[Al-Khwarizmi]

In Spain, the whole university system was like that until like 15ish years ago. Exams were king, in most courses they were worth 80%-90%, and of course always in person.

Then we did a university reform, partly with the excuse of aligning with the rest of the EU within the Bologna process (and I say "excuse" because that's what it was, because the politicians introduced some things with that pretense that weren't like that in the rest of the EU at all, and it was perfectly possible to comply with Bologna without doing them) and partly to copy the US/UK ways. And one of the pillars of that reform was continuous assessment, and evaluating coursework.

As a consequence of this, first of all working class students were royally screwed. Because suddenly it wasn't OK to just organize yourself to prepare the exam, you had to attend lots of sessions to earn points, which put students who work at a disadvantage. And second, passing by cheating became possible, even before LLMs. People tend to forget that before everyone got access to ChatGPT, some people had access to experts (family members, or even paying someone to do the work).

Now that this kind of cheating has been democratized and everyone can do it instead of just the most privileged with access to experts or money to pay them, people act all outraged. Although pretty much nothing is being done, except for using snake oil detectors, or sometimes increasing difficulty of assignments to make them LLM-proof (with which you screw the students who actually want to learn without LLMs).

They spent years indoctrinating us (professors) in training courses on how the old exam-based ways were wrong (the "Napoleonic" model, they called it... none of them seems to entertain the thought that maybe if it had been working essentially unchanged since Napoleon it wasn't that bad, and you need solid reasons to change it beyond "this is old so let's change") and the new ways were the bee's knees. Like in the Milgram experiment, it's difficult for people to back down and acknowledge that they have been wrong, even when the solution is obvious.

[cataphract]

I think the only defense of the new model is that it forces students to learn throughout the semester, rather than just before the exam. Which is easier and more effectively engages long term memory (like doing more rounds of spaced repetition).

I definitely could tell the difference, though most of the time I just studied full 4-7 days before the exam.

[wongarsu]

When I studied CS in Germany in the 2010s (also in the Bologna Bachelor/Master system) most courses had weekly graded assignments. But the assignments didn't count towards your grade, instead you needed to reach a certain total of points to be allowed to take the exam. The actual grade was entirely composed of midterm and final exam (pen and paper exams, no computers, no multiple choice).

It was easy to cheat on the assignments. Working on them in groups was common and sometimes encouraged. The only person you could really cheat was yourself (and a TA who had to grade one more exam)

[mattmanser]

In the UK they claimed that girls did worse on one-off exams and so the one-off exams structure favoured boys. When course had more graded coursework, girls did better.

So that was the justification used to switching to a less impactful final exam.

No idea how true that is.

We were also told learning a phonetic alphabet was better for young children learning to read than using the old ABC system.

As far as I have heard, that turned out to be based on one person's fantasy and zero evidence and has actually had negative impact on children learning to read.

[cornholio]

That sounds like a good reason to keep the exam model, since boys are already at a strong and widening educational disadvantage compared to girls.

[andai]

That would make sense if the stated goals were the actual goals.

[inemesitaffia]

You can still (with some difficulty) take the old style exam

[kelipso]

Getting the feeling most education research papers are written by high school teachers lol.

[rgblambda]

The UK has a real problem with pseudoscientific nonsense invading the education system.

To my knowledge they still teach about audio/visual/kinetic learners and how you should structure the way you learn around which one you are. This has been debunked for decades.

[seanmcdirmid]

> The UK has a real problem with pseudoscientific nonsense invading the education system.

Not just the UK, pedagogy/education is a very soft science, along with any other field that revolves around human behavior (psychology, sociology, etc...).

Using AIs in experiments and studies will be an improvement even if they do not accurately reflect human behavior, just because you don't need a harm review and you can repeat your experiments multiple times under different variables.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Yes, it does have some advantages. Apart from what you mention, another one is that it's not so consequential to e.g. sleep badly the night before an important exam. It's just that I find the disadvantages to be much greater than the advantages.

[Telemakhos]

If seven days of study are sufficient to pass the class, why is so little material being taught in one semester? It sounds like the exams are far too easy.

[Eisenstein]

They are cramming for 5-7 days. This is not sustainable for an entire semester.

[necovek]

Cramming and thus not keeping almost any of it in long-term memory or operational knowledge.

[elAhmo]

Bologna process made everything worse. Pre-Bologna degrees are more valuable in public than the Bologna ones.

[schnitzelstoat]

> and partly to copy the US/UK ways

In the UK it's common for exams to have almost all of the weight. In my Physics degree almost all courses were entirely dependent on the exams.

Including a final exam which examined the entire four-year MPhys course known as General Problems where even getting 30% was considered a good grade!

[Al-Khwarizmi]

We were told otherwise, but it might have been propaganda as well. There was a lot of blatant indoctrination to push that reform.

[nradov]

The lack of any real innovation or major economic development in Spain would appear to be fairly strong evidence that the "Napoleonic" model wasn't actually working. Maybe this new system was even worse but I'm baffled as to why anyone would believe that changes weren't needed. Physician, heal thyself.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Spanish STEM graduates innovate just fine. They just do it abroad, where they get paid decent salaries if their work for others, or decent investment opportunities if they choose to be entrepreneurs :) Spain has lots of issues but I don't think education of the workforce has ever been one, neither before nor after the reform (it was definitely better before, but still, it's not half bad for now... Let's see what happens with the inaction with respect to LLMs).

[oersted]

In my public university in Spain, we always had the option to do a single final exam instead of the continuous assessment, although very few chose it. Generally the continuous assessment was less stressful, and the material stuck better, with room to digest it rather than just cramming for the exam and forgetting it right after. Generally the default expectation was that everyone was a full time student yes, but there were proper accommodations for those that weren't.

It is definitely a lot more work for the professors though, most of my family are teachers. It's a lot of assessments and it's very rare to have funding for TAs. Some think that the extra work with worthwhile for the sake of transmitting the knowledge more effectively, but not all of them do.

Frankly, you sound a bit bitter about it from the professor's perspective, and somewhat rationalizing why it is bad for the students. But students do generally appreciate it, and yes good students too, not just cheaters. I think both good and bad students end up learning more and hating the process less.

Your comments on Bologna do resonate though, it was very confusing when I continued to study in Germany and the Netherlands. The massive reforms were supposed to be for alignment with EU, but if anything it got more misaligned. They unified all 3 and 5 year degrees into 4 year degrees, but in most of EU all degrees are 3 years now, for instance.

Regarding the parent comment, indeed, my Computer Science degree was mostly hand-written exercises and exams, and it wasn't that long ago. The degree is about fundamentals, about understanding concepts and applying them, about the tools you need to learn anything in CS afterwards. You are expected to learn most of the practical skills for building software on your own, since they are ever-changing. And I have to say, that style of education has served me very well in my career.

PS: I was also surprised to learn that most of the undergrad exams in Germany, and some in NL, are oral. I can see how that might be a disadvantage to some, but writing is also a disadvantage to others. I quite liked it, less intense than a long written exam, and I think the professor can get a much clearer understanding of the student's grasp of the subject. But again, it's a ton of work for the professor, 20-30 mins per student one-on-one, giving them your full attention, adds up quickly.

[CBarkleyU]

Re: oral exams in Germany

Not sure when this was supposed to be the case, but for actual universities (not meant in a deragotary way, Germany has two types of higher eduction) in hard sciences, most classes are graded on a single written exam. Both in undergrad/bachelors and masters.

Unless things have drastically changed in the last five years...

[oersted]

This was in Freiburg University, which is among the top in Germany and top 250 globally. Computer Science bachelors and masters, around 8 years ago, most courses had a final oral exam unless many students (roughly >25) signed up to the class. Some classes like Information Retrieval or Machine Learning had >100 students so they had a written exam, but most others were smaller and oral: Data Engineering and Databases, Cryptography, Physics Simulations for Graphics, Formal Verification Methods, Bioinformatics, Planning AI, P2P Networking... I had a couple oral exams in VU Amsterdam (masters) too but fewer and not the final exam.

I know that an oral exam might seem less serious and rigorous, but I do think the professor can get a better grasp of how much the student actually understands the subject through an interactive interview.