Forward to Finals

Just two weeks ago we were in the throes of final exams, stressed about whether we’d get all that grading done before dismissal for Winter Break, whether PowerSchool would be operating and we could get our grades in on time, whether the stress that got to our students would abate or build as they waited for the verdict on each of their classes. So I hate to bring that all back.

Nevertheless, I can’t write this post without summoning the Ghost of pre-Christmas Past. During finals week, I talked to many teachers in my building about their final exams. How they planned them, what accommodations and adjustments they made, and the creative ways they devised to assess their students’ knowledge.

In the Media Center, where my office is located, students were making round table presentations about their research into a dietary staple or a food of economic importance in a selected third-world country. “The Hunger Project” in this AP Biology class caught my attention because each student had created an Infographic to capture the essence of their investigation. Google provides templates for infographics; the students supplied the creativity.

It made me wonder what other creative delivery methods teachers were utilizing to assess their students’ learning. It didn’t take long to hear about other alternatives to standard essays, multiple choice, matching, and short answer questions. An AP History teacher uses podcasting as a tool. Instead of a traditional research paper, students create entertaining scripts in which they investigate the truth–or the fiction–behind popular historical topics. Who knew that Napoleon changed his wife’s name to a moniker he preferred? Josephine Bonaparte’s real name was Rose. But wait! There’s more! Listen to this Podcast.  And this one.

A culinary arts teacher could have elicited pretty boring paragraph answers to questions about safety and sanitation. Instead, the students put their creative minds and a sense of humor to work creating Tik Tok videos. Fun to make, fun to watch!

Dual credit speech students delivered Commencement Speeches in the auditorium; students in other speech classes made award presentations and delivered acceptance speeches. Theater Arts students wrote and performed original scripts. In a Special Education speech class, students drew topics from a hat and delivered impromptu speeches. Although I didn’t see any this semester, in other years, I’ve watched as students delivered their knowledge in the form of TEDx talks. Of course, performance is a natural when the subject is oral communication–or art or music or PE–but there are others: a portfolio of creative writing, a photography exhibit, a display of ceramic or wood art objects, or a musical rendition.

This is not to say that essays, multiple choice, and matching aren’t important or don’t have their place. Many of the teachers who devised the alternate forms of assessment I’ve just described also had written tests. But the range of formats throughout the building gave students a break from the tedium of pencil and paper and the opportunity to creatively demonstrate what they’ve learned, to work together, to learn new skills (e.g., infographics and podcasting), to show their humor and to laugh a lot (the Tik Tok videos). Refreshing.

And so was the PE exam I was invited to watch unfold. The class was Weights. When I showed up at the beginning of the exam period, I went to the wrong room. Wouldn’t you, too, think showing up to the weights room would be logical? But no. The kids were all in the gym itself–and dressed for gym class. I was puzzled, decided it must be a performance exam–but why not in the weights room? Turns out, the performance part of their exam is incorporated into the two 9 weeks grades. The students were in the gym for an old-fashioned paper and pencil test.

Unlike the 9th grade biology teacher, whose students sit cheek by jowl in an overcrowded classroom, who creates multiple versions of her exams so that no two students have all the same questions, the Weights teacher has the luxury of space. Spread out on the gym floor, armed only with a pencil–no sleeves to tuck a crib sheet in, no phones to sneak a peek at–these students, clad in their gym uniforms, sprawled on the floor and watched a video the teacher had made of former students executing the 26 lifts they had learned over the course of the semester. The present students filled in the blanks with the names of the lifts and completed a vocabulary test as well. And then what?

Something wonderful: They got to play dodge ball. They loved it! And they needed it. After a week of tests, whether paper and pencil, electronic or even performance: release!

Which is what we all felt, too, when the final bell rang.

So why am I posting this now? Why not just before that final bell? To be honest, no one would have had the time to read it before the bell rang–or the inclination to do so afterward, during Winter Break. But now that we are back in school and beginning a new semester, it’s a good time to take a look ahead to possibilities for May. Maybe this post will spark an idea that will change it up for you and your students. Even if it doesn’t, welcome to second semester!