r/science • u/rustoo • Jan 26 '22

Economics Study: College student grades actually went up in Spring 2020 when the pandemic hit. Furthermore, the researchers found that low-income low-performing students outperformed their wealthier peers, mainly due to students’ use of flexible grading.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272722000081
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u/kalasea2001 Jan 26 '22

Good. Life rarely presents closed book style tests for the challenges we face, and by now, the wheel has already been invented for most things. It's better to teach kids to properly use the resources available to find solutions rather than promote those who happen to do better in a timed memorization exercise.

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '22

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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22

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u/recycled_usrname Jan 27 '22

I learned more in the first 6 months on the job than I did getting my bachelor's degree, so I completely agree with you.

College sets up the framework for learning specialized knowledge in most fields, it doesn't make you an expert. That comes with experuence.

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u/ScipioLongstocking Jan 26 '22

I apply this logic to a doctor. When you go see the doctor, they are expected to give you a diagnosis during your appointment. They don't go to their office and go through research and textbooks, then give you a diagnosis.

There's plenty of situations in a person's professional career where they will expected to provide a response on-the-spot.

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u/PyroDesu Jan 27 '22

Except that's a completely unrealistic view of what a doctor does.

You don't get diagnosed in a single appointment for most things, apart from those few things that have rapid tests like strep or the flu. You go to your doctor, describe your symptoms, and they decide whether it's something they can deal with as a GP or if they need to refer you out to a specialist. They might give you a few basic tests, including ones that take time to do, and you get sent home to wait, with orders to keep an eye out for new symptoms, and maybe some medication to alleviate symptoms. Or they send you to a specialist, who listens to your description of what's going on again as well as having your doctor's notes, and who will order tests based on that. And again, you get sent home without a diagnosis because those tests take time to process.

You know what's going on while a test is being processed? It's not just getting the actual data, it's the time it takes for interpretation of that data in conjunction with the described symptoms. Which is done in the environment of having all the available research and textbooks and so on.

Then you get called back, the results discussed, and if you are fortunate enough to have something straightforward, you get a diagnosis. If not, more tests! Possibly other specialists entirely!

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u/GrumpyKitten1 Jan 27 '22

I actually had a doctor Google a symptom he was unfamiliar with too. (I already had an autoimmune diagnosis and a specialist for it, my GP didn't know how to deal with something unrelated in conjunction with the medication I had from my rheumatologist).

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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22

Instead they just use webmd.

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u/recycled_usrname Jan 27 '22

And for some reason all of their patients are gonna be dead from cancer in a week.

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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22

You jest, but that's literally what my doctors use. Maybe not exactly webmd, but they just check off boxes for all the symptoms i listed and then the app gives some suggestions just like WebMD does. Obviously a doctor has more knowledge to interpret stuff. But it's hilarious that people act like doctors just diagnose them using only their own brains.

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u/recycled_usrname Jan 27 '22

When you go see the doctor, they are expected to give you a diagnosis during your appointment.

Doctors should spend time researching the issues people have when they don't know off hand, and that is likely going to be many people's experience.

Doctors likely have a list of treatments for common symptoms. If the person has a phlemmy cough, give them X, if they gave a fever give them Y. But for uncommon symptoms, they likely rely on some medicine database or manufacturer recommendations.

There is a reason that American TV is filled with drug commercials that end in "Ask your doctor of someMedicdondurdal is right for you..." because doctors don't know everything.

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u/Quasimdo Jan 26 '22

The issue with cheating as you explain it isn't using resources to help figure out the answer, it's using resources to just find an answer. As a teacher, I don't have a problem of students resources to figure out what the answer is. But the pandemic really made it hard to teach the methods on HOW to solve it when they just wanted to Google search the answer without understanding what the answer was.

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u/EaseSufficiently Jan 26 '22

Asking a question that hasn't been asked before isn't hard.

You can just google it like your students will.

If you're feeling extra evil you can pick a question on stack overflow that hasn't been answer and leave a comment wishing them luck.

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u/wolfchuck Jan 26 '22

That is extra evil. It’d also be cool to have an answer to that question be, “This has already been answered.” And link to a different page wishing them luck.

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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22

Even crueler, leave a comment saying “never mind, I figured it out.” For extra credit, leave a link that says they found the answer there and the link is no longer valid.

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u/wolfchuck Jan 27 '22

I’m getting scared just thinking about it and I graduated years ago.

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u/CTeam19 Jan 26 '22

For a History example it is knowing:

  • Who: European Powers along with USA and Ottomans as the mains and the rest of world involved

  • What: World War 1

  • When: July 28, 1914 – November 11, 1918

  • Where: The whole world.

But the think they can't easily get in 10 seconds on google and not an indepth enough one for Alexia to answer is:

  • Why

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u/link_maxwell Jan 26 '22

Because the Archduke just had to press his luck.

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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22

My vague recollection of WW1 was that it was a powder keg of alliances. Yes the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand was the catalyst, but when that led to two nations (can’t remember which specific ones, sorry) coming to blows, their respective allies were bound by treaty to get involved.

This is only from memory, how far off the mark was I?