231–240 of 317 posts
Fuck grades. They were already a problem in universities and this is their final and worst form. University systems have the major problem that a significant portion of students are only there for a degree, and their participation is playing the game in order to get that piece of paper, and the GPA number rating them. The core of this problem is the question “will this be on the exam?” Testing of course can be an imp…
One professor of mine let us bring books and notes into our written exams knowing that if you didn't actually do any of the readings or take any notes, those resources wouldn't really help you anyway. But if you had adequately prepared, the books and notes could really help you craft an excellent written response. In this scenario, it took the focus off memorizing things and instead focused on understanding the conte…
You had to do them, you were completely able to just copy the solution, and when you were working on something you got immediate feedback as to whether you were doing it well. If you wanted to learn you could, if you didn’t you wouldn’t. The lack of a week or two of lag between solving a problem and figuring out if you had done it correctly really made a difference.
Fuck grades. They were already a problem in universities and this is their final and worst form. University systems have the major problem that a significant portion of students are only there for a degree, and their participation is playing the game in order to get that piece of paper, and the GPA number rating them. The core of this problem is the question “will this be on the exam?” Testing of course can be an imp…
One professor of mine let us bring books and notes into our written exams knowing that if you didn't actually do any of the readings or take any notes, those resources wouldn't really help you anyway. But if you had adequately prepared, the books and notes could really help you craft an excellent written response. In this scenario, it took the focus off memorizing things and instead focused on understanding the conte…
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>> People that want to cheat or game the system will find ways, it isn't hard to do. As someone who taught a college, that's a flawed statement. Let me propose this to you. You teach Calculus 1000 and there is an end of term exam. Your normal end of term exam is one where everyone sits in the same room, proctors are looking for cheats, things checked, etc. Instead this year you tell your students that this year it wi…
The idea that an honor code is enough is belied by the fact that software like this catches cheaters, no? I mean, we're obviously upset about false positives, and we should be. But I'm presuming that some people are caught who were cheating, and without the software they would have cheated and not been caught. We can suggest that with an honor code in place, maybe some of those cheating students would have not cheate…
Where would they get reliable training data?
There's a pile of money to be spent on this stuff, and virtually zero accountability. What's that a recipe for?
At least the online class cheating increases fairness. Now you can cheat without having the money to purchase a bogus disability claim. For many years now, all the well-off schemers have been taking tests with twice as much time as normal. Nobody in academia dares to push back at this fraud, out of fear that they might be pilloried for failure to accommodate. Honest students usually aren't even aware of just how unfa…
I had a lot of mental health issues and I registered with my school's accessibility services. I was surprised I could get extra time on tests, extensions, etc. so easily. Unfortunately, none of those accommodations were even helpful for me. An extension would just make me fall further behind on other work, and I didn't have test anxiety or a disability which would prevent me from taking tests quickly (though I was of…
That said, giving time and a half or double time on exams to anyone who takes the time and money to track down a compliant enough medical professional to diagnose them with ADHD is not the right thing either. And yes, some people really do have ADHD and need various support, not limited to extra time on exams, to succeed in the school environments we have created. But _so_ many people are diagnosed with ADHD who have nothing of the sort...
Anecdotally, my acquaintances who teach at elite liberal arts colleges say that 25-40% of their students nowadays are receiving extra-time accommodations, a sharp rise over just 10 years ago. It's possible that the prevalence of ADHD and various mental health issues really is that high amongst high-performing teenagers nowadays; the college admissions crapshoot and lead-up to it surely is not helping with mental health. But I find it much more likely that there's a significant amount of gaming the system going on, unfortunately.
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I haven't used any essay-checking or exam-taking software yet. Even so, based on what I've heard from my immediate superior, I'm flagging somewhere between 10-20% of all of the plagiarism and cheating cases in my faculty. It's not hard to detect (generally good writing mixed with bad on essays / the repetition of similar phrases by different students on exams), but it does take a bit of time to confirm and you need t…
In a lot of disciplines, open book doesn’t help you solve problems all that much. It might supply some of the pieces required to solve problems, but the ability to remember all of those pieces by rote vs. looking them up is really orthogonal to the ability to apply them to solving a novel problem. Indeed the ability to find the requisite information to solve a problem in a timely manner is an important skill in itsel…
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What if you only have linux computers at home and can't run their spyware?
If you have a linux computer you can boot from usb or a second drive to run windows. That's what I did when I had to take exams using Proctortrack.
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> University systems have the major problem that a significant portion of students are only there for a degree, and their participation is playing the game in order to get that piece of paper, and the GPA number rating them. In defense of the students, they're just following the incentive gradient in front of them. For all the romantic notions about how college should be optimized for exploration and "real learning",…
Oh absolutely, little blame can be fairly put on students, though everyone participates in the system and deserves some (and eventually everyone responsible was a student themselves at one time). > To fix the universities, you have to fix the incentives Who better than the universities to drive change? That is sort of their fundamental purpose is it not? If you need to lead a university around with a carrot, it reall…
[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/11/the-colle...
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If you have a linux computer you can boot from usb or a second drive to run windows. That's what I did when I had to take exams using Proctortrack.
While I agree with you that most people who run Linux as a daily driver might be capable of running Windows as a secondary OS on occasion, this discounts the fact that he or she would be required to purchase the license (else break the law), and also ignores the fact that they should not be required to do so
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> I wonder how parents feel that an anonymous foreign, most probably male, can watch their daughter in her room working on her exams and she can't opt-out else she'll be treated like a criminal. Why does foreign matter?
No legal recourse, and cultural differences. An adult male in Japan propositioning a 13 year old for sex is legal in their current system, whereas that doesn't really fly in America.