Monday, February 9, 2015

Issue 523 Are exams outdated? February 9, 2015

Here we are going to talk a little about education and its future.  In this case with the advent of computer based learning, have exams become outmoded.  Let us discuss.

The future classroom:  Whether it is in the home or in a traditional school setting children are relying more and more on computers to learn, study and overall be judged based on their performance.  In the classroom, children sit at a computer terminal where they watch tutorials, solve puzzles and other problems and then advance in their studies at their own pace.  Teachers are in the classroom to assist students having trouble to help them over equations and problems that they can now largely learn and solve by themselves.  It is also noted that students are no longer relegated to having to wait for their peers to learn something new.  Students thus are able to continue forward even if it is supposed to be beyond their grade level.  So what does this mean for the old fashioned exams that students would prepare for, for weeks?  

Exams are gone:  Truth is, with this computer based learning system taking over, exams become useless.  Exams are designed to measure mastery over one subject at a time, or multiple subjects at once.  However, with students going at their own pace and even skipping ahead to do work that normally was taught at higher grade levels, the exam becomes displaced.  Computer learning is even able to build upon each lesson and link subjects together more easily and thus learning via computer becomes mutually supporting.   With all this in mind, exams would have to be tailored to each student to work, which would cost a lot of money.  But with computer learning however, that exam is not required to measure performance.  In fact, computers measure the performance of each child which removes wasted time studying for exams and their associated week long scheduling which takes precious learning time away from children.  Children are monitored in real time and the computer can even bring in questions to courses to aid the student who was having trouble in a particular area until they gain proficiency.  So the exam is now outmoded due to the slow adoption of real time assessment and monitoring.


Conclusion:  Yes I know, big brother will be watching our kids and their progress.  But this computer learning approach that gives our kids a chance to go farther faster and at a pace that they are comfortable with has too many advantages to pass up.  And now, the exams and other tests become a waste of time and money which inherently removes one of the biggest wastes of money in our education system next to printed textbooks.  Even SATs' and other college entrance exams can be eliminated as the student merely has to submit their computer learning information to demonstrate how well they do in all subject areas at once and thus allows them to be compared with other applicants in an expedient manner.  So what do you say my readers.  Is this a good thing for education?  As it progresses forward we will just have to wait and see.

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