The Final Game
As the end of the semester approaches, students are rushing to finish their assignments and are vigorously studying for exams. Final exams are used by teachers in order to evaluate their students based on how much material throughout the course the students have actually acquired. Personally, I find finals to be too stressful of an event to determine the student's accurate acquisition of knowledge throughout the course. Because finals create unnecessary pressure, students often are under too much stress, and therefore "break" and perform subpar on their exams. Especially after class and hearing the presentations of how to redesign the structure of the university as well as the individual course, I find finals to be an inefficient method of evaluation. The final exam period at the university can easily be looked at through the lens of gaming. Because the stress and pressure creates a rigid and tense atmosphere throughout the entire campus, students are competing with others to study more, do better, and eventually receive the better grade. Each student is its own player, making strategic moves in hopes of outsmarting others and eventually "winning the game", or getting a higher grade. I cannot wait for finals to be over so I can finally relax and not feel as though I am a player in a high-risk game!
Hi Lindsay,
ReplyDeleteI think you make a really good point in this post about the game that finals have become. We all go through the semester on a pretty similar playing field, and then comes a time where test upon test is piled into a week and a half period. Some people handle this pressure very well, and can study until they feel they know the material enough to succeed on an exam. Some people, however, do exactly as you say - crack under the pressure. If the "game" is truly to be fair, it would be nice if classes were structured more like our UC 256, with multiple options available so that people can do whatever works best with their strengths. Some people might call this grade inflation, but I for one would appreciate having some tests that were in essay format, as I know that I am usually a better writer than I am a test taker. These are ideas that some of our classmates put forth in their Third Century Initiative, and I definitely think they are worth looking into down the road.
- Alex Jacobs
Yeah, let's be honest, finals suck and no one likes them. Not even the professors like them because the have to grade all of them. In addition to you post, another aspect of gaming that can be applied to finals is test taking strategies, such as how to go about certain types of questions, how to budget time on timed exams, and how to eliminate answers on a multiple choice test. Finlas seem to be multiple games in one and it is one of the most stressful games around. Because of the stress finals causes I too agree with the presentations given in class that finals are not the best system to use as an evaluation of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteWhile finals do suck and the next two weeks are gonna be pretty brutal, it is the only way to assess your mastery of the material. The university has been established for a very long time, and I think if there was a better method to assess student performance in the classroom it would have been found already. Although many students hate taking these multiple choice tests and think it is all useless, I think it is the foundation and tools that we can use in the future. The goal of education and the university as explained by thomas merton is "Learning to be oneself means, therefore, learning to die in order to live." We are here to find our greatest good and put it to use and be productive members of society.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that finals are a form of gaming! After reading your post, I began to think about how finals definitely create high tension and competition among students. While this is the case, I think another aspect of finals to look at is how it forces us to manage our time studying for them. Thinking back on the lecture that had to do with how college in general is a form of gaming in itself, I realized that during finals, we as college students are forced to learn how to split up studying for each class as well as get enough sleep and have necessary "down time." In doing so, I feel like the fact the we must balance these different things out definitely create a form of gaming that will better prepare us for the real world. For example, in future jobs after college, we will all be exposed to and be required to complete deadline driven tasks. By having mastered the ability to time manage, as well as "learning how to learn" in college, we essentially have a step up from those who did not go to college. Therefore, while studying for finals is a form of competitive gaming during college, as students can compete with one another for higher grades, it is also a form of preperation, allowing us to "win the battle before it is fought" after college. Although I would have never found our lecture about war games to be relevant or related to the game of finals, the principles behind the two are essentially one and the same!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree! I am actually in the process of studying for my Economics 101 exam and I feel like I am about to explode. Resting your academic achievements on only one or two tests is alot for someone to handle. Some people just aren't good test takers. the tension that is brought on due to finals can be really hard for many to handle and while I can understand that it is difficult to test someones knowledge of the material without a "test," hopefully the brilliant professors and directors at Michigan could try and figure out a way to help a student balance everything, especially during finals week. Great post-Nicole Thompson
ReplyDeleteLindsay, I agree with you about the frustration that comes with finals. It's a totally stressful time and it doesn't always capture a student's knowledge of the course material. Unfortunately, as a few people have said above, I think it is a necessary evil. I can't think of a better way for the university to assess the knowledge we have accumulated over the semester. Despite this, I think one thing that the university could develop a better system for is the schedule of finals. I think it's completely unfair that one student may have four finals over a two day period while another student's four finals can be dispersed over two weeks. When it comes to finals schedule, it turns into a game of chance and luck. It makes competition between students skewed and unfair since some students are put at an advantage while others are screwed over. Horrible finals schedules call for planning and proper time management, something we all must learn at some point anyway.
ReplyDelete-Paige Rowin
The Ninejas
I completely agree with your post. I do not think finals are a fair way to evaluate students. I think way too many students feel pressured to do well, and as a result, they do not do as well as they should. I think that it is unfair that finals typically count for so much of our grade. I would rather be constantly tested throughout the semester so that I don't have to worry all at once about all 4 of my classes. I think that the biggest problem is the scheduling of finals. As a result of the pressure of having multiple finals (sometimes back-to-back or only a few hours apart), students typically cram. They are only memorizing the information because they do not have enough time to study for everything at once and master the material. Even if the students do well, I do not think this is effective- studying the night before will not help anyone actually learn the material for the future. I think that teachers need to rethink and re-evaluate their final exam schedules, or take some of the suggestions from the presentations we had in our class!
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree that finals cause a lot of stress and anxiety for everyone I can't really think of a better way for some classes at the university to assess knowledge. However, I do believe that in some classes it is better to do group projects or papers because when you are cramming and memorizing information the night before it really isn't beneficial. I think that learning over time is key to understanding and retaining the information. The way the university sets up finals is extremely unhealthy. For example, today my best friend had two exams in one day and she has two more on Thursday. She hasn't slept in days and she is really sick. I think it is a really awful way to end the school year. I wish that the university could implement a new program regarding final exams.
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