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Danish high schoolers will have to verbally defend written assignments

mezha.net

211–220 of 289 posts

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

#211

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…

Even in fairly recent times viva voce was common. I had to defend my final year report on a long piece of practical work as part of the final for my BSc in Applied Physics in 1975.

You don't need to do everything orally. A return to handwritten final exams done without electronic aids would help too. They can be open note as mine were in the mid 70s or even open book.

As for scalability, I really don't see the problem; if we are producing so many qualified people then we surely can use some of them to examine the next generation. It sounds like the argument that often appears on the web where someone, usually an American, claims that a solution that works in, say the UK, can't work in their country simply because their population is larger.

Also, we really should consider if shoe horning every young person into an academic institution is useful either to society or to the person concerned. It certainly has not been an unmixed success in the UK.

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

#212
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even with the written exam, wouldn't the bottleneck still be there where the professors still need to read through all the papers? I guess its definitely more efficient and asynchronous, but I can't imagine by much assuming the same and equal rigor is applied.

Grading written exams is delegated to teaching assistants / PhD students.

Not everywhere.

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

#213

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.

If kids were more aware how much public speaking is tied into their social and especially romantic life later they’d all be majoring in public speaking :)

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

#214

This is a nightmare for students that don't think on their feet.

If you don't have enough of a mastery over a subject to rapidly respond, maybe you are not fit to pass exam certifying your mastery over a subject.

I know world-leading experts in their field that avoid oral debates precisely because they don't think on their feet.

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

#215
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of course, woe betide those with social phobias I can see this being a problem in the US when it comes to "accommodations" in general. Students with an ADHD diagnosis can claim it causes just about any difficulty and get accommodations for it. The local (top ranked, but everyone's seen all the stories coming out of the Ivies...) college here gives students with ADHD double time on exams and has them take it in a spe…

Treating many ADHD adult students some did take advantage of accommodations available to them. Problems with test-taking varied, but common issues were getting distracted by extraneous stimuli in "regular" classrooms. Frequently ADHD students were slow readers and really did need/use extra time. But the biggest problem was test-taking anxiety, often quite prominent, contributing to difficulty with tests. Interestingl…

Part of the problem here is that this college has <5% acceptance rate. Very hard to get into and prestigious. The students who get in have been minmaxing and exploiting every advantage they can for their entire life.

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

#216
post #11

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…

>Of course, woe betide those with social phobias I can see this being a problem in the US when it comes to "accommodations" in general. Students with an ADHD diagnosis can claim it causes just about any difficulty and get accommodations for it. The local (top ranked, but everyone's seen all the stories coming out of the Ivies...) college here gives students with ADHD double time on exams and has them take it in a spe…

> college here gives students with ADHD double time on exams

No offence, but this is a ridiculous thing to get worked up about. Various neurological conditions exhibit in people just being “slow” in exams. No one ever diagnosed me with anything (probably too long ago), but teachers somehow understood that I was one of these and gave me extra time on exams.

I didn’t want it (who wants to be in an exam a minute longer than required!). But I did need it through high school. In university I was able to complete in time (mostly); I suspect because I had practiced doing exams so much by then that I’d figured out how to optimise for time (maybe everyone knows this and I was just very slow to learn it?).

I’m someone who excelled academically, and it was an important part of my identity at that time. And I do remember exams (before teachers gave me more time) where I’d get a lower grade as I’d only completed 70%. It was incredibly painful; I knew the material, if only I could get it down on paper in time! (I’ve also been an incredibly slow writer). Extra time for someone who struggles to complete on time isn’t cheating - it’s allowing people to demonstrate what they can do.

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

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand how hiring, promotion and departmental finances works at US universities for roughly the last two decades.

I am very well aware, having close relationships with multiple faculty professors in my family to this day. Practically none of it has anything to do with student ratings. Which university did you attend? I asked you once already; put up or shut up.

Why does which college I attended have more bearing than the ones I have and do work at? I don't particularly care for your stupid irrelevant demand and I am refusing to engage it.

I, my parents, my in-laws and my siblings are all academics. I don't need to prove anything to you. My brother is faculty at an ivy and literally what I am describing is what is currently going on in his department because the administration has foisted MBA brainrot "performance metrics" that are easily gamed by students and faculty who don't particularly care to teach but need points in their portfolios.

Students are entitled "I'm the customer, and I'm always right and I'm paying you a lot" twats who get the administration to bail them out if they don't get As for half-assed work. It's similar but not as bad at R1 state universities where I work and have worked.

You are completely out of touch and which university you or I attended in the 90s (two generations ago) is completely irrelevant.

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

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in sales for a few years when I was younger before I started my actual career, I went from an introvert afraid of public speaking to completely comfortable breaking the ice with basically anyone in those years (mostly because I liked having four walls and a roof) and that led to me doing technical training/talks to strangers years later. I still don't really like it but I also realised that dragons don't app…

I also had a sales job at uni, just selling windows. But it was great for making me much more socially competent. Highly recommend.

Tech sales for me :).

I was good at it because I sold the customer what they needed vs what the company wanted me to sell them, it actually led to the same customers coming back and asking for me by name and I got offered a job by one of them - I do wonder what my life would have been like had I taken it but it also led to my entire career as well, my first consulting gig came off the back of a conversation with a customer about a quote they'd had for some development and with the hubris of youth I said I could do that way cheaper (I could and I did, found out later how much cheaper and kicked myself, also a valuable lesson - You don't get paid for your effort, you get paid to save them money, if you are saving them a lot of money you can charge a lot of money).

Was never going to be my career and didn't pay particularly well so I wasn't too concerned about what management thought long term.

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

#219

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…

Fairly normal, in my experience, for Masters with a thesis in the US as well. And I have not uncommon group project presentations undergrad as well--in addition to grad school.

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

#220
Somehow Russian technical universities were never relying on written work, there is some, but even that is is delivered in person with the tute teacher asking this and that.

Tangentially, the market for uni assignments (mostly humanities) for pay was huge before AI.

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