HN Books @HNBooksMonth

Adaptive exams can be a huge win. I know they can be hard/time-consuming to do really well, but it's fairly easy to make static multiple choice a little more dynamic.

For example, imagine an end-of-section quiz with 5 multiple choice questions with 4 answers each. The static way is each student sees the same 5 questions with the same 4 answers to choose from.

Instead, you could have a bank of 100 questions, in buckets of 20 covering the same material. So, each student sees one question from each bucket, drawn randomly. And then each question could have 10 answers, with 4 randomly displayed for any given instance of the question, sometimes with multiple right answers, sometimes none, etc.

This would require more work, but effort spent on assessment should scale with the number of students, just not linearly. (Right?)

The goal is not to make cheating impossible. The goal is to make cheating hard enough that it's easier to just learn the material and answer the question.

Furthermore, once you have that bank of 100 questions, you can start running analytics on it to see which variations are harder or easier for students to understand, which topics might need a better explanation in the teaching section, etc. You could eventually be able to generate adaptive exams from this data.

Sal Khan of the Khan Academy talks about all these things. I recommend his book: The One World Schoolhouse. (http://www.amazon.com/The-One-World-Schoolhouse-Reimagined/d...)

⬐ munin

my problem with this is that it's still MC and short answer. the lifeless creatures from another dimension at ETS have been iterating on adaptive tests with the GRE for a long time, and yet, it's still the GRE...

Someone should read how to disagree (http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html). He is criticizing something that Sal probably got wrong. Sal could probably do a better job of using findings in educational research to make his videos and exercises better. But the author seems to be implying that KhanAcademy as a whole is of poor quality. I think he's using a DH5 to argue something that requires a DH6.

I think Sal does an excellent job with his videos as a whole. He does a good job of explaining things in an intuitive and deep way. See http://www.collegeanswerz.com/rethinking-education for more information. Or read Sal's book http://www.amazon.com/The-One-World-Schoolhouse-Reimagined/d....

⬐ gpcz

As Khan Academy makes lessons for younger students, I believe the argumentation will get more passionate like this article. Students increasingly learn to teach themselves as they get older, so I believe the media will let Khan "get away" with more perceived "flaws" in his Algebra and Calculus lessons than on something for younger children.

⬐ snori74

Thanks for that link to "how to disagree" - one I hadn't read.

⬐ adamzerner

Yeah, no problem! It's one of my favorites.

⬐ padolsey

OP seems to be hovering around DH5/DH6. I don't see the problem.

⬐ adamzerner

He's (at least) implicitly saying that KhanAcademy sucks. I didn't really read it too too carefully, but that's the sense I get from it. He seems to be pissed about an error that Sal made, and is jumping to conclusions saying that KhanAcademy sucks. To make that claim, you'd have say what it means to suck, and why KhanAcademy does so (DH6).

⬐ bayesianhorse

I think the criticism would be valid as long as Khan's videos were damaging education... but they are improving people's understanding of math.

Khanacademy is being optimized for effective learning. But that takes effort, and it might never be perfect.

⬐ makomk

Of course, the entire point of the blog is that they're actually cementing people's existing misunderstandings of math...