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.
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.*