Re: Use of exams.

["Richard W. Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

Well maybe I'm just out of touch with the times, but I do strongly believe
that students (as well as our own children) WILL try to live up to the
standards that we set--as long as they are consistent and not excessively
punitive.

In the past five years (as far back as I can clearly remember), I don't
think I've had to give more than 2 or 3 tests outside the assigned time
slots.  I require an officially excused absence for such.  For my 16 years
teaching, I don't think I have to take off both shoes to count up the total
'moved' tests.

I agree with everything Donald Simanek added to reasons for exams, and
therefore am very strict about giving them.  OTOH, my tests are given
outside the regular class period, within a 12 hour period, each student
deciding when to come.  This is so that I can give them 2 hours rather than
50 minutes for problem solving tests.  I've never seen where problem
solving is a 'race' against time (for 99% of real-world situations).

I also wonder how the good nuns somehow kept 50+ students quiet, in their
seats, and on-task during the mid-50s when I was in grade school.  Unless
we are to totally attribute ADD to latent drug effects, we certainly had
such students.  However, they were EXPECTED and were DEMANDED to conform to
the class protocols and somehow were able (for the most part) to do so!

Rick

P.S.  Just came back from a College Curriculum meeting where the
administration was shoving a course change down the Biology Department's
throat.  Perhaps the reason I'm a bit 'testy' today!
----------
> From: Jim Diamond <jimd@calvin.linfield.edu>
> Rick,
>
> You shouldn't have hit the flame button so fast. I certainly don't see
> this as pandering, since I'm the instructor. We're not a large
> institution, and we don't have major logistic problems dealing with
> relatively small numbers of students in a flexible manner. I should have
> been clearer in my language: about 1/3 of the class elects to take a test
> under different circumstances over the course of the semester; on any on
> test it has ranged from about 1/10 to 1/8 of the class. I should add that
> this group of students includes athletes doing makeup exams (about 40% of
> our students are in some sports), and students who have been sick. I want
> to repeat my central point, however. Circumstances don't change exam 
> grades significantly.