Open Book Exams/Using Notes

[artalot]

I saw course averages go down when I allowed completely open note and open book exams. Some students just weren't studying and you can't look up all of the answers in 50 minutes. I allow a note card now, it's a good way of getting them to study. Many don't actually use the card; they just like to have it.

[apl68]

I saw course averages go down when I allowed completely open note and open book exams. Some students just weren't studying and you can't look up all of the answers in 50 minutes. I allow a note card now, it's a good way of getting them to study. Many don't actually use the card; they just like to have it.

That's weird.  They thought that "open book exam" meant you didn't need to study at all?

[kaysixteen]

You are right-- I care little about whether an unprepared I blew off everything student flunks his test, and I never allow open book exams (I did have a VAP in '06 where the professor gave take-home exams in Latin 101, and I was supposed to do so as well in Latin 102-- the school, a secular private third-tier local SLAC, prided itself on its honor code (all graded stuff had to have an honor code compliance statement line on it for students to sign).  But Latin has to be memorized, to a large extent, and using books in a test ain't the way to ensure that is being done.  I do not know how many students, all having signed off on the honor code line, cheated anyhow, and the next 5th tier slac I worked for (actually a Catholic one) had no such honor code, and endemic, almost prideful cheating.

And, as I said above, like it or not, some things have to be memorized.

[jerseyjay]

And, as I said above, like it or not, some things have to be memorized.

Well, yes. I give open-book exams for upper-level courses where the facts are secondary to one's ability to arrange, organize, and explain the facts. I would never give an open book exam on verb conjugations.

That said, when I first started teaching, I shared an office with a long-time professor who was in his last few years of teaching and was clearly burnt out. For his intro level courses, he gave them all the exam a week before. It was full of "name and date" questions that could be found relatively easily in the book. He said that the scores were more or less the same as when he hadn't given the exam. That is, with a bunch of Ds and Fs. I don't know whether this was because of his teaching style, the type of questions he asked, the type of students, or whether a student who is not going to put in the effort to study in the normal way is no more likely to put in the effort to look up all the questions either.

[kaysixteen]

I have taught a lot of history too (my PhD track in classics is ancient history), but history does not work the same way language learning goes, esp ancient lang learning where the students do not get the benefit of learning various words and even grammar points via speaking osmosis.  You want to read classical Latin, you must memorize words and paradigms, and grammar rules, and the teacher must enforce this requirement.  Open book tests are inimical to this need.