This morning Rob Weir has an “Instant Mentor” column up at InsideHigherEd that offers strategies for designing the final exam. In the main, his advice is sound, although we here at ProfHacker officially disapprove of this tidbit:
Don’t experiment with your final. Experimenting with teaching methods and evaluation methods is a good thing, but the final isn’t the place to dust off an intriguing new idea. You should hew closely to whatever methods you’ve been using to evaluate throughout the semester.
We wouldn’t be called ProfHacker if we thought you shouldn’t experiment! Even the examples he gives aren’t so bad: If the main grades in your class were on critical or interpretative essays, then you may well want to make sure that at least some objective knowledge makes it onto your final.
For the last couple of years, I’ve done nothing but experiment with the final: In my classes, students write the final exam collaboratively before they take it. This is an offshoot of my “Wikified Class Notes” assignment, which people are probably sick of hearing me evangelize about. But the point of that assignment, in part, is to ratify a common understanding of what happened in class, and what was important about it. At the end of the semester, I then give students a week to comb through their notes and their books to come up with passages for identification, short answer questions, and essay exams. The deal I always make is that if the students come up with an adequate number of smart questions, then I’ll draw the exam entirely (or close to it) from their questions, and will usually post it as a study guide a day or two in advance of the final.
What’s nice about doing it this was is that it focuses attention on our work together. It tends to validate the exam in students’ eyes. Designing a question is also far more pedagogically interesting than cramming, too!
A few points:
- The fact that I choose the questions is a bit of a quality-control cheat. Although most students try, I do have the occasional headscratcher.
- Also, I edit/punch-up the questions a bit to make them sharper. That way, I’m not totally dependent on the luck of the draw.
- You do get a free rider problem, but the beauty of the assignment is that free riders tend to do worse on the exam than students who at least try to do a question or two. Plus, there’s the threat: not enough good questions = I write the exam.
Do you have tips/tricks for whipping up a final exam? Let us know in comments!
Image by is Flickr user dcJohn / CC licensed
4 Comments
What I’ve done for every exam this semester (and what my TA did in my survey class in the previous semester) is to spend 15 minutes of the class before the exam asking students to think with me about the different types of essay questions that I could ask them. I generally have an idea of what the essay will be about before I do this, but I can make sure that they have seen it as an important subject. What’s more, I can get other ideas for connections they have seen (which can help me write the identification questions) or possibly even get a new and better essay idea. This was an especially useful thing to do on the last day of the semester. After we had the possible essay questions on the board, I was able to point out to them that they would likely be able to write me an essay on any of those topics. It helps them see–as do wiki notes assignments–that learning is taking place across a semester.
I’ll have to give the even more wiki-fied approach a run this coming semester.
I tried something similar this semester, asking students to use their class notes and textbooks to help them generate a list of questions they thought should or could be on the final exam. They took the job very seriously, and the kinds of questions generated told me a lot about what they understood (or didn’t) about the course material.
One student observed “Making up a test is hard!” which was a nice “a-ha” moment for the class. I like to tell and show my students some of the work that goes into my teaching–to demystify the process, if you will–and this was one particularly effective way to show them that I actually put a lot of thought into what I do with them every day.
I absolutely love this idea! I don’t give a final because the semester project more clearly shows student comprehension of content than a standardized test does. I do give quizzes, though, to make sure students are on track. I’m going to use this idea in the spring.
Of course, when I write a quiz, it’s all about what I think the students should know. Getting them to think about what the most important aspects of the topic is is much more intellectually engaging for them — and will give me a clue as to whether they’ve “got it” even before the quiz!
Thanks!
I have done something like this is some of my classes. My finals routinely require students to explicate passages in essay form, and I will sometimes have students nominate passages. I will compile a list of those passages that were nominated (and sometimes I will supplement it with ones of my own), and I will distribute that list to students telling them that I will choose the passages for the exam from the list. There are always far more passages on the list then will show up on the exam, but students tend to really like the idea not only because they have input into the test, but because it allows them to prepare more effectively. As others have noted, the act of selecting passages is itself instructive, but then those students who really want to do well can put in the time.