We can use this page to leave comments and banter our ideas.
Here are my original comments from a Facebook exchange hosted by Jeremy Pierce.
Steve Hays Yes, in-class essay tests subvert the point of an essay test. It shouldn't be a test of how fast you can think and write and try to organize your thoughts under pressure, but how well you understand a topic. Your ability to analyze it. A take-home essay test is the way to go.
Jeremy Pierce Or do it in class but give them time to do it properly.
Bruce Meyer:
Or make the topic small enough to do a decent first draft in fifteen minutes. This question raises a good objection to in class essay exams, and I for my part don't test with them. But I do lean heavily on outside of class essays submitted electronically (to be checked by SafeAssign), for the sole purpose of having students HAVE an opinion and then to ARTICULATE A CONTRARY opinion; and then I encourage them to rewrite their essay if the contrary position they came up with persuades them, in which case they make the old contrary position their new "I say that" position.
Bruce Meyer:
Continuing: I read that a study somewhere (on the internet so it must be true!!) said that good multiple choice tests do a snapshot assessment of the student as do essays, to 95% accuracy. The source of my opinion here (the study I browsed) seemed credible at the time, and if anyone challenged me (enough for me to care) then that study could be found. But the claim has intuitive sense to me, so I felt ok to go with it. // If there's an off-FB discussion that you other persons (Jeremy Pierce and his readers on educational strategies) could continue this discussion on--optimal ways of teaching philosophy to undergraduate non-academic-professional philosophers--I would be much interested. I could even host it on my blog, beinghumaninfaithartscience.blogspot.com. I'll go set up a page to receive comments that we can expand on--just in case anyone is interested.
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