Cheating Or Mastering?
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Cheating Or Mastering?
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Re: Cheating Or Mastering?
#2I have little doubt that the problems discussed actually exist, but the biggest reason for the difference is simple economics. Anything free, or at extremely low cost, is over-consumed; hence the many sign-us for the course. But completing a course is NOT free, or usually even cheap, it takes a great deal of time and effort for any but the simplest courses; therefore most end up dropping out when it stops being free.
As for the "cheating versus mastery" part, it depends on why and exactly how he is working it. Simply taking the course over and over could be either; signing up for multiple, simultaneous sessions and picking best scoring sessions is pretty obviously cheating.
Re: Cheating Or Mastering?
#3It's very simple, I think:
If you need these courses for credentialing, you have to lock them down more. Get a credit card, require a payment, and issue a token. Validate the name and address (and maybe store a hash of the SSN), and don't allow duplicates. Treat "cheating" as fraud, and act accordingly.
If you need these courses for lifelong learning, the problem doesn't exist. Let someone take it a million times if that's what they need to do to learn.
Re: Cheating Or Mastering?
#4I have little doubt that the problems discussed actually exist, but the biggest reason for the difference is simple economics. Anything free, or at extremely low cost, is over-consumed; hence the many sign-us for the course. But completing a course is NOT free, or usually even cheap, it takes a great deal of time and effort for any but the simplest courses; therefore most end up dropping out when it stops being free.…
But cheating whom, exactly? It is not like the mark matters at the end of the day. What matters is if the material has been learned, and if it takes several iterations to finally learn it fully, so be it.
Re: Cheating Or Mastering?
#5I have little doubt that the problems discussed actually exist, but the biggest reason for the difference is simple economics. Anything free, or at extremely low cost, is over-consumed; hence the many sign-us for the course. But completing a course is NOT free, or usually even cheap, it takes a great deal of time and effort for any but the simplest courses; therefore most end up dropping out when it stops being free.…
>signing up for multiple, simultaneous sessions and picking best scoring sessions is pretty obviously cheating.
Why? Taking the course multiple times sequentially is potentially okay, but taking it multiple times in parallel is "obviously cheating"? What's the difference, assuming it is always the same student taking the test?
Isn't practice something to be encouraged, and not punished?
Re: Cheating Or Mastering?
#6As we move into a new world of education, our goal should absolutely be mastery. Trying to group students by arbitrary aspects like "age" don't help education. Forcing students into more advanced topics before they are ready or simply telling them "You suck. give up", isnt't helping, either.
I really like the schools the Khan Academy is working with that use the videos to describe and drill on the topic at home and classroom time to work through the problem sets where the teacher and other students can help.
Combining the mastery of this article with the Khan model means any two students may not be working on the same problems or watching the same videos, but they are all working at the level they understand and are able to progress as a result.
Re: Cheating Or Mastering?
#7It's very simple, I think: If you need these courses for credentialing, you have to lock them down more. Get a credit card, require a payment, and issue a token. Validate the name and address (and maybe store a hash of the SSN), and don't allow duplicates. Treat "cheating" as fraud, and act accordingly. If you need these courses for lifelong learning, the problem doesn't exist. Let someone take it a million times if…
No, credentialling should be separated from learning. If I need to prove I can safely build a bridge, I should just be tested on that. If I want to learn how to build a bridge, my education should allow me to do whatever I need to do to master the subject.
A huge part of our problems in higher education and hiring have come because we've conflated the two.
Re: Cheating Or Mastering?
#8I have little doubt that the problems discussed actually exist, but the biggest reason for the difference is simple economics. Anything free, or at extremely low cost, is over-consumed; hence the many sign-us for the course. But completing a course is NOT free, or usually even cheap, it takes a great deal of time and effort for any but the simplest courses; therefore most end up dropping out when it stops being free.…
>signing up for multiple, simultaneous sessions and picking best scoring sessions is pretty obviously cheating. Why? Taking the course multiple times sequentially is potentially okay, but taking it multiple times in parallel is "obviously cheating"? What's the difference, assuming it is always the same student taking the test? Isn't practice something to be encouraged, and not punished?
Practice is indeed something to be encouraged. Practicing to the test is no better than teaching to the test though. It's fine if there are no outside consequences like job offers, certificates with a score behind them etc. It is cheating though.
Re: Cheating Or Mastering?
#9been a while since I was in college, but nothing was better for studying than just taking practice tests,
if nothing else, MIT's OCW, and all these online classes create a vast library of practice tests, if I was in college now I would try and sign up for as many parallel classes as I could, just so I had practice tests to work through prior to my test for college
Re: Cheating Or Mastering?
#10At this stage, I don't think it matters if Bob cheated because Udacity can't even verify Bob is actually Bob. It does seem strange that the post doesn't talk about the logical next step, physical testing centers that can verify identity, especially since Udacity already announced their first partnership (http://udacity.blogspot.com/2012/06/udacity-in-partnership-w...).