Where I teach, we've settled on massively upping the frequency of in-class quizzes. It doesn't do anything to stop students from using AI, but it makes it really obvious which ones are doing it. By no means a perfect solution, sadly, but the best one we’ve been able to work out yet.
this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
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I realize I'm probably in the minority here, but I infinitely preferred blue books over take-home essays. I love learning so I would usually fully engage with lectures and readings, but given two weeks and a blank document my ADHD and perfectionism would drive me up the wall and I'd often take a fat zero on the assignment. On the other hand, if you just shoved a blue book in my face and told me to write a few short essays in two hours, I'd make it happen somehow and then I could walk out of the exam having only endured a few hours of moderate stress instead of weeks of torturing myself.
I'm right there with you. I actually preferred the time constraint of an in-class essay over a take-home essay. I think it also helped me think on my feet better and form a cogent argument off the cuff. When I took essays home, I would agonize over every word and re-write sentences a hundred times.
My unpopular opinion is that I have always preferred essay tests to multiple choice or true-false (especially true-false).
Essay or even short form free answer questions are much better at gauging comprehension. Limited choice response tests are about test taking.
A friend, who is a bit of a jerk, decided to prove a point to one of his classes. Each of his tests had a multiple choice, a short answer, and short essay sections.
One test, all the multiple choice answers were "B", except the last one. Most of the class got it right but almost all of them circled B first.
He did the opposite to a different class - all the answers were C. A fair number of students marked B then switched it to C.
The best thing is that the wrong answers weren't trick answers.
Agreed, but take-home-tests were a different kind of exam and i'm curious if there are practical ways of keeping them. Maybe questions worded in ways LLMs interpret wrong?
Maybe you could have a study hall on campus inside a faraday cage, that has computers linked to a digital library. No electronic devices allowed inside except those provided, so no internet and no chatgpt, but yes research materials and access to your books. You can even show up with friends and collaborate!
The "take home" essay must be done in the room. You can take however much time you need but you can't leave until its done.
What are blue books and what's so special about them?
They're standardized lined notebooks used for handwritten essays in a test setting.
Is this not how school works anymore?
They tried digital, I guess. But I also assume they tried digital without hiring programmers and IT security that sufficiently prevent cheating through the use of AI because they cheap.
In their defense, they're cheap because they're insufficiently funded.
This isn't somewhere with an C-level exec choosing not to spend the money, but usually an administrator that could make more personally working in the private sector trying to make whatever budget they have work while education keeps getting deprioritized (or intentionally degraded, depending on your state and/or level of cynicism).
Increasingly, America’s youth seem to view their educations as a high-stakes video game to be algorithmically juked.
That tends to happen when you're in a society that does not reward learning but does reward getting a degree by any means necessary.
I mean, duh, that's the obvious answer. I'm not a teacher and I knew immediately that's how to beat AI cheating in class. It's how we should have been doing things the whole time.
I’m adding 2 per semester to my in-person classes this fall.
Nothing beats an oral presentation. Not reading a text mind you, but a discussion between the teacher and student.
Why is school always test test test, prepare for test, more test?
Aren't schools supposed to teach? No its always obey, do the arbitrary test, obey obey obey.
That cuts both ways. As an occasional teacher, I try to teach the syllabus but students keep asking, "is there going to be a test?" or "will this be in the exam?"
I'm not blaming students per se, but educational systems that focus, as you say, on tests to gauge student performance. If you're primed to only adopt short term knowledge for the purpose of passing an exam, I'm not sure how much you'll really retain afterward.
I'm going to make it my goal to give people a proper education because the current system is short term knowledge oriented and retention is non existent. I can't remember math from 2 years ago because this system is shit.
Aren’t schools supposed to teach?
No, schools are supposed to meet academic benchmarks so they can secure more funding to support their administration. That is their actual aim now.
The name of the bill was "No Child Left Behind" but it's ended in every child being left behind.
great, more emphasis on handwriting ~groan~
So invest in blue books stocks?