Publish December 11, 2024
BY DANIELA FOLEY
As the days leading up to the last week of the first semester dwindle, final exams are a fast-approaching topic that is simply unavoidable. Since the focus in classrooms has changed in recent years, some Carmel High School teachers have adjusted the manner in which they administer finals, whether it be to better adhere to their curriculum, boost mental health or avoid the standard 100-question multiple-choice exam, leading to creative solutions like having students reenact a jury trial in French or give presentations on different food items they brought in for the class to share.
As a whole, the direction of finals at Carmel High School has generally shifted away from the standard 100-question exam and toward the use of different assessment techniques in order to apply the knowledge students have learned. In a poll of about 30 CHS teachers, 32% of classes had presentation-based finals, 14% opted for oral exams, and 25% chose to administer free-response questions.
Types of finals administered by polled CHS teachers. (graphic by DANIELA FOLEY)
English department co-chair Barbara McBride, who teaches both Advanced Placement and college prep classes, notes the changes of exams in her classroom are a result of various factors, such as a change in curriculum, increasing student stress and the use of different testing techniques. Shifting away from traditional testing and now testing students through written free-response questions and presentations, the English teacher also has noted that a shift in teaching goals has changed the direction of the finals she administers.
“For a long time here, we had a clear mandate from the district and the board about being a college-going culture,” explains the English teacher. “ It was very academic. Since about 2015-16, we’ve had a lot of changes in leadership and the direction of the district has not been as clear, so I think there has been a slight decrease of focus in that area and on heavy academics, and more on student wellness.”
Also moving away from standard tests, French teacher Suzanne Marden explains that in order to increase student engagement in understanding the material, oral exams and project-based finals are more than sufficient. As someone who used to give a standard 100-question multiple-choice exam consisting of cumulative vocab and grammar, the French teacher notes that changing her final exams was a more effective way for her students to engage with the material and prepare them for the future. Last year, to engage students in the language of French and encourage the development of skills that are applicable to everyday life, Marden’s French 4 students re-enacted a criminal trial in class, based on a French book they had read.
“It really tested a real-world skill like how to collaborate, focus on a task and get something completed to the best of [their] ability in another language,” says Marden. “If any piece of it unraveled, the whole thing could unravel. To me it was like being in a work environment and having to be on a team and be ready on your feet.”
Like Marden, both Joe McCarty and Marc Stafford, teachers of dual-enrollment MPC United States History, have opted to orally test their students during finals week, similar to 14% of polled teachers, as they find this to be one of the most authentic ways to see how much students learned over the course of the semester, while also preventing cheating. While oral exams tend to be relatively common for foreign language classes, the teachers have found this testing style for a history class to be just as effective, if not more, than a traditional multiple-choice exam.
Conversely, Brent Silva, who teaches World History, Government and Politics and Economics at CHS, often chooses to administer a larger final that tests through multiple-choice questions, free-response questions and short-answer questions. However, his focus is incorporating life skills in his classroom, similar to many polled teachers, while adjusting his exams in response to a change in the AP curriculum.
“The primary focus for AP classes is preparing students for the exam they take in the spring,” says Silva. “In College Prep and Honors Econ, I embed real-world concepts into my course like taxes, property taxes, cost of living and things like that which are significant.”
While there has been an apparent shift leading to diversified final exams, 50% of polled teachers still administer multiple-choice exams. For one CHS math teacher who uses multiple choice to test, maintaining this testing style is important, as math concepts build upon each other, and the teacher notes that ensuring students remember key concepts throughout the course is vital.
As teachers continue adjusting to different learning styles and learning objectives, finals can be expected to change over time, impacting the manner in which students learn.
