Should School Examinations Be Open Book?

[Corvus Metallum]

Actually, if you have a good teacher (in 7th grade+, anyways), they'll teach you the material and make you do homework. My chem teacher has a doctorate in education, and has said multiple times that the best way to learn something is repetition.

On the topic of the thread, I don't think that all tests should be open note. I mean, there are some subjects that it would be just plain dumb to make that way, like math.

I'm not going to memorize 98,758,734,387 math formulas for a test, so if I can't look at my notes, I'm going to cheat. Only way I can pass.

Or just get rid of tests, which is easier.

Sounds like someone doesn't do their homework.

If we get rid of tests, how else are teachers supposed to make kids' lives miserable in preparation for them?

[Kiruri]

Well, I think there's a limit. I mean, giving out formulas for math, chemistry or physics is perfectly fine, since that information wouldn't mean the student would automatically ace his/her exam, but in a history test? Would open book really help? Some subjects are just mostly memorization, such as history.

[Torisakia]

I'm not going to memorize 98,758,734,387 math formulas for a test, so if I can't look at my notes, I'm going to cheat. Only way I can pass.

Or just get rid of tests, which is easier.

Sounds like someone doesn't do their homework.

If we get rid of tests, how else are teachers supposed to make kids' lives miserable in preparation for them?

I'd rather fail than do homework. Actually, I'd rather do anything than homework.

[The Serbian Empire]

Well, I think there's a limit. I mean, giving out formulas for math, chemistry or physics is perfectly fine, since that information wouldn't mean the student would automatically ace his/her exam, but in a history test? Would open book really help? Some subjects are just mostly memorization, such as history.

In math or even working on electronics a formula is only a useful step, but skill matters more.

[Infected Mushroom]

Well, I think there's a limit. I mean, giving out formulas for math, chemistry or physics is perfectly fine, since that information wouldn't mean the student would automatically ace his/her exam, but in a history test? Would open book really help? Some subjects are just mostly memorization, such as history.

you can write essays in history about a prompt or analyze primary and secondary source excerpts (while having access to open book material) for example

it doesn't just have to be, ''Define X... I look it up''

Also, if there are a tons and tons of questions where you have to define or match things up you could easily run out of time if you didn't prepare at all and had to look up every single bloody thing (so it would still reward those who have looked at their notes extensively before hand)...

[Acharastan]

I give you props for making a great point, but their not open book to make sure students know their facts. Plus, if everything were open book, why not just give everyone a manual on how to do some job and take out the educational system. Then thousands of teachers/school workers are out of a job. That also includes writers/directors/actors/etc. that make TV shows and movies for a living. No school = no movies. Having open book tests are bad for the economy .

[Nazi Flower Power]

Actually, if you have a good teacher (in 7th grade+, anyways), they'll teach you the material and make you do homework. My chem teacher has a doctorate in education, and has said multiple times that the best way to learn something is repetition.

On the topic of the thread, I don't think that all tests should be open note. I mean, there are some subjects that it would be just plain dumb to make that way, like math.

I'm not going to memorize 98,758,734,387 math formulas for a test, so if I can't look at my notes, I'm going to cheat. Only way I can pass.

Or just get rid of tests, which is easier.

If you know the reasoning by which the formulas are derived, you don't need to memorize many of them, and you will have a better understanding to build on in later studies (or in creating solutions for problems that you were never explicitly taught how to solve) than someone who just memorized.

[Infected Mushroom]

I give you props for making a great point, but their not open book to make sure students know their facts. Plus, if everything were open book, why not just give everyone a manual on how to do some job and take out the educational system. Then thousands of teachers/school workers are out of a job. That also includes writers/directors/actors/etc. that make TV shows and movies for a living. No school = no movies. Having open book tests are bad for the economy .

interesting... i might start another thread on this...

[Arcturus Novus]

Well, it'd certainly make math easier.

[Jumalariik]

Straight A's for me.

[Kiruri]

Well, I think there's a limit. I mean, giving out formulas for math, chemistry or physics is perfectly fine, since that information wouldn't mean the student would automatically ace his/her exam, but in a history test? Would open book really help? Some subjects are just mostly memorization, such as history.

you can write essays in history about a prompt or analyze primary and secondary source excerpts (while having access to open book material) for example

it doesn't just have to be, ''Define X... I look it up''

Also, if there are a tons and tons of questions where you have to define or match things up you could easily run out of time if you didn't prepare at all and had to look up every single bloody thing (so it would still reward those who have looked at their notes extensively before hand)...

So a history test focusing on understanding rather than memory, I guess in that case it wouldn't necessarily matter if the student had or didn't have notes/the open book option. It's not like you need the open book to understand history.

[Nazi Flower Power]

you can write essays in history about a prompt or analyze primary and secondary source excerpts (while having access to open book material) for example

it doesn't just have to be, ''Define X... I look it up''

Also, if there are a tons and tons of questions where you have to define or match things up you could easily run out of time if you didn't prepare at all and had to look up every single bloody thing (so it would still reward those who have looked at their notes extensively before hand)...

So a history test focusing on understanding rather than memory, I guess in that case it wouldn't necessarily matter if the student had or didn't have notes/the open book option. It's not like you need the open book to understand history.

That's not really an innovation. My college history course always had essay exams.

[Infected Mushroom]

Well, it'd certainly make math easier.

really?

I've always thought the trickiest part was applying the formulas and sometimes to make sense of the really wordy/tricky paragraph problems...

[Forsher]

Probably not... it would be no better than teaching to the test.

Except, not really. The OP is completely correct in that, at a secondary school level (or, at least, the last three years or so), exams are more about seeing how well pupils can apply and manipulate knowledge rather than their ability to rote learn and recall memorised facts. In an English exam, for instance, a pupil is really meant to be able to demonstrate understanding of a broader theme, character, relevance of the end/beginning to the author's purpose etc. than chuck out a bunch of quotes or describe the plot in intense detail. In fact, any pupil trying to describe the plot and use quotes to support that is on the fast track to failure.

In that example just then allowing a pupil to have a list of quotes and maybe, even, a short summary of the plot would be completely okay. However, this is extremely impractical from the perspective of any nationally administered exam (such as any NCEA one) because there are likely dozens of different texts studied. As a consequence, you could hardly expect the examiners to come up with such a scheme for all these texts and even having five different texts prepared like this is too restrictive. Additionally, if you allowed pupils to come up with these you can guarantee that too much information would go into them (and a lot of time would have to be wasted checking that they're okay). Maybe teachers could come up with the lists and submit them to NZQA, Ofqual etc. at the start of the year to be approved. This is administratively wasteful though.

This is additionally complicated by the way that many pupils approach essays. That is to say, they not only memorise their main points and general structure but they do their best to pre-prepare an essay beforehand and regurgitate it in the exams. By allowing a list of quotes etc. to be taken in, such a job is made that much easier. Personally, I found just writing down all the quotes you could remember (with a filtering of quotes to memorise during the revision process) was more than sufficient to act as a plan etc. Essentially, in some situations allowing exams to be open book does compromise the ability of exams to examine how much that pupils have actually learnt.

I don't even remember the quadratic formula now.

As long as you can complete the square this is not a problem (completing the square on the general form of a quadratic yields the equation). Naturally, I cannot currently recall that either so...

An absolutely, undeniably awful idea. Knowing the information is just as important as applying it, and allowing a student to take their textbook in with them for a test defeats the purpose of giving knowledge based tests in the first place. I see absolutely no benefit to open book tests.

Then you're not thinking this through enough.

In some subjects (e.g. history) it is far more important to be able to explore the relationship between facts, look at trends etc. To these subjects facts are singularly unimportant. By not being able to have the facts on hand the ability to actually explore these relationships and historical ideas is compromised. I mean, I spent three years doing history exams for which a 1/3 contained completely unfamiliar material and all the information required was provided in the exam. To be fair, that was about the analysis of sources but that's only so relevant here. This is not to say that there aren't very real reasons for exams being closed books (although, potentially, with formula sheets).

The beauty of schooling is that we can recognise that exams are often singularly not useful but we don't have to use exams to see what pupils no all the time.

ITT: people don't know what the point of a test is, even though the name tells you the point.

Tests are, in this context, about seeing how close a pupil has got to a pre-determined end goal.

To improve the quality of education.

But wouldn't giving more homework improve the quality of education? I mean, that way students would learn more outside of class. And more homework would pressure them to actually do it, or fail.

No, it probably wouldn't. Homework should come in three forms. Firstly, there's the classical sense of work done at home that reinforces what was done in the classroom. Secondly, there's homework that's done before the relevant lessons (i.e. the basis of the so-called flipped classroom). Thirdly, there's work done at home (whether because there wasn't enough time to do it in the classroom or because it's a longer term assessment for which there isn't really time to do it at school).

Too much of the first just puts a lot of pressure on the pupil. This probably comes at the cost of other pursuits or sleep. Neither of these is particular desirable as an outcome. Basically it's a balancing act. But there is very much such a thing as too much homework.

But wouldn't giving more homework improve the quality of education? I mean, that way students would learn more outside of class. And more homework would pressure them to actually do it, or fail.

No. Not at all.

1. Learn from homework? Lolz
2. I think the word you're looking for is lecture.

Lectures are pretty bloody crap as a teaching tool. Much like too much homework they don't allow time for processing.

[Torisakia]

I'm not going to memorize 98,758,734,387 math formulas for a test, so if I can't look at my notes, I'm going to cheat. Only way I can pass.

Or just get rid of tests, which is easier.

If you know the reasoning by which the formulas are derived, you don't need to memorize many of them, and you will have a better understanding to build on in later studies (or in creating solutions for problems that you were never explicitly taught how to solve) than someone who just memorized.

That sounds more difficult than memorizing.

And I have one more year of this shit? Yeah, that kind of influences my decision of dropping out. I should just become a bathroom attendant. Think of the tips I'll make.

[Acharastan]

I give you props for making a great point, but their not open book to make sure students know their facts. Plus, if everything were open book, why not just give everyone a manual on how to do some job and take out the educational system. Then thousands of teachers/school workers are out of a job. That also includes writers/directors/actors/etc. that make TV shows and movies for a living. No school = no movies. Having open book tests are bad for the economy .

interesting... i might start another thread on this...

If you do start another thread on it, could you send me the link? BTW you make a great argument.

[Infected Mushroom]

interesting... i might start another thread on this...

If you do start another thread on it, could you send me the link? BTW you make a great argument.

k, but I'm not sure if I will yet... cause it may get locked by the mods for being on too similar to this topic etc

[Forsher]

Which is why lecture is the best method.
It's interesting, doesn't breed apathy, and you actually learn.

Seriously, have you ever been to a college class. More often than not a large portion of the students stop attending lectures due to apathy.

Or because of lecture recordings. Although, in all honesty, I think most people who stop turning up don't watch those... they just tell themselves that they will.

Also, having someone else show you how to do something does not guarantee you are able to do it yourself. Homework forces students to try to work on their own (or in groups) to do a problem. Attending lecture does not mean a person has actually learned the material, that they have understood the material, or that they can apply the material. Homework allows the students to figure out what they have understood, forces them to apply what they have learned, allows the teacher to figure out where students are having difficulty, and allows the student to learn how to do the problem on their own.

Very much this.

Yes, I go to college classes every weekday.

Are you seriously suggesting highschool has a better system?
If so.... Just.... Wow.

I don't know if Neutraligon thinks that but I certainly think they do. This is why most university courses have tutorials which both look and, theoretically, function like a classroom setting in a high school. In fact, some would argue that learning is perfected in primary school with a teacher imparting knowledge to a larger body of pupils who then work in small groups on exercises that apply that knowledge. If further help is then required one can call the teacher over for some one-to-group learning. A university might look at such a system, combine it with a flipped classroom, groups based more on diversity than academic ability and incorporate individual and group testing to provide immediate feedback, and then use something like the much-maligned Piazza and call this the "future of education".

On the other hand, if you want to motor through a crap tonne of material, universities are much better at that because every one hour lecture is, typically, incredibly densely packed with information. This is not the same as saying that the students learn more. They're just given more to learn.

And people don't go to lectures because they either

1. Know the material already
2. Want to get high

Yeah, no.

:palm:

I see that summer is going down with a fight.

This is a very worthwhile topic but too many people are too keen on just dismissing the idea because they can't be bothered thinking it through beyond, "Well, we didn't do this at school/clearly the OP failed a test etc."

And then there's your post with it's -10% content.

As I've said (I believe in the previous post), this is all about a different definition of what homework is.

Because obviously you have to apply what you have learned.

Soooo.... Yeeeeahhhh...

I know very few people who use your definition of homework. Those math problems you got in high school, those where application of what is taught in class. Those book reports, those where applications of what was taught in class. Those science papers, also applications. The science problems you got, also applications.

What I find interesting is that maths questions at uni are basically like homework problems at school. The key difference being that they're much harder but otherwise they consist entirely of the concept rather than any ability to pluck it out of a context (which is how maths exams are constructed at school... at least in my experience). Part of this is explained by the facts I've only encountered pure maths and, even in lectures, examples that apply to situations are very rare (I can think of two but I'm a first year so that's not really a big deal). As my last two lecturers have been ex-physics people there's a lot of "You'd use this when doing such and such" but this is meaningless to me so that probably contributes to this impression. However, we do reason that the fact the questions are pretty much just the theorems or algorithms or whatever without the context is the reason why there is no formula sheet (as there is, for example, a physics and stats course I'm aware of).

Well I think that's the source of this disagreement.

Why do you believe that when you take a worksheet home to do on your own time, and not class-time, it is not homework?

Because by using a very narrowly constructed definition of homework he can have a somewhat valid point.

Doctors aren't in School once they finish 8-year Med. School. And no normal doctor would just go on WebMD to diagnose a patient, that's why he studied medicine for the minimum 8 years.

It is a student's job to memorize what s/he has learned, so it will be in their brains for the rest of their life. If every test would be open-book, nobody would know shit without checking their 7th grade History/Math/Science book when at the store.

but you will forget most of what you memorize anyways, i think someone said like you forget more than half...

The issue that I have with exams that one does well on through memorisation is that they don't really show what you know. To return to that English exam example the whole subject as we have it is either useful but overly optional (eg speeches) or not so optional but an exercise in one's ability to regurgitate whatever the teacher told you abaax out the text in question (usually using a memorised essay). Understanding something is about taking something from one context and recognising how it applies in another context. As far as that applies in English essays one should be taught with one lot of questions in mind and the tested using radically different ones. This is not what happens. This view is, in hindsight, somewhat Kantian in so far as it resembles "Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another". Exams are almost always constructed in such a fashion that they do not remove the pupil from the guiding framework of someone else.

*Although, in part, this is because the one time I tried this approach it didn't work out so well for me but, luckily, mocks and I'm pretty durable.

you can write essays in history about a prompt or analyze primary and secondary source excerpts (while having access to open book material) for example

it doesn't just have to be, ''Define X... I look it up''

Also, if there are a tons and tons of questions where you have to define or match things up you could easily run out of time if you didn't prepare at all and had to look up every single bloody thing (so it would still reward those who have looked at their notes extensively before hand)...

So a history test focusing on understanding rather than memory, I guess in that case it wouldn't necessarily matter if the student had or didn't have notes/the open book option. It's not like you need the open book to understand history.

I usually quite like exams. Often even ones I have done badly on but really it depends on their exact nature. One of my all time favourites was a three hour history one which consisted of one essay based on a context (as far as I recall it was "the importance of different historians' interpretations) that had an attached resource booklet with sources all the way up to O. Reading and understanding that, choosing the question and selecting relevant knowledge from my wider historical experience took about an hour. That was a very good exam in terms of taking students out of that memorisation based system I was just complaining about. It was also an effective exam in what it wanted to test pupils on.

[Acharastan]

If you do start another thread on it, could you send me the link? BTW you make a great argument.

k, but I'm not sure if I will yet... cause it may get locked by the mods for being on too similar to this topic etc

As long as you don't make it too similar, it should be fine. If you were to make it, it could be more of a debate than discussion.Sorry if I'm being kinda pushy.

[Brickistan]

Well, I think there's a limit. I mean, giving out formulas for math, chemistry or physics is perfectly fine, since that information wouldn't mean the student would automatically ace his/her exam, but in a history test? Would open book really help? Some subjects are just mostly memorization, such as history.

I really don't agree.

If you you have is a bunch of dates memorized, then what have you really learned?

Take World War Two, for example. I find it a highly interesting subject for a multitude of reasons, most of which has very little to do with the war itself. Inter-war Germany is a big subject in itself, and it needs to be studied in order to understand how and why Hitler rose to power. Then, during and after the war, there was a lot of political stuff going on, eventually resulting in the Cold War and the formation of the United Nations. And then there are the Nuremberg Trials which set out to (though did not quite succeed) place the blame for what happened and in so doing made some important rulings on the conduct of soldiers in a war.

Point is this...

You could memorize all the dates of all the major battles, but what have you gained by that? True understanding of the war will only come once you "connect the dots", so to speak. In other words, It's much more important to know why things happened, and what the consequences were, than simply what happened and when.

[Kravanica]

School isn't just supposed to prepare you for life. It's also supposed to educate you.

I mean honestly, do you want a heart surgeon standing there reading a book trying to figure out what to do?

[Ulrenon]

That would have been wonderful in Highschool. The only thing that really counted for my Math and Science classes was that I passed the exams; you could be a straight A student all year and fail those things and wind up with a 47 or something pathetic.

Although, at the same time, I can see how this could be abused. You wouldn't even have to learn if you could just copy+paste the question into Google.

[Pandeeria]

School isn't just supposed to prepare you for life. It's also supposed to educate you.

I mean honestly, do you want a heart surgeon standing there reading a book trying to figure out what to do?

I'd rather he had a book there to help him instead him just guessing purely on memory.

[Kravanica]

School isn't just supposed to prepare you for life. It's also supposed to educate you.

I mean honestly, do you want a heart surgeon standing there reading a book trying to figure out what to do?

I'd rather he had a book there to help him instead him just guessing purely on memory.

"Hm, it says I'm supposed to make a small incision here... SHIT! I was a few centimeters off. Fuck. Well, this one's gonna die."

[Pandeeria]

I'd rather he had a book there to help him instead him just guessing purely on memory.

"Hm, it says I'm supposed to make a small incision here... SHIT! I was a few centimeters off. Fuck. Well, this one's gonna die."

That really doesn't address my point. I'd rather have a surgeon have backup information incase he gets stressed out and cannot remember, or isn't sure.