Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How do you stop online students cheating?

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 36 posts

Re: How do you stop online students cheating?

#11

Post by kiba »

jeffreybaird wrote: post #7

I think it is the wrong question. As Seth Godin says in his talk at TEDxYOUTH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXpbONjV1Jc "if something is worth remembering it is worth looking up." Tests should be open note, open book, all the time. If you can cheat on the test just by googling the question, the right question isn't being asked. It is time we ask our students to start thinking critically and not just have them bubbl…

If it's worth looking up multiple times, it's worth memorization.

The reason is that being able to recall at will have a much lower latency than a google search or tabbing through your iphone or android device.

People disparages memorization as mindless, but that's only if you memorize mindlessly about stuff you don't need to know. You can memorize smart, such as your multiplication table.

Re: How do you stop online students cheating?

#13

Post by jd »

jeffreybaird wrote: post #7

I think it is the wrong question. As Seth Godin says in his talk at TEDxYOUTH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXpbONjV1Jc "if something is worth remembering it is worth looking up." Tests should be open note, open book, all the time. If you can cheat on the test just by googling the question, the right question isn't being asked. It is time we ask our students to start thinking critically and not just have them bubbl…

Tests are supposed to measure understanding of the subject material.

Therefore tests should be open book iff open book tests are better at measuring understanding than closed book tests.

Are open tests better? I remember from my university days that you can simply look at questions in the book that look sort of similar to the question on the test and apply the necessary substitutions. With open book tests it's remarkably easy to create an answer that looks intelligent about a subject you don't understand at all. With closed book tests this isn't so easy.

Even trivia questions can reveal fundamental gaps in people's understanding. For instance, if a student answers that dinosaurs existed 3000 years ago they must think within a frame of reference where 3000 years is a plausible answer (so no understanding of evolution). So it's a question that is easy to ask, easy to grade, objective, and one that can function as a great litmus test. When all tests are open book you can't ask these questions anymore.

So I'm pretty skeptical about the claim that open book tests are better, period.

As for the argument that people can look things up in books after they graduate, I don't buy that at all. The logical next step would then be to also allow students to ask questions on web forums during exams. Copy question to forum. Get coffee. Copy answer to test paper. After all, when the students get a professional job they may also consult web forums to get their work done.

Re: How do you stop online students cheating?

#14

Post by rickdale »

jeffreybaird wrote: post #7

I think it is the wrong question. As Seth Godin says in his talk at TEDxYOUTH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXpbONjV1Jc "if something is worth remembering it is worth looking up." Tests should be open note, open book, all the time. If you can cheat on the test just by googling the question, the right question isn't being asked. It is time we ask our students to start thinking critically and not just have them bubbl…

I can remember walking into an exam that was open-book open-note, but I didn't realize that before hand. I studied my balls off memorizing all the stuff I thought I would need to know. When it came down to it, I got one of the highest grades in the class which I attribute to not peering through my notes the whole time I just using them to grab a few quotes from each part. I was also the highest person in the class during the test.

My other memories of open-note tests consist of turning notes in as well. I really liked this idea especially on early exams because the professors could see what you were paying attention to and give you better guidance as to where you shift your focus. Note: I went to a small liberal arts college.

Re: How do you stop online students cheating?

#15

Post by wisty »

jeffreybaird wrote: post #7

I think it is the wrong question. As Seth Godin says in his talk at TEDxYOUTH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXpbONjV1Jc "if something is worth remembering it is worth looking up." Tests should be open note, open book, all the time. If you can cheat on the test just by googling the question, the right question isn't being asked. It is time we ask our students to start thinking critically and not just have them bubbl…

Allowing a single page of notes can be good, as it forces students to summarise the subject.

Re: How do you stop online students cheating?

#16

Post by VBprogrammer »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #9
VBprogrammer wrote: post #6

Two things which I remember having a significant impact on the amount of 'collaboration': Marking against the other members of the class. I remember one project where the performance of the code was under test and the fastest 30% got an A, the next fastest 10% got a B etc. There was little incentive to help anyone else beyond the most naive implementation. Group projects, avoid the problem of collaboration by openly…

Those are two things I remember hating every time I saw them implemented. In my experience, members that ride the coat tails of other members of the group always get far more credit than anybody else in the group gave them.

Yeah, that is true, but I think that is probably a valuable life lesson!

Re: How do you stop online students cheating?

#18

Post by yohui »

kiba wrote: post #11
jeffreybaird wrote: post #7

I think it is the wrong question. As Seth Godin says in his talk at TEDxYOUTH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXpbONjV1Jc "if something is worth remembering it is worth looking up." Tests should be open note, open book, all the time. If you can cheat on the test just by googling the question, the right question isn't being asked. It is time we ask our students to start thinking critically and not just have them bubbl…

If it's worth looking up multiple times, it's worth memorization. The reason is that being able to recall at will have a much lower latency than a google search or tabbing through your iphone or android device. People disparages memorization as mindless, but that's only if you memorize mindlessly about stuff you don't need to know. You can memorize smart, such as your multiplication table.

Conversely, if you actually find yourself looking something up multiple times, won't you naturally start to remember it?

Our tests hark back to the days when to "look up" something meant going to the library and flipping through an index. Internal recall will remain faster than external look-up for some time yet, but as the balance shifts the current setup will appear increasingly archaic.

Re: How do you stop online students cheating?

#20

Post by randomdata »

rickdale wrote: post #14
jeffreybaird wrote: post #7

I think it is the wrong question. As Seth Godin says in his talk at TEDxYOUTH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXpbONjV1Jc "if something is worth remembering it is worth looking up." Tests should be open note, open book, all the time. If you can cheat on the test just by googling the question, the right question isn't being asked. It is time we ask our students to start thinking critically and not just have them bubbl…

I can remember walking into an exam that was open-book open-note, but I didn't realize that before hand. I studied my balls off memorizing all the stuff I thought I would need to know. When it came down to it, I got one of the highest grades in the class which I attribute to not peering through my notes the whole time I just using them to grab a few quotes from each part. I was also the highest person in the class du…

> I was also the highest person in the class during the test.

Perhaps it was your substance use or general elevation that lead to your increased performance, not your dedicated effort to memorize the material beforehand?

Though if the test was conducted under a deadline, it stands to reason that you could do better with memorization. As some else noted, the latency is much lower with memorization, but tests do not really mimic the real-world so it is not exactly clear how the lower latency will impact your use of the information outside of a test-like setting.

Post reply on HN