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Finals week; two of the most high pressure weeks of the
school year. 20% of your grade, on the line in little over an hour. Not
according to some teachers, however, who have begun partaking in the now
common practice of finals “double-dipping.” But what exactly is
double-dipping? It’s certainly not the kind with freedom fries and ketchup,
but rather when a teacher assigns a multi-part, some in class, some out of
class final. And at Censored for
Security High School, it’s becoming more and more common.
But what’s behind this growing trend towards finals
double-dipping? Teachers insist it allows them to test students in a variety
of areas, rather than just taking a sit-down exam. This is because these
multi-part finals can allow teachers to test various skills that a student
has, and test them over a greater period of time than an hour and fifteen
minutes. For this reason, multi-part finals can range from additional time
to take the exam, to projects, to essays, and other tools that teachers may
use to test various types of student knowledge and ability. The one major
drawback for teachers giving these multi-part finals is that they take away
from class time that could be used to introduce new units and material. The
time teachers must now devout to these supplementary finals must therefore
be taken away from additional learning.
Students, on the other hand, are faced with the fact
that they have to do much more work, and still for just one final. In fact,
many multi-part finals will start weeks before the actual finals week
begins. With this in mind, not only will students be forced to take a
regular final, they will also have to spend many hours at home and at school
prepping for and taking these other parts of the final. Due to this, the
student will ultimately have a lot less time to prepare for the actual hour
and fifteen minutes that are considered the official final. Time that could
be used to study for the “real” final will now instead be used for other
parts of the final. Also, the class time devoted to additional parts of the
final will likely take away from review time, thus making the student even
less prepared for the actual final.
The one clear advantage to students, besides the rather
abundant advantages offered to teachers, is that a student’s final grade is
no longer resting solely on an hour and fifteen minutes of test time. Some
students may not take in-class exams well, especially with the ramped up
pressure that finals week adds. In addition, some students may not perform
well using Scantron tests, for example, and would benefit from having a
written portion added before the test. With several parts of the final
already taken care of before finals week, students already have an idea of
what their final grade may be. This may come as either an advantage, for
students who did well on the pre-final finals, or a clear-cut disadvantage,
for students who did not do so well.
Ultimately, the decision to use supplementary,
multi-part finals comes down to the teacher and the class. For example, in a
foreign language class it makes sense to have a listening, speaking, and
writing portion, whereas in math it does not. Even so, all of the time, both
in class and out, that a student must devote to these additional finals will
undoubtedly force them to sacrifice study time. By sacrificing study time,
the student will not do nearly as well on the real final, and their grade
may suffer in the end. Therefore, finals double-dipping, as appealing as it
may be to teachers, will likely only hurt the students they are trying to
help.
A similar version of this editorial will also be
published in Victor's high school newspaper.
Sources:
Unnamed |
