Further Dumbing Down?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32531820

[Zacs-Master]

Seems stupid doesn't it but, if you think about it, there is a sea-change in what knowledge is. Previously it was a commodity which had to be held in one's head but with the advent of smart phones and tablets, anyone can access facts and procedures, so it could be argued that testing people on knowledge retention is no longer necessary in the modern world.

[Svejk]

There was quite a long thread about this yesterday.

[jim360]

In fairness to TTT about the duplicate thread -- which I posted here: http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/ChatterBank/Question1416647.html -- it was in chatterbank, and I don't see TTT there that often!

It's one of those that sounds silly at first, and then you give it a bit more thought when it starts to show a bit more promise, to me at least. Life is rarely about the ability to retain and then regurgitate information in a short space of time, and the ability instead to research, investigate and evaluate sources is overwhelmingly more important.

All the same, it's easier to evaluate other sources when you have some idea of the subject yourself, so personal knowledge does remain key even with more resources to draw on. But I don't think it's an entirely unreasonable idea.

[ToraToraTora]

yeah, hardly ever in CB jim.

[Old_Geezer]

I too did not see yesterday's thread and only heard of this on the teletext this morning.

It seems to me the Chief Optical Character Recogniser who suggested it has lost touch with reality, and needs to be replaced quickly.

Exam conditions are not supposed to mimic situations you encounter in real life. If it a test of what you actually know. Did you learn and retain the necessary information ? Not whether you know where you can look things up to fill the gaps in your knowledge, to hide the fact that you aren't very knowledgeable at the subject.

Don't know what the world is coming to when folk in such positions prove they can not do the job.

[Old_Geezer]

It is ...

As Typed >:-(

[Zacs-Master]

OG, why does anyone need to 'learn and retain the necessary information' anymore?

They need to understand and be able to interpret the information but this requires intelligence rather than knowledge retention which is NOT a 'measure' of intelligence.

[Zacs-Master]

'Exam conditions are not supposed to mimic situations you encounter in real life'

And what purpose does this serve?

[Old_Geezer]

It doesn't serve a purpose; that is why exams aren't supposed to do it.

As explained exams are to ensure you have learnt the subject taught you. That is why the lessons were given in the first place.

They only roughly measure intelligence as a secondary benefit, it isn't the purpose of exams, that is the purpose of IQ tests.

I find it difficult to believe a question regarding why it is important to learn things, is serious. If it isn't important why do we bother with places of education at all ? We may as well all go around as dumb as a bag of nails. (Which some might consider has been the apparent aim of the education authorities over the years, given that apparently today's pupils can not begin to tackle the exams that previous generations had to pass.)

For sure knowing how to use the information is important too, but that doesn't negate the need to know it in the first place.

[Zacs-Master]

I disagree. We're entering an age where the simple,retention of knowledge is superfluous to learning, once the basic skills of the three Rs are known. You're not thinking outside the parameters of what (and how) you wer taught.

[jourdain2]

I'm siding with O.G..

[Zacs-Master]

Then you're guilty of the same blinkered views I'm afraid.

[jourdain2]

Zacs-master - I am not blinkered. I spent years in education. When pupils become reliant on technology without basic knowledge they have no knowledge if the answers they get are erroneous. I have seen this happen hundreds of times.

[Zacs-Master]

That's where intelligence comes in. Anyone with an ounce of it can verify whether what they have found is erroneous or otherwise.

[naomi24]

I think we may be in a sort of transition period, which is fine, but if technology fails at a crucial moment we’re bu&&ered. I tend to err on the side of learning by heart. Hearts can sometimes be rather more reliable than technology. (A lesson I've learnt from my new and frustratingly unreliable mobile phone).

[DaisyNonna]

Some people enjoy learning

[Jackdaw33]

I agree with Jourdain2. When calculators were first introduced into the class room I was frequently told when marking an answer wrong, "But it can't be wrong. That's what the calculator says." Trying to get across the concept of GIGO was a Herculean task.

[jim360]

I've spent basically the last ten years or so of my life being good at exams. Coping with the pressure, the recall, the various exam-specific techniques, and so on. I once walked out of a three-hour exam in University-level mathematics and it was probably the most rewarding experience I'd ever had in my life up to that point.

I'm good at exams, basically. At this point I've given up on modesty, and I'm sorry, but I am proud of how good I have been at exams and I'm seriously chuffed.

I still think this is potentially a very good idea. The thing about exams is that often they test how good you are at exams, far more than they test how good you are at the subject. If you don't know your stuff at all you are buggered, of course, but if you only know it partly then you can still eke out a good mark despite it -- and conversely, some of the people who know their stuff brilliantly just crumble under the pressure of having to recall it in an intense period. And the worst part is that because exam-based skills essentially have no use outside exams, what is the point? You have someone who basically looks worse, or better, than they actually are.

As a couple cases in point from my own experience: I had an exam a few years ago in a course I just hated and couldn't get along with. All the same, I revised it a bit, but gave up after the first few pages and just wrote off the result. Guess what came up? Material from the first few pages, and so I got a strong 2:1. Frankly I didn't deserve that grade for that course, as I essentially did not know 95% of the material. Got stupidly lucky.

At the other end of the scale, and I hope she doesn't mind my sharing this, we have my mum. A very intelligent and capable woman. Hopeless at exams though. Since this was back in the 70s so they didn't have resits it cost her more than it should have. But she's also incredibly hard-working and great at her job. Her being crap at exams doesn't matter, as the skills she needs for work and the skills she'd have needed for exams just don't overlap at all.

So, exams make me look good and her look bad. Frankly, this is grossly unfair, and if anything it should be the other way round.

Exams are all about technique, far more than they are about knowledge, and any debate about this proposed change should reflect that basic fact.

[naomi24]

I’m good at exams too, Jim – but I understand what you’re saying. The problem is without exams, and with the internet at our fingertips, how simple is it to 'cheat', and therefore how do we gauge genuine academic ability?

[jim360]

It's a difficult question to answer and at the moment I don't have one -- although see below. The idea shouldn't anyway be dismissed out of hand.

Time limits in exams can often be fairly tight, so if these time limits are kept fairly stringent then it gives the student little time to research the answer to any questions they don't know. If there's also a requirement to show working, if appropriate, then it may be that this is just an extension of the "open-book" exam. as I -- and others -- hinted in the other thread on this, having reference books to hand isn't always that much help if you don't have the time to study them properly. It will still be the case that revision is important, and that students have some grasp of the subject, so they can evaluate answers quickly enough.