Failing the intent...

Over last two-three years, I have observed a curious thing during the school exams. Usually teacher hands-out the question paper a few minutes ahead of the answer sheets. The idea is, by reading the questions in advance, students can organize their thoughts and plan their answers.

However, as soon as the question paper is given the doubts and questions start coming up. Here is a collections of questions that keep coming up again and again, at every exam. Should we also write the questions ? Should we write entire sentences or only fill-in the blanks ? or can we write only the blanks (!) ? Can we solve questions in any order ? How much should I write for this question ? For match the pairs, do we have to write the pairs or only labels ?

These are questions just related to the format. Then there are questions related to the content, comprehension, spellings, grammar. How much time will I get  ? Can I write on only one side of supplement ? the questions continue almost till the end of the paper. If the subject teacher makes a mistake of visiting the class suddenly new questions appear. Now it become difficult to decide if we are clarifying the doubts or actually giving them clues and answer to the questions ? The boundary becomes blurred.

As a teacher, I find this most irritating and worrying. What is missing here is the ability of students to recognize the intent of the question, the question paper and the examination it self. They are unwilling to (or unable to) guess the intent of the question and answer it. Instead of becoming wise thinkers students act like drones and clerks.

Interestingly, this doesn't mean they have become stickler of rules. When the time comes to collect the answer sheets, despite of several reminders, you will find handful of papers without names, roll-numbers, wrongly stapled supplements, answers written on wrong side in wrong order, forgotten to write the question numbers.

Students are failing en-mass to see the intent of the question (what is the purpose of the question) and act judicially accordingly. It seems, as though they can take-in only a word at time and never see the larger picture.

For some reason, such behaviour comes out most during the exams. However, I suspect, this lack of ability to read deeper intent of questions or comprehension must be wide spread.

What are exams for...

In any subject or for any skill, the abilities of students vary. Some are naturally good, some learn to be good, some struggle to learn and some can never really acquire the skill. This is not abnormal. This is how people (even grown-ups) perform on any skill, craft or trade.

If an exam is given to test an ability and we were to plot how many students did how well, it would follow a Bell-shaped curve. A few students would do very well, majority of students would do ok and a few would have done not so well - making the graph look like a Bell. If you are testing a skill and your exam shows this curve then you should celebrate - because your test was fair to all and balanced.

A balanced test is telling you with confidence that those who are on a lower side of the Bell need your help, those in the middle of the Bell need to understand and work harder and those on the upper side of the Bell should work on advance skills. Everyone need to work towards better.

This is not how most exams look though. Most often teachers think that if majority of students get more than 60-70% marks then they have learnt well and teaching was a success. The trouble is, when everyone gets good marks, you are testing very little. And if you get less than 40% then you have failed. They automatically create two casts - those who pass easily and those who fail bitterly. Such exams say more about the exams themselves (was it easy or hard) than they say about the students (who are good and bad performers). They say very little about who is where on that skill. Exams should not to tools to fail students or even pass them.

A good balanced exam will be one in which students follow a Bell-shaped distribution of performance, with majority getting marks close to 50%. In such an exam, there is no pass or fail. Everyone has passed ! Some need to learn more, some need to work harder and some need a greater challenge.

As a teacher one needs to aware of what an exam is testing. Are we measuring students abilities ? Are the marks artefacts of the way we give exams ? Exams should be used to set a passing bar ? or Should exams evaluate abilities and take remedial actions.

When did you understand fractions...

This is a question I often ask parents and other teachers. Fractions are taught as a chapter in Grade 5. At the end of the year students are given tests on fractions. And they pass with good or bad marks. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding of  fractions.

We really can't say when we understood fractions. Somewhere from age 9 onwards the sense of a "fraction" gradually builds. Some interesting twists in fractions may occur to us many years later. For example, its not easy to realize that 1/5 of something can be greater than 1/3 of something else. Then we see how fractions are also related to percentages and to decimals. This is how any true knowledge is built - gradually and through different experiences. Over time, different aspects of the concept are polished. We make mental and graphic links with related concepts and a deeper understanding is built.

If this is how we learn and learn well, then why are our Tests not designed for this. While learning is a continuous and interactive process, testing is not.The Exams expect that everyone in the class must learn fractions in Grade 5 to the given competence level and prove it by getting passing marks.  Our exams say, you better know this here and now, else you have failed.

This create two bad trends. Firstly, students just learn to operate numbers by given rules and get the correct answers. Getting marks makes them think that they now know fractions. But there is no real understanding happening. Secondly, students who can't grasp the rules fail, nearly fail or barely pass. They have no second chance. In Grade 6 we move onto other Math things, too bad for you.

Our Exams are designed to disrupt the learning process, to encourage learning rules and to disqualify those who can't do it here and now.