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Replacing SAT with LEGOs
A reader writes "The Denver Post has a story about Colorado College, in an effort to attract minority and disadvantaged students, is dumping college-admission exams in favor of a Lego-building test, but only for a handful of applicants. 'The Lego test helps identify initiative, leadership and an ability to work in groups - qualities that hours-long ACT and SAT tests never quite get at.' " The college is working on this as a pilot program, along with eight other schools. Bet I could have gotten a better scholarship if they would have let me build a space station.
Perhaps we should drop attendance requirements as well, since the children do not 'really want' to go to school everyday. You know, to attract more minorities. Perhaps not.
In an era when job competition is becoming more intense everyday, our schools should strive to emulate countries which are far ahead of us, and send our children into the work place with a firm foundation of knowledge. Or we can just baby them and continue the recession into stupidity.
Perhaps.
First, it's excellent that universities are finally, after over 100 years of this, beginning to understand standardized testing is a poor indicator of value/intelligence/leadership. It's been known for a long time that there are many varieties of intelligence - the IQ test only tests one - basically math and spatial visualization. Wuzzah. So if you know 13 different programming languages - from LISP to C++ and can pick up new ones within a few days.. well, sorry - that won't show up on the test.
It's still a nice idea - give college kids some legos and see what they build. However, if they're still bent on using tests (an ultimately doomed approach) instead of interviewing potential students, may I suggest giving potential candidates an objective (which varies from person to person) and see how they solve it? In my opinion, it's more important /how/ you solve it than /whether/ you solve it. After you give the same problem to a few hundred people you'll know what solutions are typical and be able to spot the innovative and/or unconvential people in a group. What you do with this information is up to you, as an administrator, but you all know who my money's on.
Based on your performance in our Lego Application Process Demonstrating Aptitudes Needed for College Entrance (LAPDANCE), [name of school] is pleased to inform you of your admission to the College of Engineering.
Due to your particularly anal-retentive use of color you were passed over by the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English. However, this same aspect to your creation was considered a strength by admissions specialists for the School of Computer Science....
Yadda - yadda - yadda ...
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
Okay, let's assume for the sake of argument that there are "multiple kinds of intelligence" (certainly not implausible), and that standardized tests are really testing only one or two of them.
Item 1: College, in general, is *AIMED* at those one or two kinds; these tests measure *ability to do well in college*, for the most part. Giving people a test of something else just sets them up to fail later.
Item 2: Why is it that these people are assuming that the minorities "can't" do well on standardized tests? Isn't that sort of like saying they think the minorities are "stupid"? Frankly, I don't know whether or not racial groups have differences in brain structure, or whatever - but if they do, we'd damn well better start facing it head on, or we're going to wreck a lot of people's lives trying to push them into something they aren't. (Admittedly, it's no better to assert that an entire group will behave in the same way.)
Item 3: Why don't they give *EVERYONE* the lego test, and see how it pans out? If you give it only to the students you think won't do well on the other test, you aren't learning much. Let's be fair; make *EVERYONE* take the lego test, have their results graded by people who don't know which color people did which projects, and find out what the lego test tells you.
Item 4: "Kinds of intelligence" is probably meaningless anyway. "intelligence" is supposed to refer to the generalized set of "kinds of intelligence". Sure, the tests don't measure them all, but the lego test doesn't *MEASURE* anything, it just gives you a platform to balance your prejudice on.
Honestly, I think it comes down to this: There uexist people who are not "disadvantaged" in any way, and who feel guilty about this, and who will seek out "disadvantaged" people, and try to "help" them, in a way that makes it absolutely clear that the people doing the helping are in charge, and the "disadvantaged" people oughta be grateful for the help. These people are just as racist as the overt racists, they've just found a better way to sublimate it. Better for them, anyway. Not sure it's any better to be talked down to than openly hated.
This is a joke. With any luck, they will realize it, and start trying to do something useful - for instance, if the "different kinds of intelligence" thing pans out, start building a real curriculum for them, not just excuses to shove them into a curriculum that doesn't match them.
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Tests are imperfect at best and misplaced at worst, but reducing admissions to the level of "job" interviews is far, far worse than even the most poorly designed and executed test.
A test has at least the possibility, and if adminstered correctly, probability of giving objective results. The criteria may be misplaced or imperfect, but the results will generally stand on their own, all imperfections aside.
An interview can never even aspire to be resonably objective. Subjective prejudices in terms of personality, appearance, gender, and culture are intrinsic to any interviewing process. The result will not be some utiopian "fair deal" for those who score poorly on tests but would have made good students anyway, but a system so completely weighted by the personal opinions of admissions interviewers that fairness of any kind will not be even remotely possible. Ultimately it will no longer even be expected, or strived for.
Standardized testing, for all of its flaws, at least eliminates the worst of the cultural and personal bias of the admissions process, by stating more or less "you are required to know a modicum of the following, if you don't, learn it and come back for another try." Far more fair, even for the disadvantaged (however one defines the term) than an interviewer commenting "You really aren't State U material, sorry kid" become some arrongant jerk doesn't like your accent, your nose ring, your hair style, or your skin color. Or worse, they've simply had a bad day and just feel peaved enough that playing God with your future makes them feel better. (If you don't believe both of these happen quite often in the private sector, I suggest working for a time in the personnel department of any large firm.)
No system is perfect, but your proposal amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater, then chucking most of the nursery out the window as well.
As to the notion of using legos for colleges admissions, I can only cringe at the value a college education received in the United States will have fifteen or twenty years from now. All of the arrogant posturing by Europeans with respect to the American system of Higher Education will become appallingly accurate if this silliness continues.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Ludicrous.
Look. College is many different things; I'm not going to argue that. But its primary purpose is a place of study. If a student can't perform well on a test (which requires that one exercise a reasonable amount of study skills), that student simply isn't going to do very well in most collegiate enviornments.
The bit about testing leadership and other types of intelligence is, I suppose, a valid concern. But do it in addition to the tests, not instead of them.
Personally, I always saw racial preferences as one of the more wacko ideas. A person's race doesn't determine how well they'll do in a college environment at all. Religion might, depending on the tenets of the given religion, but that's exceedingly rare and a student whose religion might affect college life is very likely to choose a place where the two won't interfere with one another anyway. Sexual orientation doesn't affect study skills, or gender, or anything else along those lines. So why even put them on a college application at all? Statistics?
Statistics and such are of interest to statisticians, but in the end they're not really indicative of very much. Personally, as I see it, if you want to make college admissions fair across races, don't make all kinds of special treatment. Make the process race-blind (and gender-blind except in the case of single-sex colleges, and such). Completely eliminate the race question on the application form; if you feel you need the statistics then send the students a survey after the admissions decisions have already been made. I don't think anyone here will argue against the assertion that race and such has no place in the decision whether or not to admit a student. So why even ask the questions until the decisions have been made?
But I'm ranting again, so back to the subject...
A college is a place of study. I fail to see how objective merit is an invalid concern. The SAT's and ACT's are meant to be a measure of the skills a student needs to succeed in a college environment, namely study and reasoning skills. I think the ACT tends to do a better job of measuring this than the SAT's (since the ACT's test a broader range of skills), but both do well in their given fields. The rest, such as leadership, are of course very nice skills to have. But they have little to no effect on how well the student does in classes, and can even hinder the student in some cases, as they get involved in more activities than they can handle and their grades suffer as a result (I've seen this happen to far too many students).
So attacking merit isn't the way to go. Replacing onjective tests with subjective ones only adds the potential for more racism and bias than the terminally insecure claim exists now. Combining the two is actually something of a good idea, so long as you're careful about how that's done.
Oh, one last thing. Someone talked about the idea of interviewing prospective students. Most colleges already do that. I went through a bunch of interviews, as did my sisters when they went off to college, as did everyone I know who went to or is currently at college. It's an important tool. But all tools are inherently flawed in some manner or another (even a simple hammer is flawed: it can miss the nail or worse, hit your finger); that's why only rarely can any one tool be used to get the job done well.
I believe that aptitude test should be devised using an "open source" methodology. Lest you think I'm just trying to drop the phrase "open source" for karma points, I'll explain:
Aptitude/intelligence tests are typically devised behind closed doors. A small committee gets together and creates questions. The questions are then tested on students. Questions with a high miss rate are considered "hard". Questions with a low miss rate are considered "easy".
This methodology has very real flaws. First of all, the elite group which gets to create the questions is too small. They are very rarely questioned. The fact is that SAT questions have been proven to contain questions which could be misunderstood. Sometimes, the "correct" answers are just wrong. Lawsuits have been filed over this and ETS (the company who creates the SAT) has been forced to change scores. This is kept quiet, of course. We can't have people questioning the almighty SAT.
Since the elite group is too small and closed to rule out the possibility of group error, we should open up the question-writing to everyone. Let educators from around the country create the questions. We have the technology to do this right now.
In fact, it should go beyond just the educators. The process should be open to students, as well. How about a pilot program where Slashdot members devise an aptitude test? I have no doubt that the combined intelligence of this site could produce a far more informative and perceptive test than anything in use today.
-- In the future, everyone will code Perl for 15 minutes. --
The person who can build with the LEGOs would not be on par with the person with the knowledge, they would be playing a different game all together.
Maybe so but the goal is still the same. To get into college.
There is a different kind of intelligence at work when a person uses LEGOs as opposed to memorizing material. The whole point of the LEGOs is to level the playing field for people who didn't have the resources to learn the material
that someone else had to luxury of having access to or the time to learn it.
Funny I can take the material that I supposedly "memorized" and apply it in various situations (such as posting to slashdot) without just reciting the things chapter and verse.
Could someone please tell me in the late 20th century early 21st century in America how exactly can one *not* get a HS education? Maybe if they have a severe series of operations or maybe they are physically beaten up on the way to school then it might prevent this. However even the poorest student in the USA has some local school where he/she can get access to education. Now if the school sucks or dosn't teach right isn't the issue. It's wheather you can *learn* from teh HS and get a diploma. Technically if you get D-s all the way through HS there are still colleges that will take you. As far as time well why do you even do anything? People in the late 20th century seem to think that they have less and less time then people in earlier periods of history. As I recall in the early 20th century we had people who really didn't have a whole lot of time because they were working to death. Quite frankly I think such a hellish time was absolutely scary. I don't think HS students are so pressed for time (you really don't need a job at all in HS) that they can't even read a book or do some homework.
Let's face it, life isn't all peachy everywhere for everyone. People are put at a disadvatage sometimes and should not be denied opportunities for it. This is the basis of using LEGOs. It's an opportunity for certain people who are
disadvantaged to prove that they can hack it in school. You can't honestly expect ghetto kids to stop dodging bullets to learn trig or expect some kid in the swamps to study poetry or whatnot while he waits for his pops to beat his
ass because he is drunk again. The LEGO thing makes things more fair because they are blocks that can go together in a way to make something.
You know people must think that everywhere at every time that people absolutely *HAVE* to live where they are. If I live in complete and desperate poverty or are dodging bullets or what not I can always get up off my ass and actually leave. Hell if I am homeless or a bum I can always leave. People just don't realize that there are alternatives. Maybe if say a group of well armed thugs decided to take out the little ol' gang members perhaps we could actually get some peace. I mean they want to threaten others why don't we threaten them?
Basically you are saying that because johnny is too busy not getting killed or maimed in some way that he can't learn? Exactly how many of these cases are actually happening? I would like some reliable figures that indicate that the use of legos and alternative testing measures are actually an effective measure to giving these people an equal chance. If I can't do basic algebra how can I do say entry level calculus or say even good programming. The concepts of varibales and equations are basic to programming and without the ability to actually know these things I think that you can't do it well.
My point is if you are bright, but for some reason unable to learn the things that you and I have had the opportunity to learn, the LEGO test is basic enough to let a person like this demonstrate that he is smart enough to go to
college.
So colleges now become the centers of remedial education. These people will undoubtally end up taking level 0900 classes or equivelent and not starting out in freshmen level classes like the rest of the people.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Actually, some of those sound almost as interesting, if not more, than the Lego test. Public speaking, in particular, strikes me as a good test, given that, in many, many surveys, people have consistently rated "speaking before a group" as their number one fear, above even death. Conflict resolution is going to be increasingly important in society as a whole, and on college campuses in particular. And other messages in this thread have suggested that personal interviews be used in place of "the Lego test"; it would seem that they're actually being used alongside it.
Some other things to note about the article:
- CC "has long been an innovator in higher education." Somebody's got to try these ideas first...
- CC is not the only college using these new tests; eight other universities are doing this, too (four other private liberal-arts schools and four state universities).
- Very few students are going to be admitted as a result of these tests, at least at first (it's a pilot program). CC and the other liberal-arts schools will be admitting four students each under this program; the four state schools will admit 20 students each.
- Researchers will be keeping track of these students; to see how well they do in relation to students admitted under "normal" policies.
- The intent of all this is to maintain racial diversity in college admissions without resorting to "affirmative action" programs (which are in the middle of a whole slew of political firestorms right now). This is important for CC, since (according to the article) "Colorado public colleges and universities are required to show continuous improvement in minority recruitment, retention and graduation."
Naturally, the "Lego test" gets the headline because it sounds outrageous. Nonetheless, the overall program sounds both interesting and worthy of investigation, and I hope that it works out. And, even if it doesn't, they'll have learned something as a result.Eric (Denver, CO)
--
"Free your code...and the rest will follow."
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Armed with a number of pre-programmed lego mindstorm control modules, he not only duplicated the robot in the other room but activated it. Once activated the robot began attacking all of the other entries, destroying a large number of them before being turned off. Ken stated that he got the idea from watching Battlebots on pay-per-view as well as a recent SRL performance.
Although banned from Colorado College, Ken is not disturbed by the results of his actions. Both CalTech and M.I.T. are offering him full scholarships.
-----
No Zen is good zen
I'm all for alternative testing to get into college, but it's only a step in the process. Jusrt getting disadvantaged students into college does not guarantee their success. Traditional curricula also need to be adjusted.
Getting "disadvanted" folks into college is a laudable goal, as long as you aren't throwing more qualified applicants out to do so. If you are, then you are at best merely substitutied one unfairness for another. More likely you have chucked a reasonably fair and objective system for a very unfair one, which happens to favor whatever disadvantaged group you are wishing to promote at the expense of everyone else.
Indeed, if you substitute arbitrary standards (or worse still, subjective interviews) for reasonably objective standards, you eliminate any degree of fairness whatsoever from the system and replace it with an economy of favors and influence.
If there is a group of "disadvantaged" people who can't cut it in academia as it now stands (due to "test paralysis" or whatever), feel free to establish an alternative university with different standards and metrics designed for that group. But do not deny those of us who are capable of excelling at academics a good education to do so by dumming down our existing universities, or so slanting entrance standards to such a point that they become meaningless.
What is next? Getting rid of exams altogether (after all, if you can't pass an entrance exam what makes you think you can pass the first semester's mid-terms or finals)? Social promoting? ("It just isn't fair that someone with a BS makes a better living than a high school graduate, so everyone gets a BS!") Some other nebulous notion of achievement based on some administrator's completley subjective notion on how well a student did (and how do you document this "performance" to insure even a modicum of fairness?), as opposed to imperfect tests which at least strive to be fairly objective and which, for whatever other weaknesses they possess, can at least be referred to, reviewed, even regraded if necessary)? That might actually fly in areas with a great deal of subjectivity anyway (e.g. some of the Arts and Humanities), but in areas of hard science such an approach would be absurd in the extreme.
As for objectivity being a myth, or unattainable, as another poster suggested, that is simply hogwash. Perfect objectivity may be unattainable, just as a perfectly (i.e. 100%) effecient engine isn't possible to build, but high degrees of objectivity and fairness are achievable (just as highly effecient motors which run quite well, if not "perfectly", are). The effort to achieve objectivity is certainly not something to be discarded in favor of selection methods which are fundamentally subjective and completely unfair altogether (as the proposed "interview" approach would be), or simply so off-target as to be meaningless (as the "Lego" approach is).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy