An Examination of Take-Home Tests

I'm taking Economics 113 this semester. On Monday, we have our mid-term exam. Last class session, a student asked the professor if it could be open book. The professor asked the student to, since this is an economics class, give the costs and benefits of an open-book exam. A back-and-forth ensued. The professor said, since it is more likely that a student would study less and watch American Idol more, the exam would not be open-book. However, it will be open-notes. I'm not sure if he believes students should not be allowed to Idol in particular or enjoy entertainment in general.

Upon reflection, here are my thoughts, economic and otherwise, on the open-book debate. These thoughts came after the class and I said nothing during the exchange.

IF it can be assumed that a student will watch Idol instead of studying, it can also be assumed that one or both of two things economic perceptions are in place for the student:

1. the student sees more value in watching American Idol than it doing well on an exam
2. the student sees little marginal benefit in an hour of Idol is more than the marginal benefit in studying

It may be of no surprise that I concluded there is little or no perceived benefit to the student to take an exam. And that may be true. You do not learn anything taking a closed-book exam. (If we assume the student will watch Idol, is it not fair to assume the student will not go back and study his/her incorrect answers?) You get a grade, but you could have gotten a grade through several of many other arbitrary means: homework, presentation, papers, class participation, etc. An exam, itself, is not mandatory for grading. The only thing the student gains from an exam is experience in a very specific and uncommon stress situation--the stress of remembering things and verbally regurgitating them onto a piece of paper during an allotted amount of time in a specific place. I don't have the facts on this, but I'm betting the post-mortem for the Bay of Pigs crisis did not include the phrase, "unfortunate that POTUS did not have more closed-book exams in school."

So, the student does not benefit from the exam. So why take the exam? Because the professor wants you to. Since you are, to a large degree, a captive audience, you do what the professor wants, to a large degree.

So the question goes back to the professor. What is the value in an exam? What is the marginal benefit? Is it worth the time it took for you to write it up? Why do you want the student to take the exam?

I've come up with three reasons (other than "I was told to" or "I dunno; seemed like the thing to do") for a professor to want students to take an exam:

• To quantify what a student can memorize and verbally regurgitate
• To quantify what the student understands about the material
• To make sure the student is exposed to the key objectives for the course

For the rote memorization reason, it would have to be closed book. I don't see another way to test memory; but I also don't see how that's an indicator of how well a student understands material.

To quantify what the student understands about the material, it should be open book or open notes. You can understand a concept without knowing the jargon. You can understand how to use a formula without having it memorized. Open the book/notes so the student has access to the jargon and formula and can more clearly explain what he/she knows and understands.

To make sure the student is exposed to the key "talking points," if you will, no test is needed. Just give it as homework. Create a list of questions about the most important items discussed during the course of the course and tell the student the due date. If the student doesn't know it, the student learns it. If the student already knew, the time saved could be enough to watch an episode of American Idol.

Unfortunately, since I now understand that an exam is of no benefit to me, I have trouble taking them seriously. If you think that grades are important, then my economics course was very costly to me. I hope my prof can live with that.

And have a good day.

NFL Considers Expanding Season

As reported by many news outlets, the NFL is considering expanding the regular season from 16 to 17 or 18 games. Commissioner Roger Goodell did some spin doctoring, saying the season was 20 games long, but that's including preseason games--which help determine which players should make the team and help the team prepare for when the games count. Goodell's plan would keep the total at 2o by subtracting from the preseason the number of games added to the regular season.

"Fans don't believe preseason games are up to our standards"

That's what Goodell said, regarding the necessity to shift some preseason games to the regular season. The point that Goodell misses is that the problem fans have with the preseason is that the NFL charges full price for them when they are not meant to be the same importance as regular season games.

I have three questions for Roger Goodell:

1. With the expanded injury list coinciding with the expanded schedule, do you really want the players who would be playing in the lower-standard 4th preseason games to be the players playing in the Super Bowl.
2. By expanding the season both in length and later into February, do you run the risk of over-saturation--losing the casual fans and the television ratings they bring
3. How does the expanded schedule "grow the game" on the field? (I understand how it grows the owners' pocketbooks, but how will it improve the game itself?)

That said, I sure won't mind watching another week of games each year. Just start the regular season in August instead of extending it so the Super Bowl is in February.

And have a good day.

The Ol' College Effort

I start classes next week. At least, I hope to. I'm having difficulty figuring out what day of the week one of my evening classes meets.

The registrar's office says it meets one day. The syllabus says another day. We received an e-mail message from the professor who claimed it was a third day.

Along with that, the bookstore wants us to buy the eighth edition of the textbook. The prof mentioned in his syllabus that the bookstore wants us to buy the sixth edition, but we should buy the fifth edition. The fifth edition is from 2000.

Topping it all off is the name of the class: Principles of Management.

If that isn't a clear statement on the state of management these days, I don't know what is.

But, on the bright side, this is why we can so enjoy Dilbert.

And have a nice day.

Baseball's Instant Replay

Baseball is introducing their version of instant replay. This is needed, you see, because several months back there was a home run which was ruled not a home run. Or not a home run which was ruled a home run. Who can remember?

This is vitally important to the game, you see. What would happen if, in game seven of the World Series, an umpire made a mistake? For, like, 2 weeks, people would care. Maybe.

I actually don't care one way or the other about instant replay. What I've enjoyed is that no one's taking the conversation any deeper. Most seem to be in favor of instant replay, but no one is asking the questions. Do we just do home runs? Do we do any call that a manager argues? Do we do something in between? Will that elephant in the room, er, stadium obstruct the view of the replay camera?

In the end, of course, it doesn't matter. The entire point of it is that once or twice there was a slow sports news day. Sports radio had nothing else to talk about so they made it seem like the lack of instant replay was a crisis situation. In the future, there'll be a complaint about how instant replay was handled. It'll be a slow sports news day. And sports radio will have another crisis Du jour to talk about.

So enjoy baseball. Enjoy instant replay. Enjoy the inevitable "crisis" which will come from it.

And have a good day.

Izzy Stradlin - Concrete

According to Beenafix.com, Izzy Stradlin has a new album out: Concrete. It's only available, again, on ITunes.

Tracklist:

1. Ball
2. Circle
3. Easy
4. Concrete
5. Drove
6. Ship
7. G.B.
8. Knuckleheads
9. I Know
10. Raggadubbacrete


Source:

www.beenafix.com
www.chopaway.com

And have a good day.

Campaigns and Web 2.0

I found an article on CNN about how politicians are using Web 2.0 for their campaigns and how they're adding Twitter to their stable of applications. I was going to rant about how, based on the e-mails I receive from candidates, they'd probably just use it to bombard us with requests for money.

However, I decided I should actually try Twitter so I could make an educated comment about it. Since I don't know a whole lot of folks who use twitter, I subscribed to political campaign tweets. Bob Barr kept suggesting I check out the new videos on his site. BarackObama (the first one to sign up to follow me, by the way) kept telling me the locations of his campaign stops. I couldn't find a John McCain account. Ralph Nader was micro blogging about a map. Nary a call for money in the lot. So I was wrong.

But I did think back to Bob Graham's 2004 campaign. I shudder to think of what Graham, who allegedly keeps a meticulous log of his daily activities anyway, would have put on Twitter. It's probably best to forget I even mentioned that.

And have a good day.

Another View on "Web 2.0"

After spending time with my Inbox Zero project, I've finally started catching up on some reading. In the March 2008 issues of Associates, Carol Borzyskowski writes about her and her library's experiences with 23 Things on a Stick, the Minnesota version of Library 2.0. I don't know that there's anything earthshaking in the column, but it is another view on 2.0. Word is spreading.

I did find out, however, there are a few things in 23 Things with which I am not familiar. I'd better get busy learning. After I catch up on my reading. After I finish my Inbox Zero stuff.

And have a good day.