One thing which constantly irks the teaching fraternity is academic dishonesty. From straightforward copying in exams to submitting assignments directly taken from net, cheating is one phenomenon common across all kinds of educational institutes. Universities have been trying to cope with this problem in many ways. But none of the known solutions are effective. So I am starting to think that cheating should be legitimized. In a way the system of education which we are following is responsible for this problem. We overemphasize on individual achievements and so students try to reach super achiever status by all means. By using a common yardstick we try to measure each student’s ‘capability’. But we know each student has a unique trait which makes him special. So why tell him to leave his individuality to meet the success parameters set by us? Can’t we think of alternate evaluation mechanisms which take into consideration the diverse abilities of our students? Perhaps we can. Think what we expect from students once they come out of college. In workplace, we want them to find answers to questions as a team. To know where to get the answer from or whom to ask is more important skill. But this is academics is called ‘cheating’. What we can do is tell students to get the ‘best’ answers from wherever they can. Tell them to search everywhere for answers. In the class let them disclose the sources. In that way the knowledge can be shared. Over a period of time, students will not only know where and how to get answers from but also know the criteria for good answers. Cynics may question the validity of such logic. Won’t this system create students who know where to get answers and will not be able to problems themselves? No, I am not completely rejecting the existing system. What I am suggesting is encouraging students to adopt “cooperation” strategy instead of “competition”. |
When I started my job I was a little scared thinking if I could actually do the job I'd been selected for. Do they actually expect me to remember everything I studied in the past? But once I started I realized that the most important thing in the job is to find the right resource for a particular task. And thanks to the vastness of the Software industry you can be assured that you're problem has already been encountered by someone before. The one important thing you have to learn how to do is to adapt a solution to your particular problem. This is what is needed to be taught and tested in Exams.
Though I wouldn’t suggest a completely open book kind of system.... I'm suggesting something similar. What I suggest is this: The question paper must have all the resources you would need to answer the questions.
For Example: We've used log tables since school to answer Math papers. Why don't we provide the formulae as well, I'm not talking about the simple basic ones but the ones we learnt in Engineering. Some of them were so long that to remember them was an accomplishment in itself and for this reason all questions on the tough formulae were direct questions which just needed a direct substitution to get the answer.
From my meager job experience what I’ve learnt is that we never directly use anything that you get from any text book, you will always have to find a way to adapt it to your context.
After all we can't expect every sorting problem we encounter to be the same as sorting String arrays like we did in college.
I think you would've got my idea by now...
From what I read, you too are thinking along these lines only.
From a former student,