4 ms·

Perhaps we shouod be rethinking the entire premise of school assessment. The goal is ostensibly to learn. We only assess so students can prove they learned to

by Gunax 5y ago

Perhaps we shouod be rethinking the entire premise of school assessment. The goal is ostensibly to learn. We only assess so students can prove they learned to third parties, and perhaps secondarily for inatructors to assess how effective they are. The more cynical view is that education is the exams, and we only care about obtainmentnof the credentials.

SQueeeeeL 5y ago
Yeah, I blame the top for collapsing. People want to have nice lives and fiscal stability. HR at Fortune 500 companies are bad and doesn't care if you have knowledge, just a good degree. Therefore, college is literally just a place to punch a ticket to the middle class.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if colleges just cut out the expensive facility and staff and sell the credentials directly at some point soon. You take an exam, and the colleges sell classes that give you some advantage during the exam, but if you are willing to pay "inflated price" you can totally just sit the exam and get the credits. I mean thats already a thing for basically the entire first year of college in the United States if you go to a State school with the AP exams. And alot of the second year materially could easily be AP examined as well. My experience is that it's not until your 3rd year that your past "digest information" and going into more critical analysis of what you are learning. If you EVER go into critical analysis of what you are supposed to be learning. You can get lots of 4 year degrees by just knowing what multiple choice answer to put down and be a semi component writer (that is know how to write a works cited page and not have spelling errors) For STEM you might not actually go into critical analysis of what you are learning until your 4th year (if ever). Sense those degrees have more information you need to digest on average. I say this as someone who has gotten both a soft science degree (Sociology) and a STEM degree (Computer Science)
  - swiley 5y ago
    The phrase you might be looking for is "credit by examination." There are CLEP tests for pretty much all the general education you need (ie the two initial years of easy bullshit they make you pay for) and many universities will let CS students test out of the first year or so of programming classes, leaving just the last two years of stuff like algorithms/databases/electives. So we're nearly there already.
commandlinefan 5y ago
People like to complain about testing and what they really measure, but what alternative is there? Even a "real world" problem is still a test, just a really hard, open-ended one. The tests that we subject students to represent somebody's honest attempt, at least, to create questions that an intelligent person at their age can come up with an answer to without access to any external material.

by Gunax 5y ago

SQueeeeeL 5y ago

Yeah, I blame the top for collapsing. People want to have nice lives and fiscal stability. HR at Fortune 500 companies are bad and doesn't care if you have knowledge, just a good degree. Therefore, college is literally just a place to punch a ticket to the middle class.

namelessoracle 5y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if colleges just cut out the expensive facility and staff and sell the credentials directly at some point soon. You take an exam, and the colleges sell classes that give you some advantage during the exam, but if you are willing to pay "inflated price" you can totally just sit the exam and get the credits. I mean thats already a thing for basically the entire first year of college in the United States if you go to a State school with the AP exams. And alot of the second year materially could easily be AP examined as well. My experience is that it's not until your 3rd year that your past "digest information" and going into more critical analysis of what you are learning. If you EVER go into critical analysis of what you are supposed to be learning. You can get lots of 4 year degrees by just knowing what multiple choice answer to put down and be a semi component writer (that is know how to write a works cited page and not have spelling errors) For STEM you might not actually go into critical analysis of what you are learning until your 4th year (if ever). Sense those degrees have more information you need to digest on average. I say this as someone who has gotten both a soft science degree (Sociology) and a STEM degree (Computer Science)
- swiley 5y ago
  The phrase you might be looking for is "credit by examination." There are CLEP tests for pretty much all the general education you need (ie the two initial years of easy bullshit they make you pay for) and many universities will let CS students test out of the first year or so of programming classes, leaving just the last two years of stuff like algorithms/databases/electives. So we're nearly there already.

commandlinefan 5y ago

People like to complain about testing and what they really measure, but what alternative is there? Even a "real world" problem is still a test, just a really hard, open-ended one. The tests that we subject students to represent somebody's honest attempt, at least, to create questions that an intelligent person at their age can come up with an answer to without access to any external material.