It’s that time of the year! Final-writing season. Writing a good, fair, time-sensitive final can be a challenge. I’ve written some Do’s and Don’ts to help you write a great final.
Do
1. Be thorough. Write a test that allows you to see the breadth of their knowledge. Remember that you have spent a semester or a whole year in growth. The students should be expected to prove that growth.
2. Be selective. Ask yourself, ‘what is the primary skill that I want the students to be able to do in this area?’ Ask that question. The goal of the final isn’t to have them prove that they remember every inane detail. Rather, it is to allow them to show the growth they have made.
3. Be celebratory. As you are covering the breadth of what they have done, it is OK to ask a simple question. Remember, that question wasn’t so simple the first time they learned it. This shows them some of the growth they have experienced. It also builds some confidence in the wobbly test takers.
4. Be alert to time. I hate when I misjudge the time that it will take the students to take a test. One trick I use is the 50th percentile trick. When I am writing the test, I actually picture a particular student in my mind. They are the averagest of the average students. The one that can get it but has to think about it. The one that will ask a reasonable question during the test. Write your test for them to take 2/3 of the period. The fast kids will always be fast. The slow kids will always be slow. But the 50th percentile kid taking 2/3 of the period will allow for a test of sufficient size as well as serving the majority of the students to finish in the time allotted. Some teachers have calculated a rate to estimate student test time. Most of those equate to whatever it takes you to take the test times 2 or 2.5 will be the student time.
5. Be considerate of your grading time. Sometimes we have this amazing idea for a question. It checks a lot of the boxes above. But the grading of that question will take more time than it is worth. Maybe it’s a stacked question where one answer leads to another starting point. If the question is too severely stacked, you may spend too much time searching for their errors and not enough time proving in your mind what they actually know. Split stacked questions into separate questions. They can still prove all the skills and it makes grading faster. For “essay” style questions, ask yourself if there is another way that they could prove the same knowledge. There is a reason that we became chemistry teachers and not English professors. Remember that reason!
Don’t
6. Don’t be afraid to ask challenging questions. If you prepared them to answer hard questions, then ask them hard questions. It shows respect for the work that you have put in with them.
7. Don’t be nitpicky. Remember that one exception to that one rule that is sometimes used but only in an acidic solution? They don’t either. Ask them questions that allow the student to prove their growth over the year without getting bogged down in things that won’t truly change their level of success in the future.
8. Don’t be punitive. Now is not the time to really “show those kids” that they should have been studying for this final since October. A final should be a celebration of the skills that they have mastered, not an opportunity to prove to them that they are a lazy bum. Trust me. If you write a fair final, the lazy bums will get exactly what they deserve. You don’t have to strategically write it into your test.
9. Don’t forget big concepts. This sounds dumb, but I have written a final and left out a chapter. It is actually easier to do than you might think. Review your final to make sure that the kids will have a chance to communicate the breadth of what they have learned.
10. Don’t reuse the same test. Last year’s kids were last year’s. You taught differently this year. You made improvements. You spent more time on one subject and less on another. Let your final reflect that variation. Do I start with last year’s final? Absolutely. But I also read through the entire thing and edit the test to assure that it matches their skills this year. Does that mean you have to make a new key? Yep, sorry about that. Does that mean that you are connecting to your students at a deeper level? Also, yep.
Good luck this finals season. Remember to take a minute with the kids to celebrate where they started and where they are at now. It is so important that they feel the journey that they have been on. Climbing to the top of that chemistry mountain shouldn’t be easy. But the view is amazing.
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I turn "essay questions" into MC questions (to speed grading) by writing the question as "A Chemistry teacher asks her (his) class, "[concept question]". Which student's answer is most correct? I then write answers for four students. [I always use Fred, Sally, Ethel and George.} The answers from Fred and his "classmates" include common misconceptions. Fred, et al's answers can be long essay type answers (I've had Fred/Sally questions take up almost an entire page on a test), but my students are answering a MC question. If they understand the concept, they'll identify the correct answer...but I don't have to grade an essay question.