This is the obvious solution to chatgpt essays. You could also just add more lab sections to CS classes, and force students to do assignments with no access to AI.
When I took physics we had weekly 3.5 hour lab sections. That should be enough for most CS assignments.
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 library, where students can complete assignments, by hand or on machines free of access to AI and the internet, in the presence of caring human proctors.
I think the author's leaning heavily on vibes to do the convincing here.
The commenters lamenting this trend presumably have not given a takehome assignment to college students in recent years. The problem is huge and in class tests are basically the only way to test if students are learning. Unfortunately this doesn't solve the problem of AI assisted cheating on in-class exams, which is shockingly prevalent these days at least in STEM settings.
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 like some of the language here ("securing assessments in response to AI") really feels like they're worried more about sorting than the fact that the kids won't be developing critical thinking skills if they skip that step.
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.
There are schemes happening in interviews too. I've been doing many technical interviews for a senior role with off shore candidates lately. They come to me after passing a challenging online test that has controls to check for browser focus lost, opening new tabs etc. I think it may require a camera to be on too. Even with that more than half of the candidates can't code.
Our interview usually starts with them breathlessly reading from a script out of the corner of their eye. I'm ok with notes to make sure you hit some high points about yourself even in person. Nervousness shouldn't disqualify a talented person. But with the coding part I've gotten exasperated and started asking these senior candidates to share their screen and do a fizz buzz exercise live in a text editor in the first few minutes. If they struggle I politely end the interview on the 15.
One candidate cheated and it was interesting to watch. In the time I sent the message in Zoom and them sharing their screen, just a few seconds, they had either queried or LLM-ed it on their phone or another computer, had someone off screen or in the same room listening and sharing the answer on another monitor or something else. Whatever it was they turned their head slightly to the side, squinted a bit and typed the answer in Java. A few syncopated characters at a time. When asked what modulo was they didn't know and couldn't make any changes to it. It was wacky. In retrospect I think it was them reading the question out loud to an LLM.
I'm waiting for the candidate who has someone behind them with the same shirt on pretending to be their arms.
One can't have an informed opinion on this without witnessing how grading a college exam takes place, first hand.
Grading a stack of blue books is a "just kill me now" brutal experience. A majority of cognitive effort is just finding the page for the next problem to grade, with finding the answer another delay; any programming language with this kind of access latency would stay a "one bus" language. So of course professors rely on disinterested grad students to help grade. They'll make one pass through the stack, getting the hang of the problem and refining the point system about twenty blue books in, but never going back.
With stapled exams one problem per page one can instead sort into piles for scores 0-6 (if you think your workplace is petty, try to imagine a sincere conversation about whether an answer is worth 14 or 15 points out of 20), and it's easy to review piles.
When I had 200 linear algebra exams to grade at once, I'd scan everything, and use my own software to mark and bin one question at a time, making review passes a pleasure. I could grade a 10 question final in one intense sitting, with far more confidence in the results than team grading ever gave me.
If you try to blow thru all the books in one pass, it's grossly unbalanced for the head and tail, and many books in-between.
I did it in three passes - which might be all in one session or might be broken into smaller sessions. First, skim them all for spelling & grammar mistakes, with a red pen. Second, read them all (but not too deeply) to identify where they make key points, with a green pen. At this point you have a really good handle on the general level of accomplishment. Third, take a blue pen and comment them and grade them.
The other side is with AI tutoring, you don't even really need exams. You have a constant real time map of where the student is strong and where they're weak.
When I was in school, some older students complained that tests were hybrid: you could handwrite or you could type. They complained that they had grown up before typing was as common and that it wasn't fair to let students type, since they could write much more. They argued for a word limit, which was denied.
Now we'll see the reverse, with students arguing that they can't handwrite effectively and need more time or whatever in order for exams to be fair. Hopefully handwritten exams will become the norm from grade school onward, so that this complaint will be rendered moot.
I'm all for written exams, but not on the traditional physical Blue-Books. Just allow students to use traditional paper and then staple the exam to their answers as they're turning it in.
On the few occasions (3) I took one, I ended up "punching through" the paper every single time. I tend to write with high pressure and the paper quality is atrocious. Twice, the tares were so bad the book was partially de-bound.
On both occasions, when presented with a "torn/destroyed book" I had to show the proctor the "issues" and then, very carefully, hand-copy over everything into a new book in their presence--absolute PITA.
The question is: what does an exam measure better: the aptitude or hard work of the student, or the creative effectiveness of the teacher?
I experienced this question firsthand one year. I taught a branch of math in the way I (remembered being) taught to a class of students who were not receptive to that approach. When I tested them, I was very disappointed.
After a few weeks of mulling, I went back to that branch with some new ideas about how to approach the topic. This time with a graphic rather than an abstract approach. More grounded in their likely life experiences. Almost immediately I started hearing "oh, now I get it!" and "well that's easy". Same test, but -much- better results. It wasn't their fault. What they taught me was invaluable.
Yes, exams measure the effectiveness of teacher presentations as much as they measure what students have learned. Good teaching is not a part-time job ... many students are ill-served by this approach. A person who resents teaching as a part-time burden is unlikely to shine at it. And students sense it.
Nor is good teaching a gift from the divine - any more than great lab technique, or crisp programming. Many teachers don't recite the same notes year-after-year, because they're 'good enough'. Their exam results help them to learn from their mistakes.
If the exams don't measure teacher effectiveness as well, then what does? What their paying students walk away with. Is it a treasure, or a wheelbarrow of dirt?
16 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 35.4 ms ] threadWhen I took physics we had weekly 3.5 hour lab sections. That should be enough for most CS assignments.
Why not open book + AI use exams, because that's what students will have in their careers?
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 library, where students can complete assignments, by hand or on machines free of access to AI and the internet, in the presence of caring human proctors.
I think the author's leaning heavily on vibes to do the convincing here.
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 like some of the language here ("securing assessments in response to AI") really feels like they're worried more about sorting than the fact that the kids won't be developing critical thinking skills if they skip that step.
Maybe we can have
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.
Our interview usually starts with them breathlessly reading from a script out of the corner of their eye. I'm ok with notes to make sure you hit some high points about yourself even in person. Nervousness shouldn't disqualify a talented person. But with the coding part I've gotten exasperated and started asking these senior candidates to share their screen and do a fizz buzz exercise live in a text editor in the first few minutes. If they struggle I politely end the interview on the 15.
One candidate cheated and it was interesting to watch. In the time I sent the message in Zoom and them sharing their screen, just a few seconds, they had either queried or LLM-ed it on their phone or another computer, had someone off screen or in the same room listening and sharing the answer on another monitor or something else. Whatever it was they turned their head slightly to the side, squinted a bit and typed the answer in Java. A few syncopated characters at a time. When asked what modulo was they didn't know and couldn't make any changes to it. It was wacky. In retrospect I think it was them reading the question out loud to an LLM.
I'm waiting for the candidate who has someone behind them with the same shirt on pretending to be their arms.
Grading a stack of blue books is a "just kill me now" brutal experience. A majority of cognitive effort is just finding the page for the next problem to grade, with finding the answer another delay; any programming language with this kind of access latency would stay a "one bus" language. So of course professors rely on disinterested grad students to help grade. They'll make one pass through the stack, getting the hang of the problem and refining the point system about twenty blue books in, but never going back.
With stapled exams one problem per page one can instead sort into piles for scores 0-6 (if you think your workplace is petty, try to imagine a sincere conversation about whether an answer is worth 14 or 15 points out of 20), and it's easy to review piles.
When I had 200 linear algebra exams to grade at once, I'd scan everything, and use my own software to mark and bin one question at a time, making review passes a pleasure. I could grade a 10 question final in one intense sitting, with far more confidence in the results than team grading ever gave me.
I did it in three passes - which might be all in one session or might be broken into smaller sessions. First, skim them all for spelling & grammar mistakes, with a red pen. Second, read them all (but not too deeply) to identify where they make key points, with a green pen. At this point you have a really good handle on the general level of accomplishment. Third, take a blue pen and comment them and grade them.
Now we'll see the reverse, with students arguing that they can't handwrite effectively and need more time or whatever in order for exams to be fair. Hopefully handwritten exams will become the norm from grade school onward, so that this complaint will be rendered moot.
Given the absolutely wild increases in tuition, administrations should have massive resources to bring to bear to solving this and other problems.
The reasons they don't feel more like excuses than legitimate explanations.
On the few occasions (3) I took one, I ended up "punching through" the paper every single time. I tend to write with high pressure and the paper quality is atrocious. Twice, the tares were so bad the book was partially de-bound.
On both occasions, when presented with a "torn/destroyed book" I had to show the proctor the "issues" and then, very carefully, hand-copy over everything into a new book in their presence--absolute PITA.
The question is: what does an exam measure better: the aptitude or hard work of the student, or the creative effectiveness of the teacher?
I experienced this question firsthand one year. I taught a branch of math in the way I (remembered being) taught to a class of students who were not receptive to that approach. When I tested them, I was very disappointed.
After a few weeks of mulling, I went back to that branch with some new ideas about how to approach the topic. This time with a graphic rather than an abstract approach. More grounded in their likely life experiences. Almost immediately I started hearing "oh, now I get it!" and "well that's easy". Same test, but -much- better results. It wasn't their fault. What they taught me was invaluable.
Yes, exams measure the effectiveness of teacher presentations as much as they measure what students have learned. Good teaching is not a part-time job ... many students are ill-served by this approach. A person who resents teaching as a part-time burden is unlikely to shine at it. And students sense it.
Nor is good teaching a gift from the divine - any more than great lab technique, or crisp programming. Many teachers don't recite the same notes year-after-year, because they're 'good enough'. Their exam results help them to learn from their mistakes.
If the exams don't measure teacher effectiveness as well, then what does? What their paying students walk away with. Is it a treasure, or a wheelbarrow of dirt?