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> Why is there an incentive to cheat like this? Frankly, because most of the hoops a student jumps through during their education really don't impart any lastin

by 46Bit 14y ago

> Why is there an incentive to cheat like this? Frankly, because most of the hoops a student jumps through during their education really don't impart any lasting measurable value. What fraction of educational content is still usable in the average student's brain ten years after they learned it? Very little. You're overcomplicating things to push your agenda. There's an incentive for a dishonest student to cheat because it's significantly easier than actually doing the work. A student is unlikely to cheat on a topic they really love, but the value of learning something isn't judgeable on that basis. A lot of things I questioned the value of at school have come in handy, and I only left 2 years ago. I agree that a big value of school is the ability to learn and reason, but students don't know best.

ef4 14y ago
> There's an incentive for a dishonest student to cheat because it's significantly easier than actually doing the work. That's only true if cheating gives you the same benefit as actually doing the work. In many fields (especially science/technology/engineering/math), I would argue that the cheater doesn't capture much benefit. It's pretty easy to verify their abilities and see that they don't know what they're doing. In these areas, even where the credential is necessary it is not sufficient. On the other hand, there are cases where it seems that a cheater is just as capable of doing the work. Where that's true, it calls into question the wisdom of using such credentials in the first place, since mastery of the material ends up being uncorrelated with performance. > but students don't know best. True, but that's only a problem if we assume learning is a one-shot thing. If learning is a continuous, iterative process then there's plenty of chances for the learner to self-correct based on real-world experience. That's one reason I went off on my "agenda" about why education in general needs to change.

by 46Bit 14y ago

ef4 14y ago

> There's an incentive for a dishonest student to cheat because it's significantly easier than actually doing the work. That's only true if cheating gives you the same benefit as actually doing the work. In many fields (especially science/technology/engineering/math), I would argue that the cheater doesn't capture much benefit. It's pretty easy to verify their abilities and see that they don't know what they're doing. In these areas, even where the credential is necessary it is not sufficient. On the other hand, there are cases where it seems that a cheater is just as capable of doing the work. Where that's true, it calls into question the wisdom of using such credentials in the first place, since mastery of the material ends up being uncorrelated with performance. > but students don't know best. True, but that's only a problem if we assume learning is a one-shot thing. If learning is a continuous, iterative process then there's plenty of chances for the learner to self-correct based on real-world experience. That's one reason I went off on my "agenda" about why education in general needs to change.