Remember it all...

In a previous post I have talked about things I do not understand about the American culture. One of the things I have a hard time understanding and getting use to is the way you execute the exams here in the U.S. The majority of the exams emphasises on just remembering the theories and not putting them to use in the real context. The procedures used is mostly multiple choice and short answer test. My theory is though that one can be completely useless in applying the learnt material in the right context and still score an A in these classes, just because you have a good memory. If you can dictate exactly what a book says you get high grades, whereas in Denmark you have to put it into use on a semi-real or real problem in the world.



In some fields as law and medicine having a good memory is essential and here this kind of exams apply perfectly. However in fields like marketing and communication I do not think it applies. Does it make me a better cross cultural communicator if I can remember the four statements: Be patient, sensible, respectful, and observe and listen or a better marketer if I can recite poter's generic strategies. It might make me slightly better that I am aware of these concepts, but if I can't use it in the right situation the theories are useless.

Not to praise professor Hall to much, but I like the way she relates the taught material to the real world and it is clear how you can use the skills you receive through this class. However this is the only class I have that uses this and also the only class that use group work.

In Denmark many of our exams are based on group work and how you use the theories in the right context. In the last exam I had in Denmark before I got here, I had to analyse a real company and find out what some of their communication problems were and try to solve them with the material that was taught in class. The end product was a 40 paged long report, done by two students, on how to engage these problems from different angles. The universities in Denmark work closely with the business world to emulate the real world as good as possible and here in the U.S the outside world is in many classes none existing.

I think we a learn things in different ways, but the way to show you know the material could be improved here in the U.S and I think if America would want to keep up with Europe and Asia in knowledge based societies, they have to restructure much of the education system that is used, but I could be wrong.