Our judgement is that this method has become a success. The students enjoy this approach, they take much more responsibility than before, and their learning has benefitted significantly. These experiences has inspired us to try a laboratory excercise also as part of the examination. The actual task to perform is to find out the circuit solution in a closed box. We use a number of different circuits with a few colour-marked contacts.
Students can select the level of difficulty themselves.
At the beginning of the test, they are given some information on the content in the black box. If they are unable to solve the problem they can get more information, making the problem less difficult, at the expense of getting less credit for its solution. In general, the students are very positive to the idea as such. All critique, however not fierce, is on details in the practical execution. A second round will be carried out during spring 2001, with modifications based on the first-year experiences.