Final Exams

I haven't done a final exam in years; I like to have kids build a portfolio throughout the year/semester and then do conferences at the end. The idea is that I give them the learning objectives at the start and they have to assemble evidence that they've met those goals. They can include anything we've done in class (nothing is graded so they have to assess their own learning instead of just taking the "highest scoring" assignments) or even bring in things they do independently or in other classes. For each objective it's either pass or no-pass; you either meet the standard or you don't.

Hi Thomas Ryan ! I teach the 1200 course. At the end of the semester, I give students a DBQ. This is a nice way to measure the growth of their skills over the term. We actually write that before the exam period. On exam day, students have a cumulative, multiple choice assessment. It’s mainly stimulus-based, with lots of maps, graphs, primary source excerpts, etc. 

What are you thinking of doing to assess your students’ knowledge?

Im just not a fan of unit summatives.  However I build into rubrics and lessons the skills and content from previous units.  So the "buildup" of facts and thoughts sort of makes it hard for kids to really skip on previous material.  I make many of the discussion questions comparisons, or "through the lens of" - also making these questions AI proof in a way.   

Christopher Barber I like your idea very much. It really puts students to the test by applying the skills they have learned during the semester.

In my school we give cumulative semester assessments, a combination of multiple choice exercises, short answer questions, and a comprehensive essay about Big History.

Thomas Ryan I teach 9th-grade Big History, and at my school all courses are required to give a 120-minute semester exam. Yes, it’s long—and a lot to grade.

Our exam has three parts: Part I is multiple choice (about 55 questions); Part II is short answers (five questions requiring students to make claims supported by evidence); and Part III is an essay in which students explain the narrative of the eight thresholds of increasing complexity.

I know that many colleagues don’t give traditional exams, and I appreciate reading about the alternatives they use. While I don’t have that flexibility because of school requirements, the options shared here are excellent and have given me a lot to think about.

I really like your portfolio idea. What specific learning objectives do you give your students? Are they based on standards or on historical skills? I would love to add something like this to the end of year or even each semester, but thinking about the state standards in NJ makes it seem overwhelming to even get started!

My district has final exams but only allows us to test them on information from the 2nd semester. It frustrates me because we don't have midterms and I would like to reference other topics from earlier in the course, but I try to focus more on their implementation of historical skills. 

Aside from DBQs, I've tried to incorporate a few ideas that lean more towards project based assessments. For example, I've had students create seating assignments and foods for a potluck dinner party hosted by several influential people in history. I also given them a list of events from each era and had them justify which ones they believe had the largest global impact to help me gauge their content knowledge, context, and use of evidence.

 Andrea Wong The learning objectives will vary depending on where I am (I tend to get antsy and move a lot, so often find myself teaching in new places). Right now I'm prepping for a quarter (not semester) of World History so I only have two objectives: one for historical reasoning skills and one for communicating arguments. The exact text on my syllabus follows:

"Course Learning Objectives:

The following learning objectives are the direct goals of this course; as such, your success in meeting these objectives is what you will be assessed on. After successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

1. Use the following historical thinking skills to understand and evaluate historical narratives: contextualization, claim testing, sourcing, and causation;
2. Communicate historical arguments and conclusions in both written and oral formats."

I will say that I have to translate this into a number and letter to report at the end of the quarter, so I'm still working within a traditional grading school structure. So, for the purposes of what it looks like in the gradebook, there are two categories each weighted at 50% (one for each objective). Within each category will be any relevant divisions. As an example:

Historical Thinking Skills (Weighted 50%)

I'm big on the idea of the "single-point rubric", where each requirement/expectation is either pass/not-pass, which in the gradebook comes out as each being out of one point. So what I'll hand my kids is a short breakdown of each of my objectives, with your classic student-friendly "you will be able to" statements. As I've just started mid-year with the school and don't know the kids well yet, I haven't drafted the student-friendly language.

You can easily adapt this to fit the standards where you are. If students are required to have particular content knowledge, you can easily make categories for that with a minimum cutoff for what constitutes success. My favorite way to assess specific content is with the "identification question" that many of my undergrad professors loved to use. It looks like this:

Identification Questions

Directions: Pick at least three of the people, places, or events below. Describe your choice and explain the historical significance.

Options:

If you want to grade this more traditionally, my old method was out of five points for each. 2 points for describing who or what the selection was, 2 points for explaining the significance, and 1 point for doing it in a complete sentence. It also works with my single-point preference, as well.

Sorry for the wall of text here. If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

I, too, really like these ideas, Christopher Barber !

I must admit that my goal at mid term time is often to make the grading as quick as possible, and I have defaulted to Multiple Choice questions.  I like how the portfolio has students reflect on their learning and the "single point Summatives" seem to get to having them show what they have learned without being too odious to grade.  

I, too, really like these ideas, Christopher Barber !

I must admit that my goal at mid term time is often to make the grading as quick as possible, and I have defaulted to Multiple Choice questions.  I like how the portfolio has students reflect on their learning and the "single point Summatives" seem to get to having them show what they have learned without being too odious to grade.  

I love your ideas, too, @Andrea Wong! I have done activities like this as well, often at the end of the year - inviting students to apply their learning in simulations like the UN Sustainable Development Goals project.