Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules • Hacker News Board

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#121

Post by philipov » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 12:36 PM UTC

wolframhempel wrote: post #81

wolframhempel wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to test their ability to perform a task - rather than how well they memorized things. Which is not to say that memorization is not important, but it's just one piece of the Puzzle. So when it comes to language tests, rather than having the candidate fill in prepositions into blanks, let's have an actual conversation with them in which they apply their combined skills.

I actually adhere to this philosophy when hiring candidates as well. Rather than having them explain how to reverse binary trees on a whiteboard, I have them sit down and do a mini version of the actual task they will have to do in their job later. And, unsurprisingly, knowing how well they do the actual task is a much better indicator of how well they perform at doing the actual task later.

I think this is a good philosophy for hiring employees, but when it comes to education, we wish to go beyond training employees, and what your capabilities are is not the only thing that matters. We should test practical capabilities, but we should test more abstract skills like how many facts you've ingested as well.

When I tell people a story about the history of the french revolution or something, I don't have the opportunity to go research it beforehand. I've already done that research, and I've already thought about those events for months or years, which gave me the opportunity to synthesize an insight or opinion I wish to share.

You don't get that if you don't know things in your head.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#122

Post by matwood » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 12:38 PM UTC

tpetry wrote: post #41

p1necone wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Design better tests. If you can "cheat" on a test by just googling things/looking at notes then the test isn't testing anything but rote memorization anyway.

One of the bests I had written in university allowed you to bring every non-digital material you want to have. All slides? The books? The former exercises? No problem! The test was designed to be built on 2 primitives: 1. If you need to lookup stuff in your waste of material you won‘t be able to finish everything. The time constraint was very hard. 2. It was not just repeating former things, you had to have understoo…

I hated take home tests in undergrad and grad school because they were the hardest tests I took. Memorization was easy lol.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#123

Post by bittercynic » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 12:59 PM UTC

wikfwikf wrote: post #84

blitzar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pearson VUE I was so happy when the pandemic hit and the second part of a qualification I was doing could be remotely proctered - everyone from professionals to crack addicts were taking tests of some sort at the same time at the test centre. My concentration broke when the crack addict picked up the monitor and smashed it on the ground and stormed out, im not sure it they were doing a Cisco qualification or a driv…

How did you know the person was addicted to crack?

Not the person you're replying to, but...

Of course there are other reasons they might act that way, but "crack addict" is a sometimes just shorthand for a person who's acting and looking a certain way.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#124

Post by Sophira » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 1:05 PM UTC

janekm wrote: post #39

madsbuch wrote: post #16

We are definitely in the period where we are seeing the limits of scalability of current technology. Google et al. eliminated customer service, schools are educating on a massive scale, etc. We always have the option of oral onsite exams as has been custom for many years, and accept that education does not scale excessively. We can also keep developing surveillance tech and other AI solutions to the problem and handl…

Or we could accept that in this day and age, expecting kids to recite factoids broadcast to them by a "teacher" doesn't make any kind of sense any more, with google in everyone's pocket. And testing in the typical style that fails when a student can use a textbook or google makes just as little sense.

The problem with that is that our brains work a lot better when it finds patterns - when it recognises things. And for that, you need to know these things.

We have access to a lot of knowledge at our fingers, it's true. But if the data is all stored there instead of our brains, then we won't be able to recognise that fact A (which we just read) is similar to fact B (which we read a long time but didn't bother to remember because we could just look it up anyway). The implications of that depend on the context, of course, but in a general sense, I think it'd slow our development as a species down.

Exams are generally supposed to test your understanding, not your recollection abilities - with some exceptions, of course, but in general that's supposed to be what they're for.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#125

Post by Integrape » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

bittercynic wrote: post #123

wikfwikf wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you know the person was addicted to crack?

Not the person you're replying to, but... Of course there are other reasons they might act that way, but "crack addict" is a sometimes just shorthand for a person who's acting and looking a certain way.

Could've been a jenkem connoisseur, but still apparently having a bad day.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#126

Post by flanderspost » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

wolframhempel wrote: post #72

This has been eluded to by a few other comments already, but I think it's worth stressing: Maybe the problem is that our definition of "cheating" doesn't make sense anymore. Our methods of teaching come from a worldview in which the information stored in your head is your only resource. That wasn't true in the past where you could consult colleagues, look things up in books or call experts - and it's certainly not tr…

This works for concrete knowledge (declarative, procedural) where simply knowing a set of facts or a pre-existing process is sufficient to perform the job. But when you most into more abstract, creative work, this idea falls apart quickly.

You can easily find an answer to "how do I enable file sharing on Windows." You cannot easily find an answer to "how do I design a website for an engineering firm which wants to increase it's inbound leads by 25%."

The former is a simple search away. The latter requires the integration of numerous abstract concepts which the shallows of a search engine cannot return.

Further, such an approach also limits our ability to create new knowledge.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#127

Post by flanderspost » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #76

wolframhempel wrote: post #72

This has been eluded to by a few other comments already, but I think it's worth stressing: Maybe the problem is that our definition of "cheating" doesn't make sense anymore. Our methods of teaching come from a worldview in which the information stored in your head is your only resource. That wasn't true in the past where you could consult colleagues, look things up in books or call experts - and it's certainly not tr…

in the past where you could consult colleagues Perhaps tests are to make sure that you are a going to be colleague worth consulting then? Yes, pure memorization and recall of facts is less valuable now than before, but knowing how to apply the facts available to you is still a skill worth having, and similarly worth testing. Those skills can also be assessed using written tests, and the potential for cheating is just…

Language learning is actually a good example.

Words are rarely restricted to their denotative (dictionary) meanings. There are often abstract, connotative meanings attached to them by speakers. For example, consider the following list of words.

Hello. Hi. Hey.

These words all have the same basic denotative meaning. They're all a greeting. Yet, there is a subtle connotation of formality which is rarely described in a dictionary.

These types of connotation are not often understood by beginning language learners. It's something they acquire with time and experience in using the language. While a teacher or search could share about the formalities, the language learner is still going to require time in applying those words in different contexts to fully understand these subtleties.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#128

Post by bitwize » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

janekm wrote: post #39

madsbuch wrote: post #16

We are definitely in the period where we are seeing the limits of scalability of current technology. Google et al. eliminated customer service, schools are educating on a massive scale, etc. We always have the option of oral onsite exams as has been custom for many years, and accept that education does not scale excessively. We can also keep developing surveillance tech and other AI solutions to the problem and handl…

Or we could accept that in this day and age, expecting kids to recite factoids broadcast to them by a "teacher" doesn't make any kind of sense any more, with google in everyone's pocket. And testing in the typical style that fails when a student can use a textbook or google makes just as little sense.

The irony is, Paul Lockhart could only see the beauty of geometry -- and thus write A Mathematician's Lament -- because he learned his times tables and other fundamental mathematical techniques by heart. Abilities that can be acquired only through drilling.

Drills and memorizaton aren't the only thing in education, but they are key.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#129

Post by necovek » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

janekm wrote: post #39

madsbuch wrote: post #16

We are definitely in the period where we are seeing the limits of scalability of current technology. Google et al. eliminated customer service, schools are educating on a massive scale, etc. We always have the option of oral onsite exams as has been custom for many years, and accept that education does not scale excessively. We can also keep developing surveillance tech and other AI solutions to the problem and handl…

Or we could accept that in this day and age, expecting kids to recite factoids broadcast to them by a "teacher" doesn't make any kind of sense any more, with google in everyone's pocket. And testing in the typical style that fails when a student can use a textbook or google makes just as little sense.

In university, I was notoriously bad at "remembering" things (iow, I was lazy to learn things by heart). I was pretty good at making connections, and I could prove theorems from only knowing a couple of definitions and simpler theorems in advanced math courses. I generally scored average in tests, but I rarely failed (though I occasionally had "original" solutions that teachers commended on even though I failed to reach maximum scores).

But I was never under the illusion that this constitutes working knowledge. I was able to come up with solutions for some problems only because I had some basic knowledge memorized, which allowed me to effectively manipulate ideas and concepts which I did know of. Even then, I used to semi-joke how the hardest thing in theoretical math is all the memorization required.

If you've ever explored any scientific field deep enough, you'll know that it's festered with tricks found by accident and roundabout ways to get to a solution that, if you haven't seen it before, you have no hope of applying in practice.

Or you might think that consulting a book or two (or Internet) will allow you to prove Fermat's theorem while you are being tested for 2h.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#130

Post by necovek » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

nulbyte wrote: post #110

tsimionescu wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I challenge you to do wny intellectual task without knowing the basics by heart. For example, try writing a large program in APL today - you can easily Google the symbol for any function you want. Memorization, while not sufficient, is an absolutely necessary part of learning. No amount of googling can help you become skillful at something. Note that searching for new information or old information that you may have…

> I challenge you to do wny intellectual task without knowing the basics by heart. So, in other words, you propose a test. Presumably it's open-book, since you are testing an ability to apply knowledge and not an ability to merely remember it. This sounds less like a rebuttal and more like a validation.

The GP comment is specifically referring to "reciting basic factoids", but they are the "basics" that you need to know by heart to manipulate them.

While testing for "reciting" them is certainly suboptimal, it's cheaper to prepare a test of the sort than a test where you are effectively putting that knowledge to use.

A balanced test would do a bit of both (so it does not take ages to prepare and grade, yet ensures you know the basics and can apply them in some problems).