Speak up
On modern-day classroom cheating, Microsoft Teams, and alignment between students and assessments
A professor at Brown University makes the case for using in-class persuasive speaking assignments as a method of learning assessment, arguing that it’s a method more resistant to cheating than traditional written essays. Even if a student tried to deliver a ChatGPT-generated verbal argument, writes Stephen Kidd, it would fall flat all on its own: “Try lecturing off someone else’s notes. It’s impossible.”
■ As a professor of classics, he’s in a better position than most other instructors to take advantage of oral arguments as assessments. Economics professors are still going to need their pupils to draw IS-LM curves and a proof is going to remain a proof in calculus.
■ But there is something to be said for trying to align testing with the long-term interests of students, and there’s no denying that many of the careers open to college graduates will call for at least some verbal persuasion from time to time (even quite often, for those who burn through lots of screen time on Microsoft Teams meetings.
■ It’s also wise to ask instructors at all stages of education to have a real theory of the case for how they assess student progress. Some forms of testing (like multiple-choice exams) are notoriously easier to grade than others, but that doesn’t necessarily make them the optimal ways to determine if the content is getting through. At its best, student assessment tells an instructor whether their message is getting through or needs refinement. At its worst, testing is used to force students to self-teach (often by cramming) when the instructors have failed in the basic work of pedagogy.