"Should exams be given without access to books, calculators, and the internet, or is the real measure of a learner’s skill demonstrating how to use the tools and technologies to augment their own capabilities?" (p. 28).
Oblinger, D. (2008). Growing up with Google: What it means to education.
http://partners.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/downloads/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies08-2.pdf
When I first signed up for an online course, my thoughts were that all the exams, finals, papers...everything I was going to do for my online course was going to be ONLINE.
Boy, was I wrong.
When my professor told me I had to register for my final exam and take it in person, I just thought to myself...what is the point of me taking an online course if I have to go to campus and take the freaking exam in person????
The reason why I took an online course was to avoid going on campus...any hour, any day, any time. So back to Oblinger's question above regarding exams and books and calculators. I would have no objections to students having open book exams. Do we actually think open book exams are earlier? Not at all.
I have taken a lot of exams at home and at campus (open books) and they are hard as closed books. If it's an online course, I would love to just sit home and do the final exam instead of showing up on campus and doing it in person. Even for a math course, I could look at the equations in front of my face but what is the chance of me actually solving the math problem?
Do I really need to memorize y = 2x + z? Not really, unless I want to be a mathematicians or physicist...
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I agree open book does not equate to easy. I would say that for the most part any open book exam I've taken has been harder. And to your point if you don't have some basic idea of what is being asked then you won't be able to find it in the book (or internet).
ReplyDeleteBut let me play devil's advocate for a bit. What if you're trying to build a patio? You're trying to figure out how many bricks you need, how much sand for the base etc. Do you really want to take the time to go look in a book to figure out how to compute cubic feet? I do think some things require memorization.
Oblinger, D. (2008, p. 28)also says "Is knowing something or knowing how to make a decision more valuable?" So I would say it depends. In today's world in which we hear much about collaboration tools, I think at times we spend too much time on the collaboration and not enough on the decisions. Now is that because the people don't have sufficient knowledge about the topic to make the decision and are relying on a consensus of information from the group? Or, is it because people are afraid to make a decision and be held accountable?
Now to your point about exams, I had the same question when I was doing my undergraduate work. A whole semester online and then the final had to be proctored. I think that any exam could be computer based and delivered to the student via a secure site. If cheating is a concern, make it a timed exam, so that even if the student uses their book, they would need to know what they are looking for (back to the main point). If not, they run out of time and don't answer all the questions.
You have all great ideas Lynne. Some colleges and universities do offer computer proctored exam, but I think right now, the percentage of students taking computer based exams are low versus handwritten exams. Of course, I have no idea, so this is just what I have witnessed when I was an Undergrad.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, if you are taking a math course, it would be a more suitable idea to have the exam handwritten instead of computer, unless it's multiple choices. I guess at the end of the day, it goes back to what the instructor decides to give for the exam.