Remember cheating back in school? I do. I also remember getting caught too, so lesson learned. Now what about “open book” or “open note” tests? When I took AP European History in 12th grade our tests were “open book”. Why? Our teacher knew that a lot of tests in college were going to be like that. Not all, but lots. That wasn’t cheating, of course, because we were allow to do it, but kids are sneaking notes (and e-books if they’re smart) into tests–which is cheating. This begs the question, though…should times change?
As Peggy Sheehy, a library media specialist from Suffern, N.Y., put it: “We can’t teach 21st century literacy and assess with 19th century methodology. We have to look at what we really need students to be able to do when they leave us” and we must ask, “what is my student learning outside of school and how can I get them just as engaged?” Right now, it’s a valid point to say that letting kids access mobile devices may discriminate against those who can’t afford the phones or the service. Yet that will change, just as it did with electronic calculators, as these devices become even more affordable, especially if students can access free wireless networks at school. In the work force, what’s important in most situations is not so much the facts you can pull out of your head but your ability to acquire information when you need it and–most importantly–your ability to make sense of it. I’m not saying being able to recall facts from memory is never important. I have to do that nearly every day when I go on live radio. And I often use the Internet to acquire facts only moments before the broadcast and have occasionally had to look up a fact while taking on live radio. What’s most important is not my regurgitation of the facts but my interpretation. The ability to put things into context is hard to measure with the types of multiple choice tests that are commonly used in schools.
link: Kids cheating with tech but are schools cheating kids? | Larry Magid at Large – CNET News
This C|Net post points out the obvious, and why a lot of college exams are “open book”, often the true test is being able to sift through your masses of information to get the nuggets out. Sure just source material to double check a fact, but then take than information and distill it into knowledge.
Tests are supposed to ascertain whether the student has learned something or not. Granted, not every test can or should be open book. I wonder if a history test where part of the test is closed book (there are somethings you need to just know) and the remainder open would be effective?
Honestly I don’t know the answer, educational theorist I am not, but I do think that teaching kids how to rapidly find and process information is a good thing. Also, perhaps, if kids were able to use their notes during a test, they might learn to organize them in a different way.
One can only hope…
I'm not positive there's as much difference between past and present as first appears.
The difference between a multiple choice style question with a rote/memorizable answer, and an essay question that tests if you've absorbed the subject matter and can synthesize an answer based on what you've learned, hasn't changed.
I think the unspoken issue here is how much resource we can put into testing. Testing rote material with multiple choice questions is easy and can be completely automated. They're also fairly easy to cheat on, unless you do like the technical certification exams and use lots of tricksy questions. Essay style questions requiring a synthesized answer are much harder to cheat on, having raw facts won't get you the complete answer. Unfortunately, they take much more work to grade. Also much more room for subjective disagreement between student and instructor.
Testing learning becomes a cost issue.
I think there is also a separate and important discussion around education insuring 21st century skill sets such as information search strategies and validating source accuracy are taught.
I agree with Dale that the resources available for marking are a big issue here too. I've been shocked at the amount of multiple choice questions on school exams here – they even manage to turn subjects like English into multiple choice exams!! And yes, the reason is because nobody has to actually put any effort into marking… you just feed them through the machine. I know that teaching is a hard profession but to put all that effort in through the year and then cop-out on the final assessment of its effectiveness seems screwed up to me.
And don't get me started on school-administered exams…