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« Things I wish I knew about surveys | Main | Testing the significance of corrected validities »
Teach the children to cheat
On January 24, 2006 by Jamie Madigan
I normally don't write about educational testing because it's not my purview (other than being on the receiving end for so long). But this article on WSJ.com had such a great tagline I had to read it: "Text-messaging answers. Googling during exams. In the Internet age, some schools have a new approach to cheating: Make it legal."
The basic idea is that some schools are deciding that rote memorization isn't as important as learning how to solve problems or learning how to find answers to problems using the tools that will be available in the "real world." Don't know the definition of the word "omphaloskepsis?" If you came across that word in a quarterly report at work, you'd look it up on dictionary.com, so why not test students' ability to do that if we're interested in making sure they're prepared for reality? To quote the article:
The move, which includes some of the country's top institutions, reflects a broader debate about what skills are necessary in today's world -- and how schools should teach them. The real-world strengths of intelligent surfing and analysis, some educators argue, are now just as important as rote memorization.
The old rules still reign in most places, but an increasing number of schools are adjusting them. This includes not only letting kids use the Internet during tests, but in the most extreme cases, allowing them to text message notes or beam each other definitions on vocabulary drills. Schools say they in no way consider this cheating because they're explicitly changing the rules to allow it.
It's an interesting concept and I have no beef with teaching concepts like how to use a calculator, search engine, dictionary, or that nerd who sits behind you in Algebra (who, by the way, is going to be your boss in a few years so be nice to him). And I generally don't give a flip about memorizing dates, capitals, or names that have no relevance to anything important. But I think this kind of thing has to be alloyed with the good old fashioned "you know it or you fail" approach. There's value to being able to quickly calculate, in your head, what 40% off of $35 is. Or to write an e-mail without giving your spell-checker a nervous breakdown or making the recipient scratch her head raw from trying to figure out what the heck your disorganized jumble of internet idioms means.
So yeah, teach (and evaluate) students' ability to use real-world tools and resources, but don't forget the other stuff, either.
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