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I assure you, oral exams are completely scalable. But it does require most of a university's budget to go towards labs and faculty, and not administration and s
by vkou 10mo ago
I assure you, oral exams are completely scalable. But it does require most of a university's budget to go towards labs and faculty, and not administration and sports arenas and social services and vanity projects and three-star dorms.
- musicale 10mo agoOne way of scaling out interactive/oral assessment (and personalized instruction in general) is to hire a group of course assistants/tutors from the previous cohort.
- vkou 10mo agoSo, TAs. The other half of the mission-critical staff that keeps a university running.
- musicale 10mo agoI think it works differently at different schools and in different countries, but hourly (often undergraduate work-study) course assistants in the US can be very affordable since they typically still pay tuition and are paid at a lower rate than fully funded (usually graduate student) TAs.
- ninalanyon 10mo agoDoes any country other than the US use TAs? They certainly weren't a thing when I studied in the UK in the 1970s.
- vkou 10mo agoCanada.
- ninalanyon 10mo agoAs a student I really would not want to be taught by someone who was simply a couple of years ahead of me. I want my tutor to be a lot more experienced in both the subject and in tutoring.
- andrepd 10mo ago> sports arenas and social services and vanity projects and three-star dorms One of these is not like the others.
- vkou 10mo agoCorrect, but in any functioning society, it shouldn't be the school's job to provide them.
- bsenftner 10mo agoBut "in any functioning society" is not our society. Human civilization is marginally functional, wildly spotty in the distribution of comfort, with the majority of humanity receiving significantly less than others.