Learning Strategies

We’ve reached a compromise — of sorts — about the exam issue. We’re going to have a dedicated exam week, so that’s a major victory. But only the Math Department wanted to hold all its exams at the same time! It’s incomprehensible to me, but the other departments (not just English) wanted them held by section. That means that if a teacher has two sections of a course, one A Block and one H Block, the students will be taking the identical exam three and a half days apart! Sounds to me like a recipe for trouble. The parochial response is that it isn’t our problem, since the math exams will all be given simultaneously, but I predict wide-scale problems. One problem is that there will be a huge amount of cheating, since there’s no way to prevent it. A second is that parents and students will (justifiably) complain, because some students will have two or even more days longer to study for the same exam. How is this fair?

(Also, it sounds like a nightmare for correcting.)

Labels: teaching and learning