Comment on Open Thread, April 1-15, 2013

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 20:06:51 GMT

I feel like it's the students' responsibility to calibrate their own personal correct amount of worry that it takes to make them study, regardless of what the thing is called? (Like if I say "This quiz is worth 50% of your grade," they should be able to tell that it's not really a quiz.) But at the same time, it sounds like some brains have this worry horizon where once they start worrying, then it's all they can do. So we need to somehow calibrate the scariness of exams so that only a very small percentage of people fall off the worry horizon, because people who fail from not studying can just start studying. The stable state of not being worried is a good place! ^_^

This kind of reminds me of all of the (non-technical) articles about game addiction and how it's in the designers' best interest to keep everyone hooked but still high-functioning enough that we won't outlaw WoW the way we outlaw harmful, addictive narcotics.

Brains are such a mess. ^_^

Discuss