Thursday, May 15, 2008
For the record (Class)
I wouldn't give tests if I thought I could get my students to study without them. My students are so, um, boxed in by traditional forms of education that the thought of no test would FREAK them out! They wouldn't feel like they got their money's worth. Thoughts..... Do you think you can learn without tests? How would you feel if you took a college course and didn't have a final exam?
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4 comments:
I like learning as much as the next person, but I'd still want to have some external motivator, be it tests and exams, or a paper, project, or program. Otherwise, I'd learn it casually rather than deeply. Of course, if it's a class I'm taking for a specific purpose or paying for myself, that would make a difference.
I think examinations are necessary to ensure standardization of what was learned and in what detail it was learned. I believe that for 90% of students require exams to motivate learning. I am a student in my last year of a graduate level professional program, this last semester we have been having classes on professionalism and professional issues ( workplace wellness, stress management, professional boundaries, sensitive practice, etc). These classes have no exam and the attendance had been less than half; we have mandatory attendance in the program and when the administrators discovered the skipping, they threatened those with X amount of missed classes with extra assignments. We now have at most 2 people missing. This is just an example of how students react when there is no exam, and everyone in this program has a undergraduate degree.
I think I can learn without tests, but having someone to be accountable to (a teacher, classmates) is helpful.
Exams were always my preferred way of being assessed. Not because I thought they were the best way of assessing students in general but because I, personally, was good at them. I enjoyed the intensity of focussed study. Spending a few days concentrated on that one subject. Sitting an exam I'd get a feeling of clarity and focus that I rarely got elsewhere. My sister has blogged about flow and I think that might be the thing I'm talking about.
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