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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

#181
post #137

I feel so bad for the students that have to deal with this. I worked at a Community College in IT for a while. Students would come into a lab that was specifically set up for testing. The anti-cheating software was such total trash, it would crash, crash the browser, crash the whole system. Students would have to start testing over... At least twice a month, their systems would be down, and nobody could take tests at…

This could be describing plenty of enterprise software too. Boxticking crapware.

Sounds like we just need to push for an "uptime" checkbox, where uptime means tests can be taken.

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

#182

I just went through this kind of experience on Friday, taking my Oregon real estate license exam (I passed, now will be dual licensed in WA and OR!). The having to scan the room, scan my ears, scan my "desk" (or in this case my crotch because I was using a laptop) was all very silly, but didn't really bother me. The worst parts were all very human - they sent me the wrong link for the test, shared incorrect informati…

Congrats on passing, by the way. Nice work.

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

#183
I've heard some good stories of VMs and obs to circumvent all this insane stuff.

It's good. I remember learning about networks to pirate stuff back in the day and that's much less of a thing now. Now kids have their own incredibly stupid invented problem they can easily work around if they learn some tech stuff, and a lot of them are familiar with obs from streaming anyway.

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

#184
post #96

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.

Doing the same problem again and again does not do much to learn math. Doing various problems again and again is necessary, but that is not memorization. Because you are not actually remembering things.

Also, it was not that unusual for exercised based university math tests to allow references. Precisely because it does not matter all that much for difficult exercises, remembering everything is not the point.

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

#185
post #96

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.

Calculations are based on memory but everything else not so much in my opinion. Sure, some methods for solving common problems are memorized

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

#187

A random tidbit I've heard floating around: Examplify (yet another proctor) will think that you're running in a VM if you have WSL installed.

You sort of are. The main OS is virtualized too under WSL2. Both it and WSL2's kernels running on top of hyper-v.

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

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of cheat does it prevent? I imagine it wouldn't be terribly hard to run the machines so that only one full-screen window is shown, or a user for whom the internet is disabled. Is that not enough?

> I imagine it wouldn't be terribly hard to run the machines so that only one full-screen window is shown, or a user for whom the internet is disabled. Is that not enough? Many of the anti-cheating software will also run the webcam and yell at you if it thinks you aren't paying attention to only the screen, while recording everything on your screen. And students are being forced to install this on their home machines…

> And students are being forced to install this on their home machines.

Wait, what if I work from home and my kid is sitting in the living room as well. I get recorded then? WTF???

Who owns these machines? Is it the parents or the school or the government or who? What if they decline? Can someone explain why a child has to accept that they are being watched on a webcam without their consent? Without the consent of their parent? And, "either accept it or don't get allowed at exam" isn't a choice. They ain't going to high school yet, but I don't envision I would allow my children to be scrutinized by this. Then again, who expected COVID-19. I can only hope this is temporary, but perhaps its part of 'the new normal'.

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

#189
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will never work because it absolutely fails to scale, at a time when we have a complete lack of computing educators. Customized projects for each student? I have 159 students in my CS1 this semester, and I can barely keep track of them with the massive amounts of data I collect. The idea of making individualized assignments is beautiful but unrealistic.

Most code reviews I've done at work take between 5 minutes to 10 minutes. To assume the worst possible case of 200 students, 20 deliverable per student, and a 10 minutes meeting per MR you'd be at ~28 days (~84 8hr-days). Get 1 TA and you now have 42 days of the semester dedicated to 1:1 time (35%) and the remainder of the semester dedicated to producing learning content. Learning content (lecture videos, etc) can be…

I teach classes of ~500 students and classes of ~100 students.

While having individual projects is very nice and it works for smaller classes, it does not scale to average students.

I have once used individual projects to grade the ~100-student class and the amount of effort it takes is unbelievable.

For example, just your number "1." point, write a project proposal, is not so easy. It takes hours to write a good proposal and several back-and-forths between instructor and student to agree on a reasonable (not too advanced/not too basic) project.

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

#190
post #119

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…

I teach programming. What prevents students from colluding over their tablets/mobiles/laptops while taking the exam from another device? Can't the student mirror the screen elsewhere, leading to interesting possibilities for cheating? Proctoring is not a solution that I am comfortable with. I do not want to peer into the private lives of students and their home environments. Not every student is well-off, and has a p…

How about actually treating them like respectable adults and using the honor system? If you start treating people like dogs, don't be surprised when they bite you. Woof.

Stop giving bullshit tests with bullshit restrictions, which is usually what drives people to cheat in the first place. Have you considered asking: what can I change so my students are able to successfully learn the material such that they won't feel compelled to cheat? Recognize that cheating students are a reflection of your apathetic educational strategy and ineffective testing model.

Here's an example of a bullshit test which exemplifies a few of the issues with apathetic educators: single-try tests. Students are only given a single attempt to demonstrate they've learned the material, with the result ultimately reflected in the final grade. The apathetic educator is unbothered by having failed to adequately prepare his students, despite his knowledge of their inability to accurately self-asses in an unknown topic. A caring educator would provide a way for students to diagnose and fix any gaps in their understanding in addition to as a path for them to raise their grade to an A if they demonstrate an understanding of all relevant course topics.

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