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Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

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Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#101

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #95
bllguo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while this sounds good on the surface, i think memorization is much more important than you give it credit. imo you absolutely should have key concepts memorized if you have any real understanding of a subject. and as you become more of a specialist, your bar for what constitutes a "key concept" should raise. Being able to search things up is well and good, but dont you run into situations where you don't even know w…

You can’t get intelligently conversant about a thing without having the key bits in your mind, you’re right. But you don’t need to have as much memorized as we’re were tested on when I was in school (90s-early 2000s). And you need a lot more than just memorization to reach real understanding. Every few years I need the quadratic formula for something, and I just derive the thing instead of remembering or looking it u…

> and I just derive the thing instead of remembering or looking it up.

Most people can't do this or have a very hard time learning much easier things.

I find that the crowd that talks about "pointless learning/testing/education" are often either ones that struggled mightily and were never really that smart, or they are so smart that they are above it.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#102

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

chillwaves wrote: post #75
maerF0x0 wrote: post #66

I had a teacher that solved this by saying all exams were open book, and then put so many questions that if you didnt know the material you'd just run out of time. Basically you could look up a very low number of things in the amount of time per question allotted

Some people just work more slowly than others. Doesn't seem like a great solution.

Some people are slower runners, that doesn't mean we should slow down everyone else on a ball field.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#103

Post by throwaway3699 »

smabie wrote: post #96
cloud5ir wrote: post #55

To me, this underscores notion that schools continue to test for the wrong thing. With the exception of professions/trades that require impulse application of knowledge, I don't know why I would want/need someone to memorize a concept in order to apply it. Productive members of our society/workforce think critically, they ask good questions, and they research and leverage the information at their disposal to make dat…

Memorization is absolutely crucial to getting good at math. In fact, I don't think there's any other way to get good at math besides memorization and doing problems, over and over and over again. It's rote, sure, but it has tremendous value. If you think you understand something, but can't actually solve problems without referencing anything, you don't actually understand it.

Is there not an in-between? I used to be very good at maths, but a year out of practice and I might struggle at some topics. I still retain the intuitive understanding and that grants me a rapid path back to being able to solve problems.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#104

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

progman32 wrote: post #88
askvictor wrote: post #50

A solution for both this, and the problems with exams in general, is oral exams. Student has to answer questions from the teacher, in real time, one-on-one. Takes longer, but is much more authentic.

This tosses in a whole other layer of stress and meta-game managing the relationship with the teacher. I do not do anywhere close to my best work with someone staring at my every move. For undergrad, I'm much more in favor of deliverable-based approaches. Term projects, problem sets, etc. I think it's cruel to boil such a high-stakes decision to a single-point-of-failure event like a big test. I've heard too many sto…

> I do not do anywhere close to my best work with someone staring at my every move.

And some people thrive with others around.

Eventually you'll find an excuse for why anything is unfair..."too much pressure!" "not enough time!"

And we wonder why, by and large, college degrees become more worthless, and academic vigor sinks like a stone.

Maybe we should just accept that college should be hard, that tests should be challenging, and instead, remove the extra requirement for college for most people. Because if we just make it a joke it's pointless anyway.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#105

Post by eikenberry »

smabie wrote: post #96
cloud5ir wrote: post #55

To me, this underscores notion that schools continue to test for the wrong thing. With the exception of professions/trades that require impulse application of knowledge, I don't know why I would want/need someone to memorize a concept in order to apply it. Productive members of our society/workforce think critically, they ask good questions, and they research and leverage the information at their disposal to make dat…

Memorization is absolutely crucial to getting good at math. In fact, I don't think there's any other way to get good at math besides memorization and doing problems, over and over and over again. It's rote, sure, but it has tremendous value. If you think you understand something, but can't actually solve problems without referencing anything, you don't actually understand it.

Not going to argue math, but that final statement is a poor way to frame understanding/learning. You can understand something well enough to solve it from memory a few times when in close proximity to the time you learnt it. On the other hand you can understand something well enough to know how to check the references and solve it for the rest of your life.

That is it is better to understand how to solve problems with references than without. You'll forget most you know but once recorded you can't forget. Then you just need to know it exists so you can find it.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#106

Post by Tainnor »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #101
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t get intelligently conversant about a thing without having the key bits in your mind, you’re right. But you don’t need to have as much memorized as we’re were tested on when I was in school (90s-early 2000s). And you need a lot more than just memorization to reach real understanding. Every few years I need the quadratic formula for something, and I just derive the thing instead of remembering or looking it u…

> and I just derive the thing instead of remembering or looking it up. Most people can't do this or have a very hard time learning much easier things. I find that the crowd that talks about "pointless learning/testing/education" are often either ones that struggled mightily and were never really that smart, or they are so smart that they are above it.

I guess then the point becomes - in the age of computers, what's the value in memorising the quadratic formula without understanding where it comes from?

It's much more important to know that there is a quadratic formula, or more fundamentally that every quadratic equation has 0-2 roots (exactly 2 if dealing with complex numbers) and what the different cases loom like (does the parabola touch or intersect the x-axis?). It's typically more important to be able to solve a quadratic equation through guessing, factoring or completing the square. Because these things teach you something about how mathematics works, regurgitating some formula serves no purpose, you can just ask Wolfram|Alpha instead. And even if you can't complete the square etc., I'd much rather people understood the conceptual side of it instead of remembering formulas.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#107

Post by whoisburbansky »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #103
smabie wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memorization is absolutely crucial to getting good at math. In fact, I don't think there's any other way to get good at math besides memorization and doing problems, over and over and over again. It's rote, sure, but it has tremendous value. If you think you understand something, but can't actually solve problems without referencing anything, you don't actually understand it.

Is there not an in-between? I used to be very good at maths, but a year out of practice and I might struggle at some topics. I still retain the intuitive understanding and that grants me a rapid path back to being able to solve problems.

The intuitive understanding that you still retain was only built up by repetition and memorization in the first place, no?

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#108

Post by Tainnor »

smabie wrote: post #96
cloud5ir wrote: post #55

To me, this underscores notion that schools continue to test for the wrong thing. With the exception of professions/trades that require impulse application of knowledge, I don't know why I would want/need someone to memorize a concept in order to apply it. Productive members of our society/workforce think critically, they ask good questions, and they research and leverage the information at their disposal to make dat…

Memorization is absolutely crucial to getting good at math. In fact, I don't think there's any other way to get good at math besides memorization and doing problems, over and over and over again. It's rote, sure, but it has tremendous value. If you think you understand something, but can't actually solve problems without referencing anything, you don't actually understand it.

I think this is only half true. Of course, if you want to be good at maths, you will have to remember things because you can't always look up or re-derive every smallest detail (and because you have to become good at pattern-matching at some point). But the memory tends to work best if it's activated by deliberate practice. For example, instead of memorising a proof line-by-line it's much better to try to remember the key points and then practicing filling in the gaps. If necessary, repeat this process several times. When I was studying for ODEs, I tried to re-derive many of the standard techniques by trying to remember which trick to apply instead of trying to memorise the formula.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#109

Post by Avi-D-coder »

At what point can we stop pretending most universities prepare you for the job market?

If your a professor that cares about Google give a rapid oral exam. If your a college professor giving multiple choice or other memorization based formats, what value are you providing over free online courses? Frankly, if your institution "has" to use this sort of software, it's not worth attending.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#110

Post by j45 »

smabie wrote: post #96
cloud5ir wrote: post #55

To me, this underscores notion that schools continue to test for the wrong thing. With the exception of professions/trades that require impulse application of knowledge, I don't know why I would want/need someone to memorize a concept in order to apply it. Productive members of our society/workforce think critically, they ask good questions, and they research and leverage the information at their disposal to make dat…

Memorization is absolutely crucial to getting good at math. In fact, I don't think there's any other way to get good at math besides memorization and doing problems, over and over and over again. It's rote, sure, but it has tremendous value. If you think you understand something, but can't actually solve problems without referencing anything, you don't actually understand it.

I had a math teacher that explained math in two categories.

Either you will understand permutations and combinations almost instantly, or you will have to do tons of examples.

Likely not applicable to all kinds of math but relatable to some concepts for sure

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