Dive Summary:
- Farhad Manjoo of Slate argues that the Harvard students involved in the recent cheating scandal are being wrongly punished for working together to answer questions on a take-home test.
- Collaboration among peers, Manjoo points out, is important for developing real world problem solving skills.
- While Manjoo concedes the point that collaboration makes it harder to assess students individually, he emphasizes that take-home tests should always encourage teamwork.
From the article:
What’s the point of prohibiting students from working together? If the students in “Introduction to Congress” act as these test rules demand when they move into the workforce, they’ll be fired. Outside of academia, teamwork is the rule. Collaboration is widely hailed as a primary factor in creativity and problem solving. It’s the reason Pixar’s offices are designed to foster, in Steve Jobs’ words, “forced collisions of people” from different departments. ...
