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How are you supposed to assess whether a student has learned quantum mechanics, or chemistry, or calculus if any questions you ask them they can simply contact
by krull10 5y ago
How are you supposed to assess whether a student has learned quantum mechanics, or chemistry, or calculus if any questions you ask them they can simply contact another student for help, or get someone to do it for them on sites like Chegg? Short of giving an individualized oral exam, which is not feasible for anything but tiny classes, proctored exams are necessary for assessment in such classes. This has nothing to do with memorization or time pressures, and everything to do with making sure the student is the one who actually did the work. In an ideal world one could trust students to do take-home exams on their own, but I’ve yet to be at a university where undergraduates did not take advantage of such trust…
- jrm4 5y agoI can't speak for those other disciplines, but I'd flip the question -- how valuable, really, is the act of "determining the source of the work, via proctored exams" when the goal is "ensuring that students learn." This is just an ongoing arms race, and other ways have to be experimented with. Again, the biggest stupidity is "discouraging collaboration." I teach web design and some programming, and FAR AND AWAY the best thing I've done is "get all my students on discord and encourage them to help each other on their assignments." I set up a "make sure your website has this and this; content is up to you." And I end up with 40-50 different very cool websites, and I've gotten a pretty good sense that learning takes place because I'm in the chat too.