Thread

1. nfrankel · 1790405760 · focus · HN ↗

   I have a fairly long experience of both teaching and grading, even though I stopped a couple of years ago. After a couple of years of trial-and-error, I think I found the "right" way:

   * Alternate between theory and practice in the course of a single 2-hours slot. Theory is necessary, but the attention span of people is very limited. * Grade either a homework assignment in the form of a real project with specifications. You give the assignment half-semester, so that students who start early can ask questions. Otherwise, grade a in-session exam, with every resource available, including the course and the whole Internet. However, you don't assess the knowledge, but if the student is able to apply their knowledge to the different tasks at hand.

   These approaches are now completely moot in the age of AI.

   I was surprised the first time a colleague asked me to do an oral exam. I thought it was a burden on people with poor social interaction skills. It went surprisingly well: you could see in a couple of minutes if the student had integrated the concepts of the course, even if they were shy. Now I wonder if it's the way to go. There's one caveat, though: it doesn't scale.

   1. Propelloni · 1790406579 · focus · HN ↗

      Oral exams don't scale at the beginning with hundreds of students per course, agreed. So make them in-person written exams, German universities managed that just fine a few decades ago. Oral exams were reserved to advance from Grundstudium (basic) to Hauptstudium (main).

      In my very limited experience (I have German major degrees in Informatik and Philosophy, I was a TA for Logic in Philosophy) the more advanced the topic the thinner the attendance anyway.

      1. naveen99 · 1790423287 · focus · HN ↗

         They do scale if the examiner is an LLM.

         1. lostlogin · 1790468702 · focus · HN ↗

            The article mentions study content that AI has got confidently wrong. That’s going to be some crap markings.

            1. naveen99 · 1790646069 · focus · HN ↗

               If the ai is good enough to do the homework, it should be good enough to check the homework.

               I mean some people are good at Tetris and some aren’t. Tetris can tell you which ones are which.

               1. lostlogin · 1790670914 · focus · HN ↗

                  That’s the problem though - the article has an example of the AI screwing up the homework and the students don’t notice even when warned.

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