The Teacher's View Of Finals
Connor Strange
Staff Writer
Finals are approaching like a freight train, and with the semester’s end hanging just out of reach, most students are hitting the books. However, the student body isn’t the only group preparing; teachers are getting ready to take on the last stretch of the second quarter, too.
And final exams are a whole ‘nother matter for staff. They don’t have to memorize the criteria all over again, but they do have to come up what they think is the best way to check on students’ understanding of the subject matter.
“The worst part of finals is creating a test that measures exactly what I want to know about student understanding,” math teacher Cindy Boss said.
Grading the innumerable tests is certainly a monolithic task to accomplish, which is why many teachers don’t finish the process until well after the beginning of the break.
“I don’t enjoy grading them, but it’s obviously an essential part of the process,” history teacher Seth Styskal said.
That answer was pretty common among the teachers, and understandably so. Some of them have problems beyond just the grading component, however. Spanish teacher Melissa Hopkins has seen the student side of final exams rather recently, as she is the youngest teacher on staff.
“I don’t really like finals. You’re trying to shove a bunch of information that kids have already learned into one giant, comprehensive test,” Hopkins said. “They might not be the best representation of a student’s work.”
It’s not all negatives, though. Grading is a hassle and the results might not be definitive, but other members of the faculty think the recap is a good way to test a high schooler’s mettle.
“I like that it gives students one last chance to prove what they know,” Styskal said. “In some ways, finals can reveal a student’s character, whether they are going to show some apathy or work their tail off until the end.”
Not only are finals a display of character, but they also provide an idea to students of what finals at a university level could look like.
“I think that they are usually a pretty good preparation for being able to use time management. It prepares them for that next level, as many times you will experience finals in college,” English teacher Jennifer Duitsman said.
Some teachers at the school have taken a different approach to their exams, because they feel there is a better way to test the aptitude of students in their subject.
“Over the course of the last several years, I’ve decided finals should be more checking certain skills than cramming for memorization,” history teacher Dan Jensen said.
Jensen’s finals consist of primary documents that are several pages long. Students are familiar with the style of analysis after multiple instances of sifting through them throughout the earlier part of the semester. They break down speeches, letters and more for key components and use that information to create an assertion supported by the primary sources.
“Kids will be spending the lion’s share of the 80 minutes analyzing documents, using other parts of their brain, formulating a response, taking a stand, backing it up with evidence,” Jensen said. “That’s the main skill we want in the social studies department: craft an argument and defend it.”
Educators don’t all agree on the final exams of the year, whether it be their validity, efficiency or effectiveness.
However, they can all agree on one thing: grading sucks.
