The assignment involves no laptop, no chatbot and no technology of any kind. In fact, there\u2019s no pen or paper, either.\n<\/p>\n
Instead, students in Chris Schaffer\u2019s biomedical engineering class at Cornell University are required to speak directly to an instructor in what he calls an \u201coral defense.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a testing method as old as Socrates and making a comeback in the\u00a0AI age<\/a>. A growing number of college professors say they are turning to oral exams, and combining a variety of old-fashioned and cutting-edge techniques, to help address a crisis in higher education.\n<\/p>\n \u201cYou won\u2019t be able to AI your way through an oral exam,\u201d says Schaffer, who introduced the oral defense last semester.\n <\/p>\n Educators are no longer naively wondering if students will use\u00a0generative AI<\/a>\u00a0to do their\u00a0homework for them<\/a>. A big question now is how to determine what students are actually learning.\n<\/p>\n College instructors across the U.S. are noticing troubling new trends as generative artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated. Take-home essays and other written assignments are coming back perfect. But when students are asked to explain their work, they can\u2019t. The long-term impact of AI use on critical thinking remains to be seen, but educators worry students increasingly see the hard work of thinking as optional.\n<\/p>\n Some colleges shift toward in-person tests<\/p>\n At the University of Pennsylvania, Emily Hammer, an associate professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, now pairs oral exams with written papers in her seminar classes.\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt comes across as if we\u2019re trying to prevent cheating,\u201d Hammer says. \u201cThat\u2019s not why we\u2019re doing this. We\u2019re doing this because students are actually losing skills, losing cognitive capacity and creativity.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Hammer forbids AI use on all writing assignments but tells her class she knows she can\u2019t enforce that. However, if they haven\u2019t written their papers themselves, defending the material face-to-face will likely be \u201ca very stressful situation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Hammer\u2019s class is part of \u201ca massive shift toward in-person assessments,\u201d both written and oral, at Penn, says Bruce Lenthall, executive director of the school\u2019s Center for Teaching and Learning. The Ivy League school is one of a small but growing number of universities that have started running faculty workshops on oral exams.\n<\/p>\n