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Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

chronicle.com

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Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#21

Post by sdwr »

acbart wrote: post #4
xqcgrek2 wrote: post #3

How do blue book exams translate to real world problems the students will encounter? Why not open book + AI use exams, because that's what students will have in their careers?

There are many subskills that you must be proficient in without tools, before you can learn more interesting skills. You need to know how to do multiplication by hand before you rely on a calculator. If you can't do multiplication with a calculator, you're not going to be able to make sense of the concepts in Algebra.

Are multiplication and long division by hand really necessary skills?

I never need to "fall back" to the principles of multiplication. Multiplying by the 1s column, then the 10s, then the 100s feels more like a mental math trick (like the digits of multiples of 9 adding to 9) than a real foundational concept.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#22

Post by nxobject »

parpfish wrote: post #9
xqcgrek2 wrote: post #3

How do blue book exams translate to real world problems the students will encounter? Why not open book + AI use exams, because that's what students will have in their careers?

most exams aren't about solving a problem, it's about demonstrating that you've learned something.

Sadly, I think that's what's going to be lost in the switch back to exams: the ability to assess someone's ability to iteratively solve a problem or craft a thesis.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#23

Post by belinder »

i_dont_know_ wrote: post #14

I feel like these kind of things push us as a society to decide what exactly the purpose of school should be. Currently, it's been a place for acquiring skills but also a sorting mechanism for us to know who the "best" are... I think we've put too much focus on the sorting mechanism aspect, enticing many to cheat without thinking about the fact that in doing so they shortchange themselves of actual skills. I feel lik…

Sure school is for acquiring skills, but it's also day care. A place to keep children during the day so their parents can work, especially in a society where more and more the expectation is that both parents work.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#24

Post by sarchertech »

nxobject wrote: post #8

As someone whose college papers always went through multiple drafts, I genuinely hope that the "joy" the author feels doesn't get in the way of teaching writing skills. And, as someone who got paid minimum wage to proctor tests in college, I couldn't keep a straight face at this: > The most cutting-edge educational technology of the future might very well be a stripped-down computer lab, located in a welcoming campus…

We had a math lab where you could go do your math homework and the majority of the student assistants were great. Same with the undergrad lab assistants in physics labs.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#25

Post by bdowling »

belinder wrote: post #23
i_dont_know_ wrote: post #14

I feel like these kind of things push us as a society to decide what exactly the purpose of school should be. Currently, it's been a place for acquiring skills but also a sorting mechanism for us to know who the "best" are... I think we've put too much focus on the sorting mechanism aspect, enticing many to cheat without thinking about the fact that in doing so they shortchange themselves of actual skills. I feel lik…

Sure school is for acquiring skills, but it's also day care. A place to keep children during the day so their parents can work, especially in a society where more and more the expectation is that both parents work.

The article is about college-level education, which is primarily about ranking students in order of who should get the best entry-level jobs. If technology is disrupting the effectiveness of that ordering function, then something needs to change.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#26

Post by slipperydippery »

xqcgrek2 wrote: post #3

How do blue book exams translate to real world problems the students will encounter? Why not open book + AI use exams, because that's what students will have in their careers?

They’re proof you learned the topic well enough to coherently write a very-few pages about it. That’s what they’re for.

Making them open book + AI would just mean you need “larger” questions to be as effective a test, so you’re adding work for the graders for basically no reason.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#27

Post by philwelch »

xqcgrek2 wrote: post #3

How do blue book exams translate to real world problems the students will encounter? Why not open book + AI use exams, because that's what students will have in their careers?

If there weren’t differences between the educational environment and the workplace, that would be the same as if you just dumped people straight into the workplace with no education. For education to be useful at all it has to be distinct from the “real world” and optimized for learning. One way of optimizing for learning is to make the student solve the problem the hard way, so the student understands the entire process and not just the parts that are harder to optimize.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#29

Post by noosphr »

acbart wrote: post #4
xqcgrek2 wrote: post #3

How do blue book exams translate to real world problems the students will encounter? Why not open book + AI use exams, because that's what students will have in their careers?

There are many subskills that you must be proficient in without tools, before you can learn more interesting skills. You need to know how to do multiplication by hand before you rely on a calculator. If you can't do multiplication with a calculator, you're not going to be able to make sense of the concepts in Algebra.

Algebra has nothing to do with long hand multiplication, people who say otherwise can't do either.

We know, because we taught computers how to do both. The first long multiplication algorithm was written for the Colossus about 10 minutes after they got it working.

The first computer algebra system that could manage variable substitution had to wait for Lisp to be invented 10 years later.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#30

Post by wrp »

Survey question: To what extent did blue book exams go away?

When I started out (and the original Van Halen was still together), blue book exams were the norm in humanities classes. I've had narrow experience with American undergrad classes the past 25 years, so I don't have a feeling for how things have evolved.

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