When I was young, public universities in Spain only evaluated the final exam. That was not a problem; it helped people become responsible. Nowadays, they have changed it to evaluate continuous homework, and students end up worse prepared.

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viraptor 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Unfortunately the single final exam selects for lucky people. Did you learn the right thing? Are you healthy and well rested on the day? Can you perform under arbitrarily selected stressful conditions? Are your executive functions fine with that plan?

The responsibility part is just one element influencing the result.

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kstenerud 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I liked my prof's approach to exams:

"You may bring one 8.5x11 double-sided cheat sheet into the exam. You may write anything you want on it. And I promise you that if you prepare such a sheet, you'll never even look at it during the exam."

And he was right.

	▲	flopsamjetsam 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I certainly find that now, going back to uni. In a couple of subjects we get the option to prepare a cheat sheet, and I would say I actually look at less than 10% of it. The act of preparing it forces me to revise, and internalise the facts and ideas.

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mppm 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Only if you were planning to scrape by. If you actually know the material (the thing the exam is supposed to determine), you should do fine, and any good or bad luck will tend to average out by the time you graduate. Besides, there really aren't any alternatives left. Completed homework had some weak-ish signal for a while, but now it doesn't.

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tgv 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Your argument seems to imply that the only thing that an exam is possibly allowed to measure is ability to answer a question at some arbitrary point in time. It also separates the people with the wit to understand a bunch of topics in a span of 3 or 5 months, the ability to plan accordingly, enough self control, and some motivation to see the plan through from the ones that don't. That's not a bad thing, as diplomas are often used as a proxy not only for intelligence, but also for suitability to certain jobs.

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viraptor 6 hours ago | parent [-]

The only thing I'm saying is that measuring once maximises the luck component. Sure, measure other things by proxy as well. But to borrow your phrase, understanding and taking into account the variability of real life behaviours, sampling noise and environment biases shows "not only intelligence, but also for suitability to certain jobs."

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tgv 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> maximises the luck component

No, it doesn't. Repeating it ad infinitum does that.

But therefore it's a good thing grades aren't just pass or fail, but have a range, from 1 to 10, or to 20 or whatever. Too bad there's so much external pressure on the system.

	▲	viraptor 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Repeating it ad infinitum does that. Take a moment to think about it. Why does the confidence interval go smaller with more samples? What does it say about the impact of luck in repeated tests?

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senderista 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What about frequent in-class proctored quizzes?

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logicchains 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>single final exam selects for lucky people. Did you learn the right thing? Are you healthy and well rested on the day?

If it's a well-designed course it should be clear what the content of the exam will be. If not, it's the professor's fault. And barring rare emergencies being rested on the day is also generally a matter of preparation, not luck.

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viraptor 6 hours ago | parent [-]

It's clear what pool the content will be from. But it's impossible to check everything. Some people will get things they've practiced more, some the opposite. Unless you give out the full list of questions, there will be luck involved.

> barring rare emergencies

It doesn't have to be a rare emergency. Things happen, loud student parties happen, random bad nights happen.

	▲	KPGv2 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Some people will get things they've practiced more, some the opposite. Unless you give out the full list of questions, there will be luck involved. In the case of calculus as an example, there should be nothing from the class you didn't have time to practice sufficiently. A full academic year is more than enough time to learn integrals, derivatives, sequences, and series with the small collection of tricks for solving difficult problems (telescoping series, trig sub, etc.) There's a couple dozen rules you learn that are straightforward to apply, and for the times they aren't obvious, there's like a dozen total tricks (trig sub, etc.). I took these classes. I remember how most people just phoned in the entire thing and complained at the exam review sessions how hard everything was. It's the simplest of memorization.

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vhiremath4 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Interesting. Honestly I think about this much more in a cohort way. There’s some cohort of students who are extremely self motivated and mature and understand the way you do one thing is kinda the way you do all things. There’s another cohort that is completely checked out or whose priorities are not grades at all. For these cohorts I don’t think it makes a big different.

But it’s hard for me to imagine that for the cohorts in between (who definitely want to be motivated) having some forcing function is just an easier guiding hand to helping them become responsible vs. completely bombing a class and then potentially losing hope or self identifying as lazy/helpless - which I had seen all too often to some of my smartest classmates.

Regardless not saying this to invalidate your experience. Just hasn’t lined up with mine.

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UncleMeat 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ultimately the goal of education shouldn't just be a filter but it should ensure that as many people as possible learn the material. Homework allows for early intervention by faculty to get people back on track. There really are students who end up succeeding after this intervention.

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ivan_gammel 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The solution is not to feed students from spoon all the time. They are adults and should act as such, it is not a school where it is really important to give every child a chance. Grading homework must be opt-in. Those who want it, get the grade as a feedback, can seek for help then and get the help, those who skip should be assumed prepared for final exam and judged by it. There are millions of people in the world who can use education opportunities to their maximum, and the place should not be reserved to those who feel entitled by whatever privilege they have.

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UncleMeat 4 hours ago | parent [-]

We observe that intervention leads to more students learning. I don't believe that "well they are adults they can fail if they want" is an excuse for a university refusing to take steps that they know would improve pedagogy.

I do agree that AI has made this basically useless. Rather than skipping homeworks or doing a bad job the students just cheat and there is no opportunity to notice and intervene. They get all the way to the screen-free final and fail.

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ivan_gammel 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I do not think that controlling homework does improve pedagogy at scale. Homework helps engaged and motivated students who are ready to accept the feedback. Maybe in your place they are majority and effects are visible. As soon as grades for homework become the goal, the Goodhart‘s law starts playing the role in the dynamics of relationships between students and teachers. AI has nothing to do with it, cheating with homework did always exist.

	▲	UncleMeat an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> I do not think that controlling homework does improve pedagogy at scale. You are welcome to believe this. You are also wrong. I am curious if you have ever taught at a university.