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ERIK DEMAINE: Algorithms
is an interesting area,

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because it's very creative to
come up with new algorithms.

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There's often many ways
to solve the same problem.

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But unlike art
say, in algorithms

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there's a quantifiable
measures for how good you did.

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What is the running time of
the thing you ended up with?

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How much space does it use?

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It is efficient?

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So it's nice in that
it's easy to evaluate

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whether you kind of succeeded.

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Did you get the n
log n algorithm?

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Did you get the fastest
that's possible?

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But it's hard to measure
a student's understanding

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because it's like, did
you get the creative trick

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that we had in mind,
or find another one

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that's just as good?

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Students may find a
different creative trick

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that doesn't end up with as
good an algorithm in the end.

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So we penalize that someone,
but for the most part

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we are happy when people
get correct algorithms.

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When they understand
the techniques

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well enough that they get an
algorithm, it's pretty good.

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May not be the best,
but we consider

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that much better than they
were using the right technique,

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but they ended up using it
wrong and so they end up

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with something
doesn't even work.

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And that's much more
discouraging, I guess.

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But in any case,
in a timed exam,

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it's really hard to expect
students to be creative.

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So in that setting, it's hard.

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We don't expect a
lot of creativity.

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We try to keep the
questions relatively simple,

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so you need just
one simple idea.

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If you're familiar
with the material,

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it should come quickly.

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It Doesn't always, but--

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So problem sets are definitely
an easier way for students

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to express creativity.

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It gives them a little more
time to think about the problem.

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Because some problems are going
to come easy to some students

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and hard to others.

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It's going to be
different problem set,

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so they have a week
to think about it.

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And also to talk to others,
we allow collaboration

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in the problem sets,
so that makes it easier

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to find solutions but
still learn a lot from it.

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In the exams, it's a lot harder.

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In past years we've tried
take home exams as a way

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to more accurately gauge
how creative someone is

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in applying these techniques
to design new algorithms.

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We didn't do that this year.

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It's not clear what
the right answer is.

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It's definitely a challenge
in teaching algorithms,

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is how to evaluate whether
someone can really apply

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the techniques in new
and creative ways.