> As a teacher, I can tell you that students get really angry if you put a question on an exam that requires a concept not explicitly covered in class. Of course, if you work as an engineer and you’re stuck on a problem and you tell your boss it cannot be solved with the ideas you learned in college… you’re going to look like a fool.
Very flawed comparison. At work I get to go off and do research, experiments, can collaborate with peers and people who might have more expertise in a given sub problem, and generally have much more time. An exam trying to test you on material you haven’t studied is supposed to test for what? Your ability to synthesize knowledge out of thin air.
The rest of the article is well written and correct, but this particular aside felt weird.
I think it depends on the question. If it's not a question of the form explicitly presented before, but answerable with a minute of thinking using the knowledge the student has already mastered, then it makes sense.
A time limited exam is probably the wrong place for that, though, due to the stress interfering with that kind of thinking. It would be better for a homework assignment.
If ChatGPT didn't exist.
Okay, maybe in class, on paper is the right place for that.
The while premise of "learn some stuff them take an exam on exactly that stuff" is pretty flawed, and that's the point. So much of the academic structure is about what's convenient for evaluation, rather than what's best for learning. Why not get rid of the exam and replace it with something else entirely? Who says we have to have exams at all?
I liked the article and the term thinkism (which I hadn’t heard before). I think education should be radically changed to be about doism instead. I think it’s likely we have more engaged kids learning more valuable life skills.
Did not know of the "thinkism" expression. When I was studying in France eng. school, I called that "the mythe du cerveau" (literaly "the brain myth", though does not roll on your tongue as well).
It is guaranteed failure mode of large orgs. Curious to hear about more references on how to fight this at an organization level, besides the one given in the OT.
> As a teacher, I can tell you that students get really angry if you put a question on an exam that requires a concept not explicitly covered in class. Of course, if you work as an engineer and you’re stuck on a problem and you tell your boss it cannot be solved with the ideas you learned in college… you’re going to look like a fool.
Very flawed comparison. At work I get to go off and do research, experiments, can collaborate with peers and people who might have more expertise in a given sub problem, and generally have much more time. An exam trying to test you on material you haven’t studied is supposed to test for what? Your ability to synthesize knowledge out of thin air.
The rest of the article is well written and correct, but this particular aside felt weird.
I think it depends on the question. If it's not a question of the form explicitly presented before, but answerable with a minute of thinking using the knowledge the student has already mastered, then it makes sense.
A time limited exam is probably the wrong place for that, though, due to the stress interfering with that kind of thinking. It would be better for a homework assignment.
If ChatGPT didn't exist.
Okay, maybe in class, on paper is the right place for that.
The while premise of "learn some stuff them take an exam on exactly that stuff" is pretty flawed, and that's the point. So much of the academic structure is about what's convenient for evaluation, rather than what's best for learning. Why not get rid of the exam and replace it with something else entirely? Who says we have to have exams at all?
I liked the article and the term thinkism (which I hadn’t heard before). I think education should be radically changed to be about doism instead. I think it’s likely we have more engaged kids learning more valuable life skills.
Did not know of the "thinkism" expression. When I was studying in France eng. school, I called that "the mythe du cerveau" (literaly "the brain myth", though does not roll on your tongue as well).
It is guaranteed failure mode of large orgs. Curious to hear about more references on how to fight this at an organization level, besides the one given in the OT.
I call this, the way to learn stuff is by doin' stuff.
Also buildin' stuff! (Which is the best type of doin'.)