Subject: Solving Homework in Pairs

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 01:06:29 +0300

Hi Nadav (and all)!

I'd like to continue to discuss whether the solving homework in pairs paradigm 
in university courses is good or bad.

Here:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hackers-il/message/4752

You said that:

<<<<<<<<<<
but in previous discussions here, we
agreed to disagree about the merits of "pair programming" ;-) The most
basic problem with this method is that it's *not* pair programming - usually
the pair doesn't work together, but rather divide the exercise and do each
part separately. I wrote about my more fundamental problem with this approach
in http://nadav.harel.org.il/homepage/musing/educooperation

Well, as I noted in my reply here - 
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hackers-il/message/4753 - we did not 
explicitly say that we agree to disagree about it, even though that may have 
been the way you recalled it.

I later compiled my reasons as presented in that email here - 
http://xrl.us/woh3 . I'd love to hear what you think about it.

Best Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      [email-masked]
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

If it's not in my E-mail it doesn't happen. And if my E-mail is saying
one thing, and everything else says something else - E-mail will conquer.
    -- An Israeli Linuxer

---

From: "Ori Idan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 07:42:58 +0300

I think it varies greatly from pair to pair and from person to person so it
is hard to argue if it is good or bad.
For some people it is good, for others it is not.

-- 
Ori Idan

On 5/23/07, Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]> wrote:
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Shlomi Fish [email-masked] <shlomif%40iglu.org.il>

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 10:45:42 +0300

> http://xrl.us/woh3 . I'd love to hear what you think about it.

Ok, here's my retort ;-)

First, before we can discuss what's *wrong* with this "pair programming" as
you call it (I call it "hagasha bezugot" - namely the hagasha, not the
programming, is done in pairs), we need to understand what's the heck is so
good about it that you want it to stay.

According to you, the good sides of this hagahsa bezugot is that "When two
partners ... sit down to solve it there can be wonderful synergy", and that
"it's more fun than solving it all alone". I fully agree with you that if this
is the case, then hagasha-bezugot can be great. The question is, in how many
course that you took, was it like that, and in how many other courses it
was something completely different, in ways I already described (e.g., one of
you slacked, or you divided the exercises between you and each one was
responsible for one week's exercises)?

I don't think it's (just) that I'm anti-social. In fact, when I was studying
I had a friend with whom I often discussed the most difficult exercises. But
we made a point of it never to discuss an exercies before we each try to solve
it on our own, and because we admired each other's intelligence, we made sure
we only gave one another "hints", rather than entire written solutions to copy.
Perhaps we were too idealistic, perhaps we had too much times on our hands,
I don't know. But we studied the way we did, and both got very good grades,
so I guess it worked (or at least didn't hurt ;-)).

On the other hand, I took once a CS course with this same guy. We were asked
to hand in the exercies in pairs, and naturally we chose each other. We ended
up deciding that he will do one week's exercise, and I will do the next. We
never discussed any of those exercises, because we both trusted each other
to do them well. We were never worried that not doing some of the exercises
will hurt us in the test, because we both understood the material well, and
we knew that the exercises (involving handing in a computer program) had very
little to do with what a test would look like (done on paper, of course).

So, to summarize, in my experience, there is not much correlation between
hagasha bezugot (two people handing in an exercise together) and pair
programming (two people working together to solve an exercise). This makes
most of the arguments you present in favor of pair programming irrelevant to
hagasha bezugot.

During my wife's studies in HaifaU, I saw even more absurd examples of
hagasha bekvutsot. At one time she was forced (not presented an option, but
forced) to hand in a work in group of 6. Since there were no "natural" groups
so large, they had to group in ad-hoc groups. Her group basically had only 2
people doing the whole work, and 4 professional slackers. The two doing the
work (my wife and a friend) didn't bother to do anything to change the
situation, because they knew that the other 4 would only hurt their grade if
they actually contributed anything to the work ;-)

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |     Wednesday, May 23 2007, 6 Sivan 5767
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |The knowledge that you are an idiot, is
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |what distinguishes you from one.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 11:25:40 +0300

> For some people it is good, for others it is not.

Yes, but we're arguing whether it is a good system, and whether it is good in 
general.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 12:41:28 +0300

Hi Nadav!

On Wednesday 23 May 2007, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> you call it 

"pair programming"? I'm sorry, but I didn't call it "pair programming". I 
called it "Working in Pairs", "Solving in Pairs", or "Pair-Wise Assignments". 
Sometimes I worked on many things that were strictly not programming, 
e.g: "dry" (i.e: not-"wet" and not computer-based exercises).

I believe pair programming as advocated by XP and others is very different 
than the solving in pairs in the Technion. But this is out of the scope of 
this email. I'm advocating both XP-like pair programming and "Handing 
assignments in pairs", but from different reasons.

> (I call it "hagasha bezugot" - namely the hagasha, not the 

Fair enough let's call it "Handing in pairs".

> "it's more fun than solving it all alone". 

It's only one of the seven reasons I've given, but let me defend it.

> I fully agree with you that if 
> this is the case, then hagasha-bezugot can be great. The question is, in
> how many course that you took, was it like that, and in how many other
> courses it was something completely different, in ways I already described
> (e.g., one of you slacked, or you divided the exercises between you and
> each one was responsible for one week's exercises)?

I feel that in most of the courses I took and had to hand over the assignments 
in pairs we:

1. Sat on it together.

2. Solved together.

3. It took us less time.

4. We learned a lot from each other.

There were a few instances of exception:

1. In the "Intro to CS in C" course, my partner did not know programming, but 
has a lot of free time. When we set over at the Fisbach farm to prepare the 
exercise (using Borland Turbo C++ - %-)), he always had an idea on how to 
solve it, but I kept telling him how to do it better (being more experienced 
and a better programmer). He was the one who wrote it on the computer. 
Eventually, I got over 90 in that course, and I learned that he got a good 
passing grade.

I feel that he learned a lot from me in this case, and yet I learned a lot by 
teaching him.

2. I took "Intro to Systems' Programming" ("Mamath" - the EE equivalent of the 
CS "Matam") which I wanted for the academic credit, not because I didn't know 
the material. Now my partner was practically unreachable and unresponsive, so 
I ended up solving everything on my own. He didn't mind too much. I don't 
know how well he did on the exam, but it's his fault not mine.

3. In the course "Analog Communications", my partner was married, had a baby, 
had a work, and took some projects, and as a result, had little time to meet 
with me and was always very tired. The exercises we were given were very 
hard, and we didn't know how to prepare them. We ended up copying them from 
different people who were more knowledgable.

I ended up failing the course on both tests (which I did not cheat on), and 
kept the course out of my final diploma, because I didn't feel like I knew it 
well.

----------------------

However, as a general rule we both set on the exercises together, both got a 
passing grade, and both knew the material very well.

>
> I don't think it's (just) that I'm anti-social. In fact, when I was
> studying I had a friend with whom I often discussed the most difficult
> exercises. But we made a point of it never to discuss an exercies before we
> each try to solve it on our own, and because we admired each other's
> intelligence, we made sure we only gave one another "hints", rather than
> entire written solutions to copy. Perhaps we were too idealistic, perhaps
> we had too much times on our hands, I don't know. But we studied the way we
> did, and both got very good grades, so I guess it worked (or at least
> didn't hurt ;-)).
>

I prefer to discuss things with a friend. I indeed often looked at the 
exercises before that, and thought about them, but actually meeting my 
partner and having a face to face contact with him, really helps.

> On the other hand, I took once a CS course with this same guy. We were
> asked to hand in the exercies in pairs, and naturally we chose each other.
> We ended up deciding that he will do one week's exercise, and I will do the
> next. We never discussed any of those exercises, because we both trusted
> each other to do them well. We were never worried that not doing some of
> the exercises will hurt us in the test, because we both understood the
> material well, and we knew that the exercises (involving handing in a
> computer program) had very little to do with what a test would look like
> (done on paper, of course).

OK. I never alternated in handing such assignments. And you're generalising 
based on one instance, and in that case - you. You realise this is heavily 
anti-scientific.[1]

When my friend and partner for many courses took the Mathematics department 
Set Theory course, we realised that the scope of the exercise was too big for 
both of us. So we ended up solving it together (in a synergical way) and my 
friend wrote the solution (because he had a better hand-writing) and we 
handed it together. It was less work than handing two identical solutions him 
with his hand-writing, and mine with my crappy hand-writing. But we each got 
only half the credit.

My hand writing is another thing I'm frustrated about. When I came to the 
Technion my hand-writing was pretty bad, and it only deteriorated. Part of it 
was probably that I became more and more used to keying things on the 
computer, and part of it was probably because of my 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder . 

When I talked about it to the Student's councellor she told me I need to go to 
6 hours long (!!) tests at "Makhon Ya'el" headed by a certain Psychology 
professor from Haifa University, which will test if my bad hand writing is 
caused by a certain mental problem of mine. Between losing a productive and 
happy day, which could potentially mean I won't be better, and getting some 
crappier grades - I chose the latter.

As it turned out, I could have given them a letter from my psychiatrist that I 
am Bipolar or pseudo-Bipolar and it could have been sufficient to grant me 
some benefits. (But not all like meeting face to face to the lecturer to 
explain what I wrote.)

> most of the arguments you present in favor of pair programming irrelevant
> to hagasha bezugot.

Which, I might add, you haven't addressed yet. ;-)

> forced) to hand in a work in group of 6. Since there were no "natural"
> groups so large, they had to group in ad-hoc groups. Her group basically
> had only 2 people doing the whole work, and 4 professional slackers. The
> two doing the work (my wife and a friend) didn't bother to do anything to
> change the situation, because they knew that the other 4 would only hurt
> their grade if they actually contributed anything to the work ;-)

A 6-members group is an absurd. In English one says that "one is alone, two is 
company, and three is a crowd" so six is probably already an army. I don't 
encourage working in groups of six, but I still think pairs or triplets are a 
good idea.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

[1] - let's prove that all non-even numbers above 1 are prime just because 3 
and 5 (or even just 3) are.

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 15:24:39 +0300

> with his hand-writing, and mine with my crappy hand-writing. But we each got 

The professor must have thought to himself, "God! What planet are these guys
from?"... He didn't tell you that you can hand-in exercises together, and
yet you did. You admit that each of you were unable to do the exercise alone,
and that you tried to cut down on the amount of work - so can you really be
surprised that you got half the grade? Should you get the same grade as people
who did all the work on their own?

> Technion my hand-writing was pretty bad, and it only deteriorated. Part of it 

Did you ever try to work on this issue? I never wrote - using paper and
pencil - so much as I did in the technion. I literally wrote thousands of
pages, finished more than one eraser, and till this day (13 years after
finishing my BA) I have a small "yabelet" on my hand where I held the pencil.
Writing is part of your studies, and there's nothing you can do about it
(nowadays you can use the computer more, and hand all exercises printed,
but still you'll need to write on paper during tests). Better learn to deal
with it, as much as you can (given your medical condition) rather than fight
it...

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |     Thursday, May 31 2007, 14 Sivan 5767
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Bore, n.: A person who talks when you
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |wish him to listen.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 17:16:58 +0300

On Thursday 31 May 2007, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> > When my friend and partner for many courses took the Mathematics
> > department Set Theory course, we realised that the scope of the exercise
> > was too big for both of us. So we ended up solving it together (in a
> > synergical way) and my friend wrote the solution (because he had a better
> > hand-writing) and we handed it together. It was less work than handing
> > two identical solutions him with his hand-writing, and mine with my
> > crappy hand-writing. But we each got only half the credit.
>
> The professor must have thought to himself, "God! What planet are these
> guys from?"... He didn't tell you that you can hand-in exercises together,
> and yet you did. You admit that each of you were unable to do the exercise
> alone, 

No, I didn't admit that. You're jumping to conclusions.

We could have done the exercise each on his won. We were two very intelligent 
people who eventually both graduated from the Technion's EE department 
cum-laude, which is a feat that requires quite a bit of intelligence. We 
certainly could have handled the first exercise of a first-semester Math 
department course.

However:

1. Had I done it alone, it would have been handed in my incredibly awful 
hand-writing.

2. It would have required each of us to either work on it on our own (much 
more work and less synergy), or alternatively solve it together and then each 
hand a different copy with his hand-writing, or in my case something written 
in English in LaTeX, which would have taken me a lot of time to key into the 
computer.

The end result was that I eventually dropped the entire semester and took it 
off, due to this course and other very interesting, but demanding courses. 
This was the only voluntary course I took from the Math department except 
for "Game Theory". In Game Theory, I ended up not preparing the homework 
(voluntary) most of the semester, buying the Open University booklets, 
studying from them close to the test, and getting a passing grade in the 
test. I felt the material was quite enlightening. 

> and that you tried to cut down on the amount of work - so can you 
> really be surprised that you got half the grade? Should you get the same
> grade as people who did all the work on their own?

If the Math department had a bit more human factors engineering, they would 
know that it doesn't matter. But they don't and they don't care.

> Did you ever try to work on this issue? 

No, I didn't. I didn't care enough. At least not until now.

> I never wrote - using paper and 

So the Technion also claims your body? And sorry for all the trees.

> Writing is part of your studies, and there's nothing you can do 
> about it (nowadays you can use the computer more, and hand all exercises
> printed, but still you'll need to write on paper during tests). Better
> learn to deal with it, as much as you can (given your medical condition)
> rather than fight it...

Well, just a note:

I already have a Bachelor of Sciences (B.Sc.) in Electrical Engineering from 
the Technion. This is good enough to be accepted into most jobs (and 
certainly most jobs that I care about). Hell, I'm qualified enough to program 
missiles or work for NASA using a B.Sc. degree.[1]

{{{{{{{{
[1] - Qualified, but it would be a stretch to think I'll be ready or that I 
won't need any training.
}}}}}}}}

As such I have little motivation to get a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. The 
way I saw it, the first B.Sc. should be taken in order to eat and make a 
living. A B.Sc. in EE was about the best I could get with my interests for 
that, and the Technion is a pretty good school for that.

Furthermore, right now, I have no intention of getting any further higher 
degrees any time soon. I recall having suffered enough abuse while being in 
the Technion, and it will take a lot of time for me to recover my senses.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards having a degree in something more humane, 
like History of the Old World (Near East, Europe and North Africa), or 
Linguistics, or English and/or other languages. Perhaps something else.

If I will do a Ph.D. in a Realistic field, then it probably won't be in the 
Technion.

Right now, I've got much better things to do with my time, than study such 
things in the form of a university. The Wikipedia and other online and 
offline resources are good enough for that, and I admit that I have perhaps 
dedicated too little time for reading them.

At the moment I'm working on my home-site, blog, essays, articles, open-source 
projects, stories and other projects. This is what gives me and others the 
most benefit, and teaches me the most. Going back to university will be a 
huge waste of time, and will likely give me much more frustrations (due to 
my "medical condition"), than being unemployed or even working at a good, 
unabusive workplace ever can.

With enough work on my online resources, some white-hat-SEO and viral and 
non-viral publicity, I can become well-known enough to be self-sustaining, as 
well as be able to get a lot of contracts or commissions. I don't need a 
Ph.D. in Philosophy to become a Philosopher. Most Philosophers have not had 
one. And I don't need to be a qualified writer to write essays or stories, 
which I have been writing for 10 years now, and received many compliments 
for.

As for programming - it is a well-known fact that some high school kids with 
one year of experience can write much better code and are much more 
productive than some people with Ph.D.'s in Computer Science and 5 years of 
experience. So again, the CS qualifications are not a panacea.

Just for the record, I realise every programmer, including very good ones, can 
write bad code and they sometimes even do. But only good programmers can 
write good code. Likewise for writing essays, articles, and stories.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

P.S: and just for the record - I still think I'm right when claiming it is a 
better idea to allow working in pairs. I find that Nadav has still avoided 
refuting my reasons.

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 19:08:48 +0300

> better idea to allow working in pairs. I find that Nadav has still avoided 

Ok, let's make one last attempt, even though I think I already answered you.

First, let's assume that you mean really "working in pairs" (because the
more common requirement is "handing in pairs" and nobody checks how you
worked).

The reason one studies for a degree is, in my opinion, three-fold. ONE is
to learn material. TWO is to get experience in solving difficult problems
in your field (not necessarily the mundane problems you'll be asked to
solve in your first year on the job - a university is not a vocational school).
THREE is to "get on the same page" as the peers you'll be spending your
professional life with - learn how they think, how they talk, how they
cooperate, and so on.

Issue #3 - learning how to cooperate with your peers in your professional
domain - is indeed important. You want future scientists and engineers to
be able to talk to others using terms they understand, to work together, 
and so on. But how much emphasis should be given to this issue, vs. the
other two (material and problem solving)? I believe that more emphasis should
be given to the material and problem-solving skills, because of several
reasons: these are wider and deeper areas than cooperation skills, they
are harder and less natural for the typical student, and they are things a
typical student would not be able to learn "on the job".
So my belief is that a university should spend some time on issue #3 - it
*should* teach terminology, nomenclemature and methodology that make it easy
for researchers in its field to cooperate, and it should give the students
some practical experience in cooperating - in the form of some pair-work
courses, some cooperative project, or whatever. But it is my belief that the
university should NOT turn each and every course into an exercise of
cooperation. The reason there are a few dozen courses in a degree is because
there are a few dozen subjects that need to be learned - not because
cooperation has to be exercised a few dozen times.

And I mentioned that when cooperation (pair work) is encouraged, care must
be taken not to let it run wild. If students can finish an entire course
not doing anything while their friend (or 5 friends, in the absurd example
I mentioned in my last mail) do their work for them, it is simply not fair.
This isn't a big problem when there are just a few courses like that
(especially when in the Technion's undergraduate courses, there is normally
a test in the end and that isn't done in pairs at all), but if you "run wild"
with the pair work idea, and every course is done completely in pairs,
someone could concievably finish a degree without ever doing a thing, and
without even violating any law (someone who buys solutions also can finish
a degree without ever doing a thing - but at least this is considered illegal).

I hope now you'll find that I answered your reasons. You don't have to agree
with what I said, though ;-) Like I said, we can agree to disagree on this
subject.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |       Monday, Jun  4 2007, 19 Sivan 5767
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |A professor is one who talks in someone
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |else's sleep.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:36:15 +0200

Hi!

Sorry for the late response.

On Monday 04 June 2007, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> > P.S: and just for the record - I still think I'm right when claiming it
> > is a better idea to allow working in pairs. I find that Nadav has still
> > avoided refuting my reasons.
>
> solve in your first year on the job - a university is not a vocational
> school). THREE is to "get on the same page" as the peers you'll be spending
> your professional life with - learn how they think, how they talk, how they
> cooperate, and so on.
>

I think reason #1 (repharsed a bit) - to get knowlege is the most important 
one, followed by #2. Usually, #2 is seen as means to understand and integrate 
this knowledge.

> other two (material and problem solving)? I believe that more emphasis
> should be given to the material and problem-solving skills, because of
> several reasons: these are wider and deeper areas than cooperation skills,
> they are harder and less natural for the typical student, and they are
> things a typical student would not be able to learn "on the job".

Right.

> *should* teach terminology, nomenclemature and methodology that make it
> easy for researchers in its field to cooperate, and it should give the
> students some practical experience in cooperating - in the form of some
> pair-work courses, some cooperative project, or whatever. But it is my
> belief that the university should NOT turn each and every course into an
> exercise of cooperation. The reason there are a few dozen courses in a
> degree is because there are a few dozen subjects that need to be learned -
> not because cooperation has to be exercised a few dozen times.

What I said[1] (and you keep avoiding addressing) is that since the final exam 
is the lion's share of the grade, then a student who completely relied on his 
partner to prepare his exercises for him (and didn't otherwise study the 
material on his own) will likely fail the course. (Assuming the test is not 
fair, and other factors like that).

{{{
[1] - Point #1 in:

http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/education/opinion-on-the-technion/#why_pair_wise
}}}

So making the course pair wise, cannot cause a student to pass, because he 
relied on his partner to do his work his him, and thus get an undeserved 
grade.

> a test in the end and that isn't done in pairs at all), 

Exactly. I wasn't talking about a course whose score is 100% dependent on pair 
work. By all means, a solitary test, on which most of the grade is based, is 
a good idea.

> but if you "run 
> wild" with the pair work idea, and every course is done completely in
> pairs, someone could concievably finish a degree without ever doing a
> thing, and without even violating any law (someone who buys solutions also
> can finish a degree without ever doing a thing - but at least this is
> considered illegal).

>
> I hope now you'll find that I answered your reasons. You don't have to
> agree with what I said, though ;-) Like I said, we can agree to disagree on
> this subject.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish