[asdff]

Same issue as with cliffnotes. Easy way out means the easy way will be taken. Unless, you actually design a decent assignment or exam. In person essays or exams, heavily weighted, you are simply screwed if you didn't study the old fashioned way. A couple of my more serious classes were like this: no homework, no projects, entire grade based on 3 exams. That put the fear of whatever diety you subscribe to into you like nothing else to study hard and not fall behind. One bad exam you can't really come back from. Better luck next year when you retake it. Or, you dig in like hell.

[MengerSponge]

The insidious thing here is that students can think they're studying and practicing by chatting with an AI "tutor", which shifts them into a passive observation role that's no better than watching YouTube videos.

It turns out that it's much less memorable if you're too "clear and helpful", so nothing helpful sticks for students. A good teacher (tutor, educator, pick a word) challenges students and makes them the right amount of uncomfortable.

[asdff]

These resources often suck for the college major level anyhow. Youtube and such is all dumbed down usually. Or if it isn't dumbed down, you risk studying beyond the scope of the lecture. Every class I took, the professor would say something like "anything in lecture could end up on the exam." And indeed, every exam was comprised of something that came from the slides, and nothing that didn't come from the slides. Even if there was an assigned textbook, there would be so much skipped over, either subtopics or entire chapters. Emphasis can vary by lecturer for the same class as well. The class might fall behind or run ahead of whatever is outlined on the syllabus; that is more an aspirational goal than a solid plan of what to expect.

The best tutor, as always, is your TA or professor, during office hours that you already pay for in tuition. No one takes advantage though, well the students who were getting As already do just to validate their understanding. The students who really ought to go never go.

[MengerSponge]

I'm a college (physics) professor, and last semester specifically had a huge shift in student behavior. In introductory courses, students basically stopped coming to help sessions.

I give a substantial amount of extra credit for attending regular help sessions which yielded about 30% help session conversion in past semesters. This term it dropped below 5%, and those few who came were the ones who were high B/ low A students. The solid A students don't come because they don't need to. The low B and lower students didn't come because they thought they didn't need to? It's unclear, but clearly something changed.

Students performing in the mid-B and up range weren't affected, but below that? The bottom dropped out. Students who should have earned B's earned C's. Students who could have earned C's... didn't.

[hibikir]

3 tests was already better than the traditional Spanish university class: 1 exam. which is probably written by the department head, not your teacher, and he isn't in any way interested in a high pass rate. Failing 90% of the class might even be positive for them. At that point classes aren't even important: You purchase the tests from the last 10 years, and then you have a prayer of knowing what the bar might be this year.

Teaching, fairness and measuring student performance might seem like similar goals, but it's just so very easy to make sure you succeed at one while messing up the others.

[thaumasiotes]

> Teaching, fairness and measuring student performance might seem like similar goals

What? Teaching and measurement are very different goals. The whole point of teaching is to mess with measurements.

This automatically means, by the way, that a huge conflict of interest exists whenever the same party is supposed to be responsible for both instruction and measurement. That's why assessment in a traditional Spanish university is out of the hands of the professor. We should aspire to be more like them.

[asdff]

I tested out of all but the last required Spanish class so I probably skipped over some early stuff and avoided the deeper stuff. But at that level I remember we'd do oral exams with the TA 1 on 1 maybe 15 mins in the hallway. I forget the logistics of it all now. I remember making presentations and class participation in spanish being important. I can't remember how the written exams went.

[phreeza]

Pretty sure op is talking about university in Spain for other subjects, not Spanish class at university.

[keeganpoppen]

suuper high-value comment

[asdff]

Sorry, no refunds.

[hluska]

I used to love classes like that and now that I’m a few decades beyond university, I realize they helped me the most. That do it properly now or everything is going to suck is a good prep for the real world.