Dr. Sally Sharif@Sally_Sharif1
I just gave a closed-book, pen-and-paper midterm exam in my 300-level course at UBC with 100 students. All exams were graded by an experienced graduate-level TA according to a rubric.
*** The average was 64/100.***
My class averages at UBC are usually 80-85.
Context:
• This was the first midterm, covering ONLY 4 weeks of material.
• Students had a list of possible questions in advance: no surprise questions.
• Questions included (a) 3 concept definitions, (b) 3 paragraph-long questions, and (c) a 1.5-page essay.
• I have taught this class multiple times. Nothing in my teaching style changed this semester.
• We read entire paragraphs of text in class, so students don't have to do something on their own that wasn't covered during the lecture.
• Students take a 10-question multiple-choice quiz at the end of every class (30% of the final grade).
• Attendance is 95-99% every class. Attention during lectures and participation in pair-work activities are very high → anticipating the end-of-class quiz.
*** But unfortunately, I suspect many students are not reading the material on the syllabus. They are asking LLMs to summarize it instead.***
After the midterm, students reported:
• They thought they knew concept definitions but couldn't produce them on paper.
• They thought they understood the arguments but struggled to connect them or identify points of agreement and disagreement.
My view:
It might be “cool” or “innovative” to teach students to summarize readings with ChatGPT or write essays with Claude. But we may be doing them a disservice: reducing their ability to retain material, think creatively, and reason from what they know. If you only read what AI has summarized for you, you don’t truly "know" the material.
Moving forward:
We have a second midterm coming up. I don't know how to convey to students that the best way to do better on the exam is to rely on and improve their own reading skills.
