3 ms·

As a first year grad student, I had a professor in material science who gave the same assignments and mostly same exams every year. Of course a) I didn't know t

by kurthr 4y ago

As a first year grad student, I had a professor in material science who gave the same assignments and mostly same exams every year. Of course a) I didn't know this b) using previous works was prohibited c) cheating was rampant. I only found this out after getting heavily marked down on the first HW and joining a study group which was moderately chaste (eg only used the answers to check our work before turning it in). Missing a single question on HW or the exam would drop your grade a letter, and three or more was likely D/F range. When I brought this up with the professor before the final he at least acted completely shocked as I asked how likely he thought it was that half the class never missed a question (yes half the class got As). Really weird conversation, but most of the class was undergrads, and I think they liked the easy grade with minimal work and so he got 'good ratings'. Undergrad college had 'infinite time' and 'open everything but people' exams, but graded on a curve so that sometimes getting half the questions right was an A. Much more stressful, learned more, and basically no cheating. Certainly, I had one CS class with a newly invented language (compiled). In the days of Fortran, Pascal, and K&R that was kinda par for the course. Not much cheating on that either.

Aperocky 4y ago
Learning over the centuries has always taken a character of reciting information, since the ability to do so was valued at the time. With the technologies of today, the ability to recite knowledge (versus using said knowledge when provided, and the ability to look for said knowledge) is rapidly losing value. But our education system has not moved on and are mostly stuck at using recital to judge student capability. A complete rethinking of how to assess student performance is long overdue. For subjects that cannot be assessed without recital, maybe rethink the necessity of existence of those subject for teaching.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > With the technologies of today, the ability to recite knowledge (versus using said knowledge when provided, and the ability to look for said knowledge) is rapidly losing value. I didn’t think you are implying that having knowledge (ready to go) is of no value. Having more knowledge gives a huge advantage in time and space. Not only can you solve problems much faster (you don’t need to find, read, understand, and internalize the “knowledge”) you can also make connections that others would miss because to gain knowledge is deeper than mere recall.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
  I got my first degree in 2009. Recently started again. Took a biology test today and was pleasantly surprised how non-recital it was. It focused on a planned development (hotels, grocery stores, etc) in a part of town that everybody in the class is quite familiar with and asked us to apply concepts from lecture to predict the impact to a given set of species. It was masterful. Hit all the points, anchored in our everyday lives, applied in a way that rote memorization just wouldn't help with. I had a moment like: WTF I've lived here my whole life and never seen a wild ferret. Searched it after the test and turns out they're native and critically endangered. Just saying: the good ones are out there.
jonnycomputer 4y ago
When I realized that there were numerous copies of past exams floating around, I just made them available to everyone equally. Of course, I always wrote new exams, but it is helpful to see what kinds of questions you may be asked on an exam.
sq_ 4y ago
> Undergrad college had 'infinite time' and 'open everything but people' exams, but graded on a curve so that sometimes getting half the questions right was an A. Much more stressful, learned more, and basically no cheating. I tend to really appreciate 'open everything but people' exams, since they're a good way to actually check that people know how to complete a task. I think that a good one is probably harder for a professor to write, but the ones that I've taken have been a much better test of my understanding of the topic than ones where I was concerned with memorizing what the API for POSIX threads was. Not so sure about infinite time, though. Seems like it makes it really easy for someone who has the time to dedicate a whole day (or the obsessiveness to do it even if they don't have the time) to do way better than someone who, for whatever reason, can't. To me, the gold standard for computer science exams would be ~90m-3h with an open everything policy, including both a "do you know/can you apply the theory?" and a "can you do something practical with that?" section.
lobocinza 4y ago
Reminds me of a girl from my chemistry lab group on college that replaced our experimental findings at the last minute without telling us because ours was drastically different than the "answer" from past semester works. The experiment was to identify a substance using it's density or something like that. She didn't stop to think that maybe, just maybe, the professor used a different substance on that semester. That bothered because while I didn't take my graduation seriously I really cared for rigor and measured things twice. Cheating was prevalent in certain situations. I had a teacher that would leave the room during exams leaving the students to do whatever they wanted, which included the whole class hot debating the answer of each question. An engagement level that would never occur in a normal class. In the CS lab (C++ for engineers) it was common for the student that finished the assignment first to mail the code to the whole class. Most would simply copy it, leave early and call it a day. Many also struggled with programming and put it in the category of "things that are hard and will not need to know".

by kurthr 4y ago

Aperocky 4y ago

Learning over the centuries has always taken a character of reciting information, since the ability to do so was valued at the time. With the technologies of today, the ability to recite knowledge (versus using said knowledge when provided, and the ability to look for said knowledge) is rapidly losing value. But our education system has not moved on and are mostly stuck at using recital to judge student capability. A complete rethinking of how to assess student performance is long overdue. For subjects that cannot be assessed without recital, maybe rethink the necessity of existence of those subject for teaching.

andsoitis 4y ago
> With the technologies of today, the ability to recite knowledge (versus using said knowledge when provided, and the ability to look for said knowledge) is rapidly losing value. I didn’t think you are implying that having knowledge (ready to go) is of no value. Having more knowledge gives a huge advantage in time and space. Not only can you solve problems much faster (you don’t need to find, read, understand, and internalize the “knowledge”) you can also make connections that others would miss because to gain knowledge is deeper than mere recall.
__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
I got my first degree in 2009. Recently started again. Took a biology test today and was pleasantly surprised how non-recital it was. It focused on a planned development (hotels, grocery stores, etc) in a part of town that everybody in the class is quite familiar with and asked us to apply concepts from lecture to predict the impact to a given set of species. It was masterful. Hit all the points, anchored in our everyday lives, applied in a way that rote memorization just wouldn't help with. I had a moment like: WTF I've lived here my whole life and never seen a wild ferret. Searched it after the test and turns out they're native and critically endangered. Just saying: the good ones are out there.

jonnycomputer 4y ago

When I realized that there were numerous copies of past exams floating around, I just made them available to everyone equally. Of course, I always wrote new exams, but it is helpful to see what kinds of questions you may be asked on an exam.

sq_ 4y ago

> Undergrad college had 'infinite time' and 'open everything but people' exams, but graded on a curve so that sometimes getting half the questions right was an A. Much more stressful, learned more, and basically no cheating. I tend to really appreciate 'open everything but people' exams, since they're a good way to actually check that people know how to complete a task. I think that a good one is probably harder for a professor to write, but the ones that I've taken have been a much better test of my understanding of the topic than ones where I was concerned with memorizing what the API for POSIX threads was. Not so sure about infinite time, though. Seems like it makes it really easy for someone who has the time to dedicate a whole day (or the obsessiveness to do it even if they don't have the time) to do way better than someone who, for whatever reason, can't. To me, the gold standard for computer science exams would be ~90m-3h with an open everything policy, including both a "do you know/can you apply the theory?" and a "can you do something practical with that?" section.

lobocinza 4y ago

Reminds me of a girl from my chemistry lab group on college that replaced our experimental findings at the last minute without telling us because ours was drastically different than the "answer" from past semester works. The experiment was to identify a substance using it's density or something like that. She didn't stop to think that maybe, just maybe, the professor used a different substance on that semester. That bothered because while I didn't take my graduation seriously I really cared for rigor and measured things twice. Cheating was prevalent in certain situations. I had a teacher that would leave the room during exams leaving the students to do whatever they wanted, which included the whole class hot debating the answer of each question. An engagement level that would never occur in a normal class. In the CS lab (C++ for engineers) it was common for the student that finished the assignment first to mail the code to the whole class. Most would simply copy it, leave early and call it a day. Many also struggled with programming and put it in the category of "things that are hard and will not need to know".