Reimagining the Final 30%
Jamie Reimagines Exams A few years ago I got frustrated with traditional exams. They were not exciting. They were not a celebration of student learning. It wasn’t a showcase of a semester of hard work. It was a stressful slugfest for our students to regurgitate a semester's worth of learning in an arbitrarily short amount of time. I realized I didn’t like my traditional exam because it was filled with questions, curriculum and content that I thought was the most important. In a classroom where student voice is valued, I didn’t think this was an appropriate send off to my students. I wanted to know what they found to be the most important components of my course. I wanted to know what they learned, without having to force them down one defined path. So I mixed it up. Last year I gave my Advanced Functions students a choice. They could complete a traditional final exam or they could complete a more open ended exam. I called it the “ Modern Exam ”. I allowed my