University faculty members are discovering that students are using the internet to cheat on exams. Online sites sell test questions, answer keys, term papers and other assessments to students. There is a cure for this.

It’s not news that students cheat to pass classes, though this has recently been in the news with the discovery that hundreds of Air Force cadets used the internet to cheat on exams. And we have read the articles about Chegg selling access to information that apparently includes test answers.

While the students who turn to cheating would seem to be too lazy, busy or unable to learn the assigned material, one can often also say that faculty members may be too lazy, busy or unable to design custom assessments that are relevant, unique and promote creative/critical thinking. The “objective” test is founded in the realities of life prior to the 21st century.

A strong parallel can be drawn to the requirement to hand-calculate rather than using a calculator. In the 20th century, calculators were banned from many exams on the premise that graduates would encounter situations when they would not have access to a calculator. However, today calculators are ubiquitous — on your wrist, in your phone and multiple places on your laptop. Now it is very hard to imagine many circumstances in which one would not have instant access to a calculator, stand-alone or through the internet, to perform advanced operations.

That brings us to the objective test. In many cases, these tests are standardized exams offered with specific textbooks. These are off-the-shelf assessments that lack localized perspective, devoid of selected relevant contextual factors and designed without attention to making them learning experiences. In far too many cases, they are tests of rote memorization. Yet our smartwatches, phones and laptops serve as our extended “virtual memory.” They accurately store and instantly retrieve facts, concepts and even provide keyword relevance. There is no need to test material readily available on the internet when you are testing a person.

Instead of mere retrieval of facts, assessments, in their best form, are stimulating creative thinking, prompting application of knowledge, relevant to current locations and problems, and providing learning experiences in and of themselves.

Grant Wiggins is often quoted for his study in this area. Indiana University quotes Wiggins:

Authentic assignments often focus on messy, complex real-world situations and their accompanying constraints; they can involve a real-world audience of stakeholders or “clients” as well. According to Grant Wiggins (1998), an assignment is authentic if it

• is realistic.
• requires judgment and innovation.
• asks the student to “do” the subject.
• replicates or simulates the contexts in which adults are “tested” in the workplace or in civic or personal life.
• assesses the student’s ability to efficiently and effectively use a repertoire of knowledge and skills to negotiate a complex task.
• allows appropriate opportunities to rehearse, practice, consult resources, and get feedback on and refine performances and products.

Wiggins has published much since his original work on authentic assessments. Clearly, authentic assessments are never a multiple choice of a, b, c, d or true/false exams.

Some faculty members seem to think that in designing a course, after creating the learning activities and assembling the resources for a class, they are done. Assessments come as an afterthought. They are a necessary tool to weed out those who have not read the material. Certainly, cheating sites defeat that purpose. Furthermore, no thought is given to assessing the students’ ability to assimilate and apply the essence of the subject.

Well-formed assessments should be the pinnacle of the course. They are where the student tries out applying what has been learned to a sampling of important, relevant problems. These can be messy. They can require multiple tries. Many are best done in front of an audience. They may be applicable to only very local problems or ones halfway around the globe. They are authentic applications of what has been learned. Wiley Education Services offers some examples and strategies to develop and create rubrics for authentic assessments.

The context of applying our learning is so important that we must pay constant attention to changing circumstances. In most cases societal and technological changes call for updating of authentic assessments every semester. Keeping them timely and relevant vaccinates against cheating. There is no shortcut to demonstrating that you can apply what you have learned to a unique, newly shared situation. It is authentic. It is only fair to the students to give them this opportunity before they leave the class and attempt to apply their skills and knowledge in society.

Are you and your colleagues protected against cheating in your classes? Are you using authentic assessments?

This article was originally published on Inside Higher Ed’s Transforming Teaching + Learning blog.

With enrollments falling, college budgets under strain and employers dissatisfied with the relevance of graduates’ learning, now is a time for more than replication or revision — it is time for reinvention.

We are at the confluence of massive economic, technologic and social changes that demand higher education do more than small fixes. We will not thrive if we merely tweak the system to replicate practices of the lecture hall in an online delivery system. This is not an empty warning — universities across the country are closing programs, laying off staff and faculty, and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. I have personally been tracking these economic disadvantages for some time now.

Here are the key factors we must consider:

• Enrollments dropped more than half a million students last fall, capping a decline every year for the past decade.
• Fewer employers are requiring college degrees; instead they are seeking documentation of specific skills and abilities such as these identified by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
• Economists predict a grim outlook for the bottom line in higher education. Moody’s continues to put a negative outlook on the field: “Overall, higher education revenue will decline by 5 percent to 10 percent over the next year as universities continue to face pandemic-related shocks, Osborn says. At the same time, high fixed costs and varied assumptions about how long the crisis might last hamper universities’ ability to adjust expenses quickly. Operating performance will decline as a result, with about 75 percent of public universities and 60 percent of private institutions failing to generate cash flow margins above 10 percent.”
• A demographic drop of 15 percent, as an echo of the 2008 recession, is expected to begin to hit traditional-age college attendees by the middle of this decade. This is expected to hit especially hard in the Midwest and Northeast.
• The Fourth Industrial Revolution will herald the advent of artificial intelligence replacing white-collar jobs that are the target of many degree programs, including middle management, entry-level engineering, therapists, physicists and accountants with positions in such areas as cybersecurity, virtual reality, virtual assistants, blockchain and many associated technology-oriented areas.
• The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that Americans are changing jobs and employers at a rapid rate: “The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.1 years in January 2020.”

Our centuries-old model of admitting 18-year-old high school graduates for a four-, five- or six-year baccalaureate, then sending them out for lifelong careers in business and industry is no longer relevant. The average total cost of those years averages between $100,000 and $400,000 including tuition, fees, room, board and associated expenses. Meanwhile, students exchange this for years of potential loss in experience, entry wages and advancement opportunities.

When I started teaching as a tenure-track assistant professor in 1977, far more than half the teaching faculty were tenured or on the tenure track. Now, less than one-quarter of faculty are full-time tenured or tenure-track employees. Increasingly, part-time faculty with no benefits and very low salaries are teaching those students who paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for their degree.

Our worn-out model doesn’t work anymore.

The shakeout of academic jobs, programs and even entire institutions is accelerating. We must recognize the forces at play and respond. The changes require more than merely adjusting our programs and approaches. They demand a completely new examination of the changing student needs, marketplace demand and revenue-generation models.

We are confronted less often with the traditional 18-year-old learner and increasingly with the 60-year learner — students who return repeatedly through their career seeking upskilling and wholly new competencies. These students need just-in-time learning that addresses the changing needs of employers and entrepreneurs in an AI-rich environment. To best serve these learners, we must anticipate emerging needs and be agile and responsive in developing curricula to meet the job market. That, in turn, requires a close connection to business and industry. It calls for certificates and certifications that are relevant and grow with the learner and the industry.

Is it possible that our venerable tuition and fee model that is open to haggling and situational adjustments has served its usefulness? Is it possible that $1.6 trillion in student debt is enough? Would it make sense to consider — even on a trial basis — a subscription model for students, and perhaps employers on their behalf, to pay a small continuing fee for forward-thinking, cutting-edge, career-accelerating learning opportunities? Of course, these could be made available just in time, online, accessible anywhere and at any hour.

Who is leading the deep examination of these changes and opportunities on your campus? Is the institution more engaged in cutting expenses and replicating the few programs that are succeeding today while revising the failing programs than in enlightened visioning of the road ahead?

This article was originally published on Inside Higher Ed’s Transforming Teaching + Learning blog.