In the basement, across the hall from my lab, there are three plastic-covered collages made up of formula sheets from long-ago exams. One of my colleagues let the students in a Physics for Pre-Meds class write whatever they wanted on one sheet of paper to bring into the final, and made art from the collected pages after the test.
I was thinking about this last night as I graded last Thursday’s exams, looking at the formula sheets I collected from the students. The range of things that people decide to immortalize on paper is pretty impressive.
Of course, such sheets are not universally loved, so I thought I’d throw this out as a two-question quasi-poll:
1) When you were a student, were you allowed to bring homemade formula sheets to exams?
2) Do you think that students ought to be able to bring homemade formula sheets to exams?
Leave your answers in the comments. I’ll compile them later, and explain my own opinion on the subject.