YAY!
Currently giving exams to terrified AP students who know this will go on their PERMANENT RECORD!!!1!
There has been a lot of talk in our school about the efficacy of exams - as opposed to a paper written outside of class. As an AP teacher, I don't really have a choice, as my students have to be prepared for the AP exam in May, but even without the college board breathing down my neck, I still favor the exam format.
The argument against the exam is that it prioritizes memorization over thought. Or to the degree that students DO have to think during an exam - say when they are writing essays on the exam - it still relies too much on speed and remembering why Martin Van Buren was not a successful president.
And in the Age of the Great Gizoogle, memorizing information is not the skill it once was. I use Wikipedia in class all the time to find out things like the 2009 Mexican midterm election results or the exact wording of the Intolerable Acts.
But a good exam should not be about trivia. It should be about comprehension. Recall is part of that, of course, but recall is not unimportant. And while cramming for an exam is not all that productive long term, the more often they learn a thing, the more likely it is to stick.
The downside is that the next three days are going to suck for me, but that's a small price to pay for how much my students are suffering now...
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