Final Exams Must Die?
This is certainly a catchy opening paragraph that makes you want to see what these crazy Harvard Profs are up to…
The Answer Sheet – Harvard profs dropping final exams: “Final exams are probably not anybody’s primary concern at the moment, but it is worth noting that the July-August edition of Harvard Magazine reports that many Harvard professors will no longer routinely require final exams.”
However, it’s not really that uncommon to forego a final exam in lieu of a major paper (or project) at the end of a semester in college. I especially found this to be the case at Yale while at grad school.
Even while an undergrad at Wofford College, this was the case in many challenging and critical-thinking heavy courses.
It always seemed to me that if a class was especially thought-heavy, there would be a paper at the end of the course rather than a cumulative final exam.
After four years of undergrad and five years of graduate school, I can safely say that it is/was always more challenging to end a year of study with a paper than with a test. It made me reflect and look back in a much more critical fashion than if I were rehashing facts on a test.
That’s not to say that I don’t value final exams in some circumstances. However, these types of articles really aren’t pointing to a crazy new educational trend coming out of Harvard.
The question becomes if we need to start looking beyond final exams in Middle or Upper/High School settings.
That’s a can of worms that I’m still trying to grok.
I found the opposite — my more thought-heavy courses were more likely to have exams — but that’s because, overwhelmingly, my humanities courses had papers and my science & math courses had exams, and the latter expected more of me. (I suspect had I been a science major, rather than a math major, I would’ve found that I mostly had end-of-term projects, rather than either exams or papers.)
I think it’s important to have a capstone or cumulative experience in a course, but I think this is not a one-size-fits-all situation; different material may call naturally for different things.
(As for exams for younger kids…I gave exams when I taught middle school because that’s what I was used to and what most of my colleagues did, but I suspect the major value of it was not the exam per se, but 1) the impetus to review material broadly and 2) the practice organizing a large body of material — of course neither technically requires an exam. Mind you convincing my students to review without the threat of an exam was difficult, but one could craft other projects that required it. Then again, the vocabulary aspect of my subject (Latin) lends itself to an exam. Enh. It’s pre-coffee and I’m babbling now.)
(p.s. Robotics and Assyriology. Rock the heck on.)