Indiana State University : CIRT : Teaching Tips

Educational Finals

Final exams and assignments should be seen as a last teaching moment. Poorly constructed, they appear like a ritual punishment for being in school. Well designed finals, however, serve to highlight important information. They show the links between ideas. They draw connections to the importance of this knowledge. Now is the time to review your finals and look for ways to assure that students are learning these valuable lessons as they respond to your final assignments. Here are some tips to help.

Preparation

Providing students with some direction in preparing for a final can help them discover how the parts of a course fit together.

Sample Test. Put some sample tests on reserve. Let students know this comes from your test bank and that these or similar questions will be on the final. Use some test design ideas listed below.

Study Questions. Provide students with some generative questions -- those that generate more thinking than just recall -- and include one or more on the test.

Reviews. Hold some review sessions. Rather than re-lecture on the material use a handout or a concept map or other idea organizer and have students ask questions about parts they don't understand.

Advising Sessions. Offer special office hours in the week before exams for students to visit and ask questions about specific material.

Final Designs

The design of final assignments is critical to how well they work as a last teaching moment.

Choose Well. Different exam questions assess different abilities. Choose the right one for you. The CIRT has a short chapter describing how to match testing options to various goals. Ask us for a copy.

Organization. Tests that are random questions do not teach as well as those that have a clear, conceptual structure. Organize exam questions according to parts of the course, steps of analysis, or increasing depth or complexity.

Good Questions. Like good essays, tests need to be written carefully and without misleading or confusing phrases. For some helpful guidelines, ask the CIRT for best practices for writing questions on either multiple-choice/matching exams or short answer/essay tests.

Be Realistic. Tests should replicate real life conditions for applying this knowledge as closely as possible. Write questions and set the rules of the exam to be as life-like as possible.

Administering Tests

Test taking should be seen as a form of data gathering and designed to assure accurate sampling.

Reduce Anxiety. Ask the CIRT for a list of tips on reducing anxiety during exams. Lower stress leads to more accurate performance.

Honesty. There are a number of recommendations about how to reduce academic dishonesty. Call us for a copy of some suggestions

Two Tests. Use the same test bank to develop two different exams. Set two dates, several days apart and allow students to take either one or both. Share results of the first exam before the second is administered. Count the highest score.

Grading

Scores on finals confirm for students if their perception of what they know is accurate.

Clear Criteria. Provide students with clear criteria that distinguish grade levels. Go beyond number cut-offs and describe the amount or degree of knowledge or skills that are needed to achieve each grade.

Informative Responses. In addition to grades, provide students with indicators that inform them of which areas or skills they know and which ones they haven't mastered. Use a table to outline performance levels on various parts of an exam (or various skills involved in completing the assignment).

Final Comments

When teachers consider finals as a last teaching moment they create assignments that help students see the patterns and purposes that have guided the semester. They are better able to understand how their performance is being matched against a systematic knowledge base that has a real world application. In most cases emphasizing these points may mean re-writing some questions, re-organizing the test lay-out or slightly modifying the test setting or the way grades are reported. If the final experience is organized in this way, then every student, regardless of their performance, should find this encounter to be one in which they learn even more about your field.