Are Exams Useful?

Solo Exam By: Xavi

Last week our district had Damian Cooper in to talk about assessment. The plan is to have two more follow-up sessions in the fall. I did not attend the session, but have talked to a number of people about it. The one thing I heard over and over again was that there were lots of big ideas but hopefully in future sessions he will provide some more concrete details about implementing his ideas.

I think for those that are interested in what Mr. Cooper said, there's no reason why the conversations about assessment can't start now. I had one such conversation with a colleague the other day. He told me that as he started to put his exams together he wondered "Why?". His point was that if students had already been assessed on certain expectations, what was the point of assessing them again on the same topics. I thought this was a valid point. We discussed it for a short period between classes but I think it's a discussion that could have gone on.

What more can you learn about a student's learning in an hour and a half to two hour exam? One of the options we discussed is the possibility of having targeted exams so that students could show you that they have improved on a topic that they didn't master in the term. This could be as complicated as individualized exams (which would be a lot of work for the teacher) or as simple as giving everyone the same exam and giving each student a list of questions that they must complete on that exam. The goal would be for students to show the teacher that they have gained the understanding that they lacked earlier in the semester. If you decided to go this route you'd have to be a little careful with the weighting. In Ontario 70% of a student's grade is to come from their term work while the remaining 30% comes from a combination of exam and/or summative activity. You wouldn't want 30% of a student's mark to be determined by questions that they struggled with early on. But with a little tweaking I think this could be an effective approach.

Another option we discussed was to make the 'exam' a reflection for the student. It might be a written exam or perhaps in the form of an interview as described here by Alex Overvijk.  A reflection might involve questions such as: What was the most useful topic we covered? What was the most difficult? How do you see using any of the ideas from the course beyond the course? I'm sure there are a lot more, many that would be much better than these but the idea would be to get students thinking and reflecting about their learning.

One final option that we discussed (I'm sure there are many others) was moving away from an exam to a culminating activity that ties together multiple (perhaps all?) strands from a course. This could allow for some creativity and eliminate the time crunch of an exam. It could give the teacher a sense of how much students have grown over the course.

Up until a week ago I thought that exams were crucial but as I've thought and talked about it over the course of the week I think I would be comfortable without one. Here are some of the concerns that I've heard about eliminating exams and my questions about those concerns.

1. Students need to know how to write exams for post-secondary. This may be true but do we need to subject all students to exams. I know that many college courses don't have exams and it appears that some universities are giving far fewer exams. At my school fewer than 20% of students go off to university. Does it make sense to subject every student to learning how to write exams when so few of them actually will? Perhaps exams could be part of the courses for university bound students.
2. Exams provide a check to see if students still know the material or to make sure they really understand it. If a student was able to cram for a test without really knowing what was going on, isn't it possible they could do the same for an exam? How much of the material from an exam is retained by students a month after the fact? 

What are your thoughts about final exams? Are they necessary? Should we be eliminating them? Or should we be looking for a more effective model for exams?

Exam Time

Creative Commons Image: Zelda Was Kicking My Butt
By: couragextoxlive

I've written before about how I enjoy exam time. Somehow this year feels very different. Over the course of the past week I've had a number of situations that worry me a great deal.

1. Last week on Wednesday and Thursday my grade nines wrote their standardized test (EQAO). A few days before they wrote the test I went over everything that we covered in the course and worked through sample questions from each unit. Students spent a few days reviewing and then wrote the test. Once students write the test I go through and mark them so a portion of their final grade can come from the test and then the tests get mailed off to the big bureaucracy in Toronto. As I marked I noticed just how terrible the results were. The next day I asked my students how many of them had spent any time studying outside of class. It turns out 5/18 had.

Failure #1

2. The day after the test one of my grade nines asked what we were doing for the last few days of the semester. I told him that everyone should use the time to prepare for exams. He then proceeded to ask if  I could provide the class with a list of topics that they should study. Luckily, some students replied that we had already done that, before the sarcasm came gushing out of my mouth.

Failure #2

3. When I gave my grade elevens some review work to prepare for the exam, just about everyone in the class put up their hand to ask me how to do question 1. I refused to tell them how to do the question and referred them to their notes. When some students told me that they didn't have any notes I told them to check the textbook or to work with a friend. I then explained to the class that all of this work was review and that it would be impossible for me to walk each and every one of them through every question. The lack of independence was frightening.

Failure #3 

This year more than ever I believe that I have failed my students. I don't really care that my grade nines didn't do well on their standardized test. It doesn't really matter that some of my grade elevens will end up with a mark in the 50s rather than in the 60s (where they should be) since for most of them this is the last math class they have to take. Where I think I have failed my students this semester is in stressing the importance of good listening skills and good study habits (see Failures 1 and 2). Probably more important than learning the content of my course is for my students to become good learners. Some have, but I'm guessing that most have not (see Failures 1-3). The other big failure I had this semester was in developing independence, another crucial trait of successful learners. Clearly my students are not willing to be independent when, arguably, it matters most. I need to do some serious reflecting over the next couple of weeks to find out how to fix these issues for semester two. 

Exam Time

Exam time is one of my favourite times of year, not because I enjoy administering a 30% final exam that frightens the heck out of students, but because I think exams bring out the best in some students.

The two or three weeks leading up to exams can be a very telling time for students. Many come to the realization that they won't pass or get the mark they were hoping for. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those students fail to do anything about the situation. This is not what makes exams a pleasant time. For me, the joy comes from that small percentage of students that decide that the last few weeks is the time to really make a difference. They're coming in for extra help at lunch and after school, they're studying on their own, they're catching up on work they've missed, they're helping their friends who chose not to get extra help. These are the students that have realized that they control their destiny. They have realized that it is not I who determines who passes or fails. I simply report the results. They have realized that they have more control over their learning and their marks than anyone else. They are ready for change.

This year was particularly exciting for me. I had record numbers of students in my room at lunch. Teachers and students would walk by my class and think that there was a class going on. I even had students from my upper year classes helping those in lower grades. The best part about whole experience was that all of the students who were in for extra help realized the relationship that exists between time spent on learning and how well they understand the material. Many of these students truly learned how to learn, which to me is far more important than mastering  the content.