Exams getting easier??
Aug. 21st, 2010 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThere was something in the Bad Science column about 'Are Exams getting easier?'
The article is about the paucity of research vs the abundance of annual rhetoric, which is indeed notable. Nobody really knows, everybody keeps going on about it.
But I think only one of the comments skimmed close to one of the most important things: they talked about watching on YouTube a presentation by a Professor at Yale, and how most people now would understand it.
The important thing: Most people in the educational districts discussed would have access to it.
Online education is still just out of the bud, but it's there. If you don't understand the way your teacher explained things, or you're stuck with some dud who mostly hands out a worksheet and ignores while you run riot, you can go looking for other teachers with a few mouse clicks. There's entire channels on the television that run, all day every day, documentaries on subjects that, when I was at school, you'd be lucky if your teacher had one old copy on VHS of something the Open University ran in the 70s. Cutting edge magazines are no longer the preserve of the weird corners of the library, they're as easy to get to as your friends list (though not always open access, I know, which sucks.)
I don't know if exams are easier or teaching is better or kids are brighter, which are the most argued options every year.
But by many orders of magnitude access to information has never been easier.
And even the most casual interest can just soak it up.
The article is about the paucity of research vs the abundance of annual rhetoric, which is indeed notable. Nobody really knows, everybody keeps going on about it.
But I think only one of the comments skimmed close to one of the most important things: they talked about watching on YouTube a presentation by a Professor at Yale, and how most people now would understand it.
The important thing: Most people in the educational districts discussed would have access to it.
Online education is still just out of the bud, but it's there. If you don't understand the way your teacher explained things, or you're stuck with some dud who mostly hands out a worksheet and ignores while you run riot, you can go looking for other teachers with a few mouse clicks. There's entire channels on the television that run, all day every day, documentaries on subjects that, when I was at school, you'd be lucky if your teacher had one old copy on VHS of something the Open University ran in the 70s. Cutting edge magazines are no longer the preserve of the weird corners of the library, they're as easy to get to as your friends list (though not always open access, I know, which sucks.)
I don't know if exams are easier or teaching is better or kids are brighter, which are the most argued options every year.
But by many orders of magnitude access to information has never been easier.
And even the most casual interest can just soak it up.
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-21 06:04 pm (UTC)And you can learn about certain things that you'd be embarrassed to ask the librarian for books about, too, which is also a wonderful thing.
Of course, this also means you need a certain amount of skepticism and judgment, and to consider the source before you believe everything you read - but you needed that anyway, pre-internet.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-22 02:02 am (UTC)But when I grumble about how my students no longer know anything about punctuation, I have to remind myself that they can program my cellphone with their eyes closed, they know many more stories than previous generations (because TV/film), they on average know more about many more sports (I followed baseball as a kid... that's all). Generally they have a much broader knowledge base. Not deeper, maybe but definitely broader. And they have skills unimagined (literally) in previous generations.
We tend to overvalue what we know ourselves (punctuation!), and undervalue what we don't know (cell phone programming).
But I'll say this-- I went to what was considered a very good high school, and no one in my time ever got even 1500 on the SATs. My son's high school has a 1600 (top score) scorer every couple years. No, I don't think the tests are easier (I have tutored for the SATs, and the tests are pretty tough). I think the best students are better than ever. And I think it's because they have US as teachers.
(20-year teacher here)