I haven’t done that.
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I don’t have the link handy, but I read a discussion recently in which a professor asked the students to develop an AI policy, given constraints like “make sure students actually learn the material” and “no reliable AI detector exists.” The policy they came up with relied heavily on in-class discussion and collaboration, with AI as a “research assistant.”
Again… Just use exams. Don’t overcomplicate things. Who cares how people learn, as long as they learn it.
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I don’t disagree with this. These are valid issues and I wish there was a simple solution but somewhere in these conversations there is an answer.
I wish it were that simple but it really isn’t. How people learn is just as important as what they’re learning. How do we test for knowledge as opposed to memorization? How do we assign essays to students if we can’t ensure that they aren’t just running them through an LLM? Especially since we don’t have the ability to definitively prove that they’re doing so. A lot of university’s have a policy that you can’t accuse a student of using it, because you can’t prove that they did.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you that it should be simple, just that it isn’t. I wish it could be but AI is causing chaos across the board and even if the bubble pops, a lot of damage will already be done.
No, it isn’t. That’s one of your overcomplications. I don’t care how my doctor learnt to remove an appendix as long as he knows. (etc)
By writing good exam questions that test understanding. The approach would differ by subject, but would likely be some variation of applying some learned technique or knowledge to new facts / sceanrios.
The same way you know they weren’t just getting their flatmate to write it 10 years ago… you don’t (and never did). As long as the essay isn’t part of their grade, who cares? They’re only hurting their own learning and development.
It’s really not complicated. Just have only exams for assessment. Let people learn however they want.
I guarantee you, people were having this same anguish over the invention of the calculator.
Pinning everything on exams is an awful way of assessing anyone’s skills. You may be the very best person in the world at a particular subject, but mess up that one exam? Maybe you were under the weather. Or that one neighbour was hammering in the flat above the night before. Game over, man. Then there are all kinds of learning ability and anxiety issues, and so forth.
I’d argue that the result of an exam pales in comparison to someone demonstrating that they understand how and why something works.
Day job: I’ve been in various hiring positions over the years as a software engineer, and everything is about being able to demonstrate that you know how things work. I do not care what degree you have. What I need to see is a repository of code, projects you’ve worked on, and that you can talk intelligently about whatever aspects of that work I query — the decisions you made, the thinking behind them.
Education should be about teaching young people to think, not pass exams. In the real world, problem-solving is an important skill. I really do not care if you have memorised a particular set of facts; far more important is demonstrating the skills needed to find a solution.
I realise this is fairly industry-specific, but I think broadly this applies to most walks of life and jobs (although… I would quite like my doctor to know their stuff…).
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I agree that school should also be about teaching young people to think. I think school should also be helping kids find their talents and their passions.
But priority one is ensuring they leave with a set of knowledge against a curriculum appropriate for their course.
Well, I think you do care about whether people know facts or not even if you’re not admitting it… and to be clear, you have just described what a well written exam does.
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This is for sure. But I respectfully fundamentally disagree on the rest 
High School certainly taught me (and my best mate) to think!
How to balance all the chairs upside down in the desk pencil groves and carefully leave the room. The next person to open the door - Bam!
How to connect the High voltage (minimal current) generator to the door knobs of the Physics prep room. (A variation of the old grab your brother’s/friend’s hand then grab the electric fence effect..)
How to pick up a teachers’ fiat 500 and turn it sideways in the parking bay
How to get the American exchange teacher to cane all the guys in the class - and only realise part way through, he was caning many of us for the second time.
And finally in a school where boys could get caned for talking to a girl student when in uniform, to find all the spots teachers never patrolled…….
And we were the top class doing advanced math etc. School certainly did teach us to ‘think’. And we didn’t need AI!
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Well, that’s allowed!
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I think you’re putting FAR too much faith in the resilience of essays and coursework against life events, illnesses, break-ups and break-ins.
(As just one real world example: I once had to re-write a piece of coursework I’d been working on for a month in 1 day without notes because my house was broken into and my laptop stolen the day before it was due. “No extensions, Mr Pigfender. Not even with a police crime reference number.”)
I also think you might be dramatically underestimating the resilience of exams. I’m pretty sure
… would actually do perfectly fine even if they had a bit of a sniffle and a noisy neighbour.
Exams test your ability to respond to problems in real time, by yourself. You know, like people need to in the real world.
(As an aside, I do think that school exams should be like driving tests – who cares how many times you re-sat?)
it shouldn’t be, but I’m reliably informed by society that it is.
↩︎
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Hahaha!
Hahaha!
Hahaha!
Hahah… wait, what?!
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I don’t buy that at all. I suppose I find all of this a bit ableist. There are all kinds of reasons why the focus on exams is unfair to a lot of folks.
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Well, yes… obviously. The point of exams is to test ability.
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The full story.
Wild Thing had just been released and Richard (best mate) and I were sitting in the back of French class (prior to start of lesson) tapping the beat with our rulers.
Teacher - ‘Roughton and Hunt, to the staff room, and anyone else who needs the cane before they will behave.’ BIG mistake!
Whole class (girls included) stand - Girls told to sit down.
Teacher canes 21 boys (there were 15 boys in class) then realises…….
As I said, this was the top academic class, and at a top 10 college, not the knuckle dragger stream.
During my NZ upbringing.
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