In the era of artificial ielligence, university professors are faced with a big problem: how to know if the stude really learned the lesson or if the artificial ielligence just did the homework? While some have turned to (highly flawed) artificial ielligence detection software, a group of professors have pulled an old and forgotten solution from the heart of history: oral exams. This method, once popular in ancie Greece and the old Oxford universities, is now recognized as the most powerful weapon against modern fraud.
According to the Washington Post report, in the oral exam, the stude must sit face to face with the professor and answer the questions; Thus, no chatbot can speak for him. Kathryn Hartman, professor of religious studies at the University of Wyoming in the US, says that this method allows her to get out of the role of detective (who is constaly looking for fraud) and back io the role of coach. Statistics show that 85% of studes use artificial ielligence in their lessons. Returning to the oral exam is a way to gauge deep understanding.
Oral exams to beat AI in college
Professor Hartman has an ieresting analogy to justify banning artificial ielligence in his classes. “The classroom is like a gym and I’m your trainer,” he tells his studes. The goal is to strengthen your meal muscles. “Using AI to write an essay is like going to the gym with a forklift and lifting weights.” You might lift weights, but you won’t build muscle. This phenomenon, which is called “cognitive drain”, makes studes leave the trouble of thinking to artificial ielligence.
Of course, it is also possible to cheat in oral exams in Zoom or Google Meet, but it is very difficult and has a high risk. Judy Halsten Laychak, a professor at the University of Illinois, narrates a strange experience. Administering the oral exam via Zoom video call, he noticed that a stude was behaving strangely while answering. “The light from the screen was on his face and you could see it reflected in his glasses,” he says. The stude was trying to type the teacher’s questions for the AI to answer, but because the AI could not combine the concepts of the class, it gave unrelated answers and the stude was finally rejected.
You might think that studes hate this method, but the reality is something else. Many studes, like 20-year-old Lily Lehmann, were terrified at first, but felt satisfied after the exam. “I prefer the oral exam to the written exam,” he says. There is only you and your knowledge; “There is no way to use AI.”
Oral exams have even worked in technical fields such as data science. Mark Chin, a professor at Vanderbilt University, uses an oral exam for his R programming language course. He shows the stude some code and asks, “What does this code do?” This method proves that the stude did not just copy and paste the code, but understood the logic behind it. Reports show that even in 600-person classes in Canada and engineering classes at the University of California, this method has been successfully implemeed.
However, the use of artificial ielligence in universities is still a big problem that cannot be solved with oral exams and another solution should be considered.
