Falsework

Evening all,

I'm not going to bother apologising for the lack of posts, I've been tired and too busy. And the dogs need a walk.

However, sometimes you see something that nicely crystallises some of the things you've been pondering, and the title of this post is one of those so I was compelled by the power of Greyskull to write.

So, just to situate you all before I go a-ramblin' {and particularly our non-Australian friends}, in the aftermath of the release of ChatGPT there were a range of approaches which were put forward to deal with the problems caused by AI in assessment. From multi-lane freeways to scales to "just trust students!!", which to my mind is a classic of the Helen Lovejoy genre, there was a singular failure in each of these approaches. And that failure can be boiled down to this question-"what if students don't do what you want them to do?" Tom Corbin and Phill Dawson picked it out nicely in this recent paper, terming these approaches "discursive." And that's the exact same question that should have been uppermost in people's minds for the past decade, but higher ed mostly treated it as a naughty student problem, rather than a gaping rent in the side of assessment architecture, with our social license bleeding out the side. And so, the various scales and lanes and lights have mostly boiled down to variations on the "2 lane" model, whereby tasks undertaken by students are classified as either "secured, in person" or "open/unsecured." To my mind this model actually attempts to answer the question, or perhaps means the question doesn't have to be asked at all.

Don't worry, I have an actual point coming.

So, coming back to "falsework" it started with a Linkedin {ugh} post from your friend and mine, Phill Dawson. Buried down there you'll find {very pleasant} interactions between yours truly and a gent named David Winter {and no, this is not a dunk}. In that thread David argues that the 2-lane system "is a set of choices made by someone else and imposed on the learner. The trouble with framing certain (bad) choices as cheating is that we never provide them with an opportunity to learn from those bad choices." I read this and was quite confused. To my mind 2-lanes denudes the open assessments of the value of cheating, and provides students with far more agency than they currently have! Do we not think that requiring students to undertake "scaffolded" assessments is absolutely imposing a set of choices on them. Some people simply imagine that because they are the ones making the choices it's a good thing, and not an imposition! Moreover, students will absolutely have an opportunity to learn from bad choices, just not through misconduct proceedings. Again, to my mind, open assessment ("for and as learning") provides students with a lot of autonomy to learn how they will, with AI or without as the task requires. Are we teaching babies, or thinking adults who are already engaged in the world of work? Pick a lane.

I feel like a lot of the arguments against structured responses to assessment and Gen AI are variously focused on academic agency and fears of loss, while also idealising students. What I don't hear in those arguments is balance. There seems to be resistance to the idea that students should ever have to actually demonstrate their learning in ways that aren't absolutely ideal in all circumstances. I routinely hear as an argument against assured learning that "students get anxious." Anxiety is another word for worry, and if I hadn't learned much, I'd worry about getting examined too! And let's be clear- students who didn't want to bother learning haven't really had to jump hurdles in the recent past. It is entirely possible to gain (not earn) a degree in a modern university while learning absolutely nothing. That's a fact that some people are struggling to cope with. And throwing endless whataboutery at those trying to do something to remedy the situation is not just unhelpful, it's damaging.

We're coming to the point I set out to make, promise. In that Linkedin conversation, David argued for scaffolding students in open assessments. Heartily agree! But I then asked "Is there a crossover point where "scaffolding" leaves a weak underlying intellectual structure that collapses once the scaffolding is removed?" in response he posted an interesting Wikipedia page on building construction techniques called "Falsework." Again, I heartily agree with proper support to avoid collapse, but the issue that I might take with this analogy is that students aren't bridges. They're not inanimate carbon structures. They have agency, and choices, and motivations. And focusing on how students feel about assessment means we lack balance- we're not doing our jobs! I can consider that our job is to educate students, but also to assure that education! Pretending like assurance of learning is part of some Panoptic control scheme that students should rebel against is the kind of nonsense that mostly comes out of a university's department of education. (For clarity, I'm not saying David said this, I'm just saying it). So, considering what I know about students and "avoidance of learning" (it's not cheating, that's a silly moral label which we should move beyond), I reckon that once secured assessment becomes more prevalent, we are likely to see higher fail rates at unis that deploy more secure assessment. However, I fear that this will be laid at the feet of the construction foreperson (teachers), and not the builders themselves (students). For too long students have been seen as dandelions, floating on the breeze and taken as the wind blows, rather than adults who make decisions in what they consider their best interests. At the end of the day we'll also see whether bridges start collapsing once the false work is removed.

Alright Ramblers, let's get ramblin'.

Until next time,

KM