This semester, I conducted one-on-one oral exams through video chat for my software project management / agile methods course. It was one of the most informative and depressing things I've ever done. Here's what I learned 1/9

Oral exams are highly effective for readings / theory heavy courses. Not recommended for programming courses or at shitty universities that blame faculty for high failure rates. 2/9

I used 3 q’s: (1) something simple like "what was the most interesting thing you learned"; (2) T"ell me what you remember from reading X"; (3) "Tell me what you know about topic Y". Each student gets random X and Y. Students get q’s & lists of x’s and y’s in advance. 3/9

The setup: students book 20-minute time slots (15 min exam + 5 min buffer). Don’t book more than 9 in a row. Cameras are on. Students show ID. Tell students to have a backup device (e.g. a phone). Minor tech problems common; major problems rare. 4/9

Exam is open-book / open-notes but if students have to go searching through notes or papers they can’t keep up with the exam. It’s very easy to distinguish passes from fails. It’s harder to distinguish a B- from a C+. 5/9

Follow-up questions are crucial. Student mentions enjoying lesson about test-driven development; instructor asks ‘what’s TDD?’ Student blanks on reading? Instructor asks about specific concepts in reading. Oral exams are good for testing understanding not memorization. 6/9

You grade as you go, so conducting and grading combined takes 20 minutes per student. I wouldn’t try it with more than 100 students, and you really have to know your own material. 7/9

My experience confirms the thesis of the awesome book Academically Adrift ( https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo10327226.html): many—perhaps most—students drift through degrees without really learning or understand very much at all. 8/9

Medical schools use oral exams for good reasons. Cheating is extremely difficult. Students who don't study can't weasel their way through. Every serious academic program should have some oral exams. I'd hate to go back to multiple-choice after this. 9/9