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BDPWyesterday at 7:42 PM2 repliesview on HN

What would you do instead to make sure the student actually possesses the skills they are intended to have learned by the end of a program?


Replies

saghmyesterday at 7:47 PM

I'm not sure it's possible to force someone to learn who doesn't want to. From what I can tell, the article is basically saying that giving the students some form of agency and trust is a better way to motivate them to take it seriously than being a strict top-down disciplinarian. This fits with my experience (both from when I was a student and in my interactions with younger people as an adult), and I would expect that most people who have seriously evaluated this strategy would come to the same conclusion. It's not perfect, as some students may try to take advantage of things or will still phone it in, but the same thing happens with every other way of trying to engage with them.

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tonymetyesterday at 7:51 PM

A variety of performance assessments more similar to commercial pursuits.

Group projects with tangible artifacts, including finished prototypes that meet objectives. More emphasis on group projects. If AI accelerates productive development like with software, move the objectives up the ladder in complexity, or expectations.

Peer assessments and performance reviews like employment . This also helps prepare students for adult life.

If the subject matter is merchandisable, have the students operate an enterprise. My local high school has the students operate a food cart for example, and it opens to the public one weekend a month, otherwise open to students. Students are responsible for inventory, marketing, accounting, maintenance , customer service etc.

More verbal challenges . These can be operated by AI with human supervision while being recorded, with spot checks from supervisors.

Every diagnostic has a precision / recall curve and some fall through the cracks. But you have to shift your approach when old testing no longer becomes viable. Better that than to revert to the stone age of informatics.