. But as i think back, i realized that i had learned many things naturally and voluntarilly at that time.


Unlike my elementary school, however, cruel grade system appeared in the following years.
The high school what i attended was notorious for hard internal exams, and our GPA was very low compared to other school's students. As a result, it became our disadvantage in college admission. Moreover, I was so neglect to studying subjects that couldn't find any interested in. One of my bad memory was i got C in mathmetics. I didn't study hard and I got about 69 in mid-term and 89 in final. i couldn't get B(score of 80~89) because overall average was 79 and ended up with C. I petitioned to my math teacher but he said he cannot raise my grade since the questions what i wronged are all multiple choice quetions. He couldn't change the objective facts, because it was against policy. What is the difference between score 79 and 80?

Even so, the reality is that we cannot give up grades because there are no other alternative measurements. Giving up grade is not like "Quit smoking." (p.131) Grade is not an addictive thing but an inevitable thing.

Yulia Smirnova Blog # 6

Grades play a very important part in students' life. Our grades show us our knowledge. Our GPA is shown in our resume, so when you want to find job, employers will look on your GPA first. That's why all students try to have good grades. But nowadays we have problems in grading. I think that all teachers have different method of grades. For example, in My math class A is 100-90%,A- is 89%-80% and so on. But on my Sociology class A is 100% -95%,A - is 94%-90% and so on. So here we can see the difference how two different people grade exams. Also a lot of professors dropped quizes with lowest grades or they give extra credits for some assighments. So it is easy to get good grade. Also sometimes teachers overstimate grades for students, because they don't want to have any troubles. For example, one of my suitmates had bad grades in Calc. She had lower than 30% in her exams. So she was gonna fail this course. But her teacher did excusse for her, and gave her D(in her class to have D is more than 55%). I don't understand why proffesors do this. Now my suitmate takes Calk 2, and she has more troubles with itthis semster. She did not understand the material from last semster, and she has more new material which is more difficult. Moreover she has another professor who is not so kind. She has a big opportunity to fail this course. The professors do worse to students when they overestimate grades. I think that teachers give a lot of exusses to students. And students don't work so hard,because they know that teachers will try to give them higher grades anyway. I consider that this is one of the important problems nowadays.

Lakshmi Blog Assignment #6

Gradings are very important all over the world. It is the primary evaluation of someone's qualifications to earn a wealthy life to have a good status in the society. But it is very important to get the grades according to a proper way. I say that because if someone gets gradings by cheating themselves they won't be able to do the appopriate duty to a seleted job. And on the other hand it is unfair for the qualified people. So benefitting for someone else is really bad. In this point the grade ambitious students must keep in their mind to work hard and get good gradings for their future benefits as well as the teachers hold their responsibility of offering correct evluations. It's essential to evaluate the positions by gradings to have a good understanding about their knowledge.

Hiu Wing, Chu Blog #6

Have you ever heard "RateMyProfessors.com"? I think most of the college students will know what is it. This is a website which shows different college and university professor's informations, such as helpfulness, clarity, interest level prior to attenting class... But I think many students are only concern in the "Easiness" part, becuase it can help us to find an easy "A" professor for our next semester. From this example, we can easy to verify one of the problem from our traditional grading system --- consistency of grading!
Even though we do not compare with different school, we still can find different of grading in the same level of class with different professor. For example, in our ECON160 classes, we already have two to three different professor for teaching. Since different professor will have different grading, like some professors can drop the lowest grade exam, but some of them can't. In order to have an easy "A", that's the reason why "RateMyProfessors.com" exist. Moreover, different majors also have different grading percentage. Likely in the Enghish classes, it will have more percentage on the homework and attentance; On the other hands, Mathematic classes are emphasize on the exam. Therefore, Consistency is a really big problem is our grading system.
In my opinion, the best solution for this problem is try to run a public exam for every grade, and everyone use that exam for our G.P.A in the transcript. This not only can solve the consistency problem. It also can make sure all school are learning the same meterial in the same level class!

Blog Assignment #6

All posts are due by Wednesday, March 12 at 10pm
All comments are due by Thursday, March 13 at 9am

1. Write for 10-15 minutes about what you think the problems are with having a grading system like we have in traditional academic institutions. (As, Bs, Cs...) Give examples to support your ideas.

2. Read all posts.

3. Comment on one post.

Hongchul : Assignment #5

There is nothing without grades in the world. Everything has its own grading system which is formal or informal. The grade obtained after finishing the task may be beneficial or harmful to us.

First of all, I agree that students should be graded in most classes. Based on my experiences grade is indispensable to increase the efficiency of study. For example, my graduate curriculum consists of regular class required to grade and special topics or research project which is needed to get successful or unsuccessful. Compared grade class with non-graded class, we can easily find which is more efficient. All the students in the grading class have to do their best to get good grade. To get good grade they should be always on time to their class, keep the due data, and succeed in the test. Meanwhile, it is observed that some students are auditing regular class with the permission of professor. In this case, most attendances are devoted their class for a while. A little later, they do not show up in the classroom for several reasons.

On the other hand, some people may suffer from the grade. If the grade system could be beneficial to us, it requires the proper judgments and fair evaluation. It is not easy to make sure of fairness in the general community or society except academic class. Grade is done not objectively but subjectively by human.

Blog assignment #5 Jehwan Lee

The most good grade in my life was TOEFL score. I suddenly decided that after graduate high school, I will go to America for study. Therefore I needed up to 70 TOEFL score. At high school because I didn't planed to study abroad, my English level was almost elementary students of American.
Remained term was barely 2 month. During 2 month, I had to get TOEFL score to apply American University. However when I saw text book about TOEFL first time, I felt frustrate. The English studied in high school was almost useless! More various vocabulary, more longer reading stuff, more fast listening.. When it comes to speaking and writing, I even had not practiced before. After measure my English level, I studied like insane. Fortunately, I had schedule nothing so that I could concentrate my brain learning English. And finally, I got TOEFL score 71. It is not high score but comparing my English, it was high enough. Moreover, I was so happy that I did what I made purpose.
After took the exam I tried again and again but it comes lower and lower. Honestly, I don't think did it my best. Probably that is because I release my nervous. By the way, it was good attempt for me and got most good grade in my life.

Yoonsuk Jung, Assignment #5

During my whole school-periods, grade has always been the most important thing in whatever I do and has been a main factor to evaluate students’ level of achievement. Due to this reason, most parents and teachers push their children and students to get high grades in most subjects because they think students’ future hugely depends on their grades. If a student does not have good grades, he or she will lose many opportunities such as entering a university with good reputation, and getting a well-paid job.

In my country, South Korea, there exists an extremely competitive atmosphere where most students strive to get good grades. When I was a high school student, I had to go to school by 7AM and studied until 11PM or 12AM from Monday to Saturday. I had mid and final exams and a trial test each month for ‘Suneung Exam’ similar to ‘SAT’ in America to enter a university. This is a normal schedule for not only me but also most high school students in Korea at that time. Everything was just evaluated by grades and no one complained about this situation. Therefore, I was always put under intensively stressful pressure from trying to get high grades and it was difficult to develop my social skills. If I were to go back to my adolescent period, I could not think about anything but studying. This is the negative experience that I had in my life with grades.

JAcob LEe assignment #5

It was about a year ago when I was in my home country, Korea. I was getting ready for my university entering exam, which was called ‘SuNung.’ I had studied more than an year for the test which I was willing to get in a good school. I personally wasn’t that good at math and Korean language, but with English and the science subject I thought I could not get bad score. On the day of the ‘SuNung’ exam I was not scared, but was ready for the challenge. While I was taking the math part of the exam I noticed that I was not able to solve most of the questions. Therefore, I suddenly froze and my head was blanked. I could not think of anything. After, the math exam I did not do well, because of the tough of my math score. After the exam I went home with a heavy shoulder. I graded my math score, and it was horrible. Right that second my dreams were shattered. I did not talk with anybody for about a few days. Moreover, I ignored all the calls that I got. Soon after it was time to apply for schools. However I had a grade that was unrecoverable, so I really did not look carefully into the school. That was my experience; if I had looked more carefully I could have gone to one of the school I wanted which did not require a good grade of math. It could be just who gets depressed with grades, but I do get a lot of stress over grades. My habits change a lot over grades mainly over stress; I eat more and sleep more which makes my fitness drop to the ground. It is hard not to get depressed to grade, but the best way in my opinion is to forget it and do better next time.

Blog Assignmnet #5 (Dahyun Choi)

We take an exam or write a paper to get good grade and I believe that these grade help us to prove our abilities in the school. When I was younger than now, I did not concern about my grade not that seriously but I realized that the grade is quite important in my life as I attend to the university.

In my experience, I had a trouble with my grades when I was in high school. I decided to study in the USA and one of the things which I could prove myself to the universities was my grade. Therefore I submitted all of my transcripts and when I applied the schools. However, my grades in New Zealand were not that good compared to when I was in Korea. The average of a class was nearly 50% and the highest score in the class was about 60~70% out of 100% in the high school where I was while my grades in Korea was much higher than that. Compare to other school, the examination of the school in New Zealand were really difficult and it took about three hours for one exam.

The standard of grading was not same world wide and I found that there could be problem when a student study in other areas. I worried a lot when I applied the universities in the USA and I was afraid of my low scores. Fortunately, I could enter this school and I feel appreciated.

Grace Kim - Assignment 5

I can find positive and negative grades experiences from the experiences that I had back in Korea middle school. Even though I took everything in my own language, taking 12 subjects in a semester was too overwhelmed. Also, there were about 400 students in one grade and the grade system was very strict. There was no curve system. Whatever grades I got, it was just my grade. So everything put me in a very competitive situation. Just making one mistake will drop my average score of 12 subjects. I remember my friend got average of 100 for 12subjects and she was the top student for a midterm. I was only 14years old but I had the enthusiasm of getting good grades and I could maintain top 10% in that year. It gave me a positive and negative influences. I couldn’t really complain about the strict grading system because it’s just the way Korean students do. Take caring of 12 subjects’ grades were too stressful and made me decided to study overseas. However it thought me how to organize my study time within in a short period and made me endure so much from the hardcore school life. It gives me a strong confidence even now. My hardcore studying habit has changed since I left Korea however it still gives me the strength; preparing papers and exams in advance because we use to prepare for a midterm at least a month ago. The only negative thing is that it gave me too much stress for school and no free time or socializing. I had to only concentrating on getting perfect scores. I'm glad I only experienced it for 1.5years and could enjoy better education in overseas. However the positive sides still helps me even now.

Ha young Choi Blog #5

Both Korean high school students who study in korea and American high school students who study United states want to go to famous universities. For example, Seoul national university or Ivy league universities in U.S. To apply any universities, American Students have to take SAT(SAT Reasoning Test) and also Korean students have to take Korean SAT test. But there is a big difference between Korean SAT and U.S SAT. In KOrea, students can take SAT only once in a year. In contrast, U.S students can take SAT as many time to get a good grade. There are more than 10 chances in a year to take the test in U.S. I took a Korean SAT 2007 october, I woke up at 7 in the morning to be on time where I am going to take the test. I took 6tests: Korean, Math, English, Social science, Law and society and politics in one day. The test started at 8am and ended at 5pm. I wasn't in a good condition because I was so nervous that if I might get a bad score on the test, then I won't go to university that I want to go and also I have to wait and study till the next year to take the test again. I was so worried and think about the case when I got a bad score. Almost all students have same feeling like pressure to get a good grade and stressed. But students in the U.S have more chance to take tests and opportunity to get a good grade. Therefore, Students who study in U.S and prepare to take U.S SAT have better opportunity and less stress about the test.

Vanessa Cruz Inoa Blog:5

My experiences of grade is the school, the school is part important of me life development and improve my self. Because many professor help to improve me critics knowledge about different topics. For example the knowledge and creation of new thinking forms. The study of different culture in America helps to understand the development of the society in different aspect. Lear about poor country versus rich country, different traditions, and conflict. The founding of new thinking is the growing of the new life concepts. These help me, to understand new life style. Arrive to United States is most interest life learning, because one thing is learn with the book and other is living the experience in the place with your self. About this is really true, for the more me brain change by complete and the interaction in to the new society open more my abilities of survive. Living different experience every day help me to created new forms of knowledge. At this time in my life is good and rich in experiences. I believe in this part of my life, this help me in the future in the development of new experiences and goals.

Hiu Wing, Chu Blog #5

Is a good grade in school means everythings? This might not be true, but I am sure that if i get a bad grade, I will hard to do anything! Therefore, many student are work hard on their grade and pass over what they need to learn.
I am one of the student who really want to learn from the book, but do not have enough of time. Because finish the homework and memorize the text book for exam are already make my spirit and strength totally used up, so how can I have ability to thinking about the thoery in the book or enjoy the study? It is almost impossible. I remember when I am 15, my chinese history exam was tested from page 1 to page 300 in the text book. this exam spend me a week to memorize those 300 pages and finally got 90s. However, after a few days, some of my classmates want to ask me the answer of the exam in order to do the correction, but I totally forget all those answer. So why I still need to memorize those? Is nowadays education system just a memory competition? I think this exam is really meaningless for me.
Anyway, I can't change the education system. Hence, the only thing I can do is move to United States and continous my study.

Xian Li's blog assignment #5

In my homeland, grade is really important for all students no matter they are in high school or in college. High school students should struggle for good grades otherwise they won’t be able to go to reputable colleges. College students work hard to get satisfying grades otherwise they will not be given opportunities to get a better job. What does the grade really mean? Does a better grade mean stronger capability? Actually no. I will give an experience of my friend when he was seeking a job after graduation. All the companies required the applicants provide their overall GPA rank in the resume. My friend, who is a very smart boy and excellent programmer, did not get very high GPA rank about 30% all over the department because he did not work hard on those courses irrelevant with our major such as politics, arts. Most of the big companies like IBM, Microsoft refuse to give him any interviews. Finally, he got an interview opportunity of Oracle thanks to someone’s recommendation and succeeded to pass all the interviews and got the offer.

When I was in high school, grades played a very important part in my life. My parents was very strong with me, and they said that I had to have good grades. As I had tennis practices after classea,it was so difficult to do homework. So when I had bad grades my parents
did not resolve me to watch TV, to go for walk with my friends,or to go to practice(sometimes I was happy not go to practices).They forced me to do extra work fo classes. As I have younger brother and sister, and they always played or watched TV, when I did my "punishment",I thought that it is not fairly. That's why I tried to have good grades. Also in my tennis club my coach controled my grades in school. If I had bad grades I could not play tournaments. And I had more opportunity in school when I had good grades. If i had good grades during the semster,I could not take final exams,or did not go to class sometimes or another good things. But sometimes teachers were too strong with me,because I missed a lot of class bcause of practices. They did not like that tennis and school are the same important. And sometimes techaers gave grades less that I actually had.
But nowadays I just try to get good education ,not just try to have good grades. But grades are very important too. Because i have to have high GPA ,because of my tennis schoolarship and for my future job.

Javier Rodríguez "Assignment # 5

Based on my own experience I have a different conception about what was school and grades for me. During my formation as a student in middle and high school I didn't pay attention to any of the classes that I took. Therefore, I wasn’t committed to work to get good grades. Without a doubt this is something that every parent will feel very disappointed if their kids are not doing well in school. However, that wasn’t my case.

When I finished school I was accepted in the State University of Puerto Rico which just let get in about 9% of all students that applies to get in. In fact, being accepted in that institution that selects every student based on higher standards was a surprise to me. On the other hand, my classmates in high school were having a similar attitude towards grades like me as well. However, when finally I get into university environment I changed my attitude towards school. Undeniable, I changed my view towards school due to competition that I experienced when I get into college. It was that environment full of people committed with their own and also with their family which enabled me to change my mind and work hard to be someone in the future.

In conclusion, my experience toward school was very weird. But, today I can see that I did something good for myself. Now, I finished a bachelor and I’m working on a masters. Without a doubt I will go for a PHD in a future. Therefore, is very important to work really hard to get what we want because that enables us to be someone and bring something positive to our country and our family.

Andrew Kim "Assignment #5"

Competition in College is fine, because it is time to prepare for our career, but I don’t like cutthroating competition during the high school years. Mentioning that Korean youngsters are good at math, the author said, “Only 23$ of Korean youngsters claimed that they were good at mathematics as compared to a whopping 68% of U.S. youngsters.” (p.119). I think this is a ridiculous example. The Korean students responded like that because competition in Korea is cutthroating and no one ever gets self-satisfied about their grades, unless they are their school’s best or the entire nation’s best. Teachers and parents also were not satisfied because they wanted their kids to go better university.
Even though most of questions of College Entrance Exam were easy, some questions were tricky, and the tests didn’t allow mistake. The moment we make mistake was the moment we being weeded out from endless competition. When applying for college, students were labeled by their detailed grade numbers, and everyone was just like milkcows.
On the other hand, American schools has less competitive atmosphere. I like the American students’ easy and relaxed attitude. The students can concentrate on some the other things beside study, such as extra-curricular activities which generates their creativity. Their “whopping” is actually good thing.

Lakshmi Blog Assignment #5

According to my experience I've never been confused about my gradings in any of the classes which I have been attended. In Sri Lanka it's different than in US and it's hard to get through an exam. While US try to give students more opportunities, as a developing country government in Sri Lanka wants to cut off the educated personalities instead of having more educated people. In one hand, we have to agree in that because as a small island there are only limited opportunities available for the highly accepted jobs. As the government cannot assure for all the educated people to offer a job according to their education, they have to limit the opportunities entering to the university. But, the tragedy is although I worked hard to achieve my targets like most of the others we don't get the appreciation or the self satisfaction for what we have earned through the education. It is because to get a good job it's very important to have political interferences. If not, the education is undervalued. Education is not only for a job but to have a better life. Receiving good gradings and not having satisfaction is an insult.

Blog Assignment #5

All posts are due Wednesday, March 5th by 10pm.
All comments are due Thursday, March 6th by 9am.

Write for 10-15 minutes describing one positive or negative experience you have had in your life with grades. Make sure to support your idea with examples.

Read all of your classmate's blog posts.

Comment on one classmate's ideas, opinions, experiences, etc.

Javier Rodríguez Blog Assignment #4

During my whole academic life as a student I took many courses which were very interesting for me. My favorite course was Human Geography which I took when I was doing my bachelor degree in Education. In 2006, when I was taking that course was my senior years as undergrad. However, that course allows me to develop passion for social sciences. In Human Geography we did many innovative activities that attracted me to choose Geography as my field of interest in graduate school. Eliezer Nieves which was my professor have my all my respect and admiration. He as a professional is a marvelous educator but as a human is much better. It was in that course where I did many field activities which get me in contact with nature and other geographical stuff. This amazing educator showed me a different and innovative style of education. He was always there to help me in every way that he possibly will. Once again, get in contact with educators that go beyond and surpass our perspective as students allow us to improve our knowledge and commitment within society. Therefore, educators committed with students always become a good asset.