Final 'exam' week could be called final 'project' week

In the last three weeks, my daughter has been totally immersed in a compacted, online, three-credit college course.

The instruction and assignments that traditionally take place over the course of nine weeks have been squeezed into one third of that time. This class has been the equivalent of a full-time job, as it should be, if college students are going to earn three credits in that abbreviated time.

Colleges are learning that they need to offer nontraditional options because a nine-week, in-person class is not going to work for everyone, especially those balancing family and work responsibilities, switching careers or going back to school. Sometimes “traditional” students have scheduling conflicts that prevent them from taking required courses during a regular semester, which was the case for my daughter.

Mini-semesters, summer sessions, winter sessions and online classes allow students to meet their educational goals.

This isn’t necessarily anything new or Earth-shattering. Evening classes and summer school have been offered for decades. Options certainly expanded with the advent of the internet, as online or blended (half in-class/half online) classes have become commonplace at colleges and universities.

As these new options are surfacing, assessments are being expanded, as well. While at one time most college classes culminated with a final exam, many professors today are opting for various forms of final assessment.

Some subject matters or courses have objectives that more clearly align with assessments involving projects, performance or products, whereas other courses’ objectives might align well with final exams, noted University of Maryland College of Education Professor Gregory R. Hancock.

“No form of assessment is inherently bad or good,” Hancock replied via email to questions on this topic, noting that an assessment should match the course objectives and that those objectives should be clear to students.

The final assessment in my daughter’s sign-language class was a video dialogue written and presented with a classmate and uploaded to YouTube. In one of my son’s engineering classes, the final project was building a robot that could perform certain functions.

Both projects evaluated a semester’s worth of work. The real-world applications seem much more practical than measuring how much material a student remembers on paper.

“Final projects should be chosen because they are appropriate, not because of a discomfort with final examinations,” Hancock explained. “They have no more inherent ‘authenticity’ than final exams if such exams represent what is expected of the student.”

The professor teaching the course my daughter is taking requires a final cumulative essay to assess the students’ comprehension of the core concepts presented.

The final project is due by midnight tonight. The writing will be sure to reveal what she has learned.

While it seems like there could be a trend toward more performance-based assessments, Hancock said that’s not necessarily a good thing or bad thing. “The key is that assessment should align with one’s objectives for a course.”

If a student’s learning is being evaluated properly, perhaps an exam doesn’t always provide the right the answer.

Lisa Tedrick Prejean writes a weekly column for The Herald-Mail’s Family page. Send email to her at lprejean@herald-mail.com. Follow her on Twitter @Lisa_Prejean.