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by khazhoux 102 days ago
> one exam at the end of the term where the student has an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the course's subject matter. The resulting grade depends on that, and that alone.

I love this idea. And if a student is having a really bad day, or their dog just died, or they have bad cramps, or they have a hard time dealing with the intense stress of your entire grade being decided in one exam... well, those loser students can just fuck right off.
3 comments
kayo_20211030 102 days ago
Would you design a system to assess knowledge, avoiding the distortions of AI on weekly submissions, according to the general case or the exceptional case?

Accommodations are part of the fabric already. It doesn't seem inconceivable that we couldn't deal with them in exceptional circumstances in a similar way to how it's done today.

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reshlo 102 days ago
How it’s done today is that they rely on your other marks from earlier in the semester to inform how your exam grade should be adjusted. That doesn’t work if there are no other marks to use.
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kayo_20211030 102 days ago
Yes. There will be no other marks available for adjusting a final grade. One test, one mark. One knows the stuff, or one doesn't.

Accommodations are real and necessary, but applied at the end.

(Experimental sciences are an exception)

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khazhoux 102 days ago
How do you propose to avoid "distortions of AI" in your mega-examination?

... well then, why not use those same protections (proctoring, monitoring, auditing) in continuous examination?

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user205738 101 days ago
If a student knows how to communicate, they can solve this problem: warn the teacher, take a sick leave if they feel they are not ready, and other options.

If they did not do this, they failed the exam on communication with other people.

In addition, we are not always able to make decisions in ideal conditions. We need to learn how to solve problems under pressure, in emotional turmoil, and when we are not feeling well.

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MaKey 102 days ago
That's how it was for me - one exam per course at the end of each semester. To qualify for the exam you had to do take-home assignments. Didn't pass? Try again next semester. Was it easy? Hell no, but I learned a lot.
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