Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

At Brown University, a professor shows that students used AI systems to get good scores on a take-home test. The in-class test scores were much lower. Does any of this matter?

For a few days, this story was sort of famous (here is one version of the story). For one reason or another, a college professor made the mid-term exam take home. Great scores on the test. Some nearly perfect papers. Hmm. That was not the norm. Suspecting cheating and the use of AI, the professor moved the final exam back to in the classroom. The scores were half the take-home test scores.

There are many lessons to be learned here. And, isn’t learning the objective of college and other places of education? I digress, but just a bit. Continue reading.

If the objective of the class was to reward quick recall of previously stated statements, the students were failing. They needed a lookup system to score well on the test. Is that a good objective of an expensive college cla$$?

Perhaps the objective of the class was to know enough to think on your feet or at least while your seat was in a chair in a classroom. That is a rough approximation to real life and being on your feet under pressure.

If this latter example was the objective of the class, it should have been clearly stated. The students were expected to prepare accordingly. Given the poor scores on the final, the professor clearly failed. I am one of those who think the professor fails if the student perform poorly on examinations.

I once took a college course in American government. We had an exam in which we were to know the content of every amendment to the U.S. Constitution by number. The 17th amendment is the direct election of U.S. Senators, by the way. The objective was to be able to answer questions while standing around drinking coffee at work or discussing what the current President did while eating hot dogs on the 4th of July. There was a purpose to the exercise. Clearly stated.

I return to the professor and the college. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Are we having examinations that don’t matter? Why waste the resources?

Perhaps that is the learning objective:

• Otherwise smart and experienced people can waste resources.
• Learn to notice such waste and don’t repeat the folly.

We can do better.