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Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

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Re: Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

#161

Post by steve-atx-7600 »

zero_shift wrote: post #123
datahack wrote: post #56

This is how higher education was done for literal centuries before moving to the written word. So it’s not exactly innovative to return to oral arguments. But what it does threaten to do is effectively abandon all the efficiencies of the written word. When higher education evolved into a mass system in the 1800s and into the 1900s, pure oral examination was looked at as super inefficient. A written paper could be han…

I think you have the right observation but the wrong conclusion. The appeal of digital systems, at a social level, is that they can transmit information accurately for almost no marginal cost. They come at the risk of fraud. With AI the levels of risk have increased. Anyone can now be a fraudster, and it gets harder and harder to prove anything online. Either of us two, in this conversation, could be a well tuned LLM…

"So we are going back to blue books..." exactly. And, it is also efficient. You just need a proctor to ID the test taker and make sure they aren't using AI to cheat in order to verify that the student learned something which seems like a good idea.

Re: Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

#163

Post by ungovernableCat »

sudo_cowsay wrote: post #117

Couldn't students ask AI to make a oral defense plan?

Of course they could, in fact it'll probably be great prep if they read it and understand it instead of just memorising the answer.

If they just memorise the answer any smart teacher can trip them up by just rephrasing things or developing tangents to see understanding.

In school before exams, I'd often make little cheat sheets about things that you'd need to memorise like formulas for areas and volumes or certain physics equations (we weren't allowed any reference material for that on exams). The very act of writing them all down before the exam would often boost my memory enough to the point I'd just recall them.

Re: Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

#164

Post by fooofw »

azalemeth wrote: post #3

This is already the case for Master's degrees and above in Denmark. I've been the opponent examining students. We ask Master's students to give US instruction on a topic (drawn randomly on a card in front of them, from a list they know a few days in advance). They do a chalk and talk on a topic for about fifteen minutes with three to five professors being "dumb students". It works fantastically and at the end it's ve…

This is not general to all subjects in Danish universities. I studied physics in Denmark and while the majority of my exams after the second year match this description (though not all), my impression is that this is not at all the norm. Students in the humanities in my dorm, for example, seemed to have an overwhelming majority of several-day take-home written exams (with no associated oral defense).

Re: Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

#165

Post by LoganDark »

zem wrote: post #145
LoganDark wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Woe" is also sometimes used to tell someone to just suck it up and deal with it. In those cases it is a way to make fun of someone for being too sensitive or complaining too much.

sure, but what I was pointing out here is that "woe betide you" is a specific idiomatic phrase. it's usually used as a threat, i.e. "woe betide you if you do that".

I didn't see it as a threat here at all. I think it was just pointing out an underserved part of the population when it comes to this. And I think "withhold your woe" was meant to say that getting out of your comfort zone can be beneficial sometimes (or in other words, that it's not necessarily actually underserving).

Re: Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

#166

Post by layer8 »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #83
obscurette wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

64 year old nerd with social phobias here. When I was in school, I had to practice oral knowledge tests since grade one. I had my first oral exam in grade six (math) and 2-3 oral exams every year since then. If I hadn't had that experience, I would never have gotten into university. I still don't like verbal communications with people (especially in a tense situations like exam), I'm slow etc, but it's manageable bec…

Would it help to be interviewed in a room where there is no other person, and you can be seen through a camera and communicate through magnetic speakers?

That probably would be worse, because you aren’t seeing how your examiner reacts and will be imagining the worst.

Re: Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

#168

Post by cloudie78 »

azalemeth wrote: post #3

This is already the case for Master's degrees and above in Denmark. I've been the opponent examining students. We ask Master's students to give US instruction on a topic (drawn randomly on a card in front of them, from a list they know a few days in advance). They do a chalk and talk on a topic for about fifteen minutes with three to five professors being "dumb students". It works fantastically and at the end it's ve…

Hi, former student with social phobia and terrified of public speaking.

Today: adult with no problems doing public speaking in front of hundreds.

What fixed me: more public speaking and not having the option of avoiding the task.

Re: Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

#169

Post by RandomTisk »

LoganDark wrote: post #165
zem wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, but what I was pointing out here is that "woe betide you" is a specific idiomatic phrase. it's usually used as a threat, i.e. "woe betide you if you do that".

I didn't see it as a threat here at all. I think it was just pointing out an underserved part of the population when it comes to this. And I think "withhold your woe" was meant to say that getting out of your comfort zone can be beneficial sometimes (or in other words, that it's not necessarily actually underserving).

Funny, one of you sees it from the perspective of someone who thinks "to those" is other people not themselves and the other does the opposite.

Re: Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

#170

Post by zem »

LoganDark wrote: post #165
zem wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, but what I was pointing out here is that "woe betide you" is a specific idiomatic phrase. it's usually used as a threat, i.e. "woe betide you if you do that".

I didn't see it as a threat here at all. I think it was just pointing out an underserved part of the population when it comes to this. And I think "withhold your woe" was meant to say that getting out of your comfort zone can be beneficial sometimes (or in other words, that it's not necessarily actually underserving).

I think we're talking past each other here :) I wasn't speaking of whether it was a good or a bad thing, I was just pointing out that "woe" meaning "a misfortune or calamity" is the only meaning of the word that applies to the phrase "woe betide", the more common meaning of woe meaning grief or sorrow doesn't apply here because it's an idiom, not two separate words.

I was pointing it out because the first comment I was replying to was clearly unpacking the word "woe" from the phrase "woe betide" and I figured they would appreciate the linguistic footnote.

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