Timed Exams?

[bobbeym]

DS will be taking his Alg 1 final in early October. IF he finishes his daily lessons on schedule, he'll have 3-4 school days plus a weekend to review. I'm also letting him use reference notes for formulas, laws, etc. This is our first major test that will count as part of a high school credit and I admit that I'm nervous about having to create it myself.

 

I've figured out how I want to create the test, but I don't know whether I should give him a time limit on it or let him work on it until he finishes. Either option results in the possibility of him rushing and making stupid mistakes or dawdling because he can't stay focused on it.

 

Thoughts?

[regentrude]

You can do either. If you give him a time limit, you must construct the exam very carefully to ensure that it is doable in the allotted time for the student.

Which means, you working through the exam that you have written should take significantly less time than your student will have.

(For example: when we write tests for our college students, the rule of thumb is that it must not take the instructor more than a third of the time allotted for the student; if it takes the instructor longer, the test is too hard/too long. So, if I can not write out the complete solution to a one hour test in under 20 minutes, the test is too much.)

I find judging the length of a reasonable exam time to be extremely difficult for inexperienced teachers. If you want to do timed exams, you should give your student a practice test for preparation and see how long that takes; then adjust your test time accordingly. Alternatively, you could use an experienced teacher's test, or a test provided with your material. The easiest for you might be to just guess the amount of time when you write your exam, and then give the student a bit more if he needs more time to finish it.

 

ETA: What laws formulas are you going to give a student for algebra 1???

Edited September 10, 2012 by regentrude

[bobbeym]

You can do either. If you give him a time limit, you must construct the exam very carefully to ensure that it is doable in the allotted time for the student. Which means, you working through the exam that you have written should take significantly less time than your student will have.

 

I find judging the length of a reasonable exam time to be extremely difficult for inexperienced teachers. If you want to do timed exams, you should give your student a practice test for preparation and see how long that takes; then adjust your test time accordingly. Alternatively, you could use an experienced teacher's test, or a test provided with your material. The easiest for you might be to just guess the amount of time when you write your exam, and then give the student a bit more if he needs more time to finish it.

 

The exam material is already in the book. I simply made copies of each problem set so I can cut and paste them into worksheets for testing purposes. I don't feel I can adequately gauge how much information he retained if he has the option of flipping back through the chapter for example problems.

 

I could estimate how long it would take him to complete it based on how long it takes him to do the lessons when he stays focused, and then add extra time to that. But to be perfectly honest, there's no way I could work out these problems on my own without reteaching myself Algebra. If DS can't work it out on his own, he goes to DS18 for 1:1 help, or to openstudy or khan academy for assistance. I just grade Algebra, I don't really teach it.

 

ETA: What laws formulas are you going to give a student for algebra 1???

 

Well, I can't say that this is the best or correct wording, but it's what it's called in the book. The specific "laws" the list includes are: reflxive property of equality, symmetric law of equality, commutative laws of addition and multiplication, and distributive property. The notes themselves are subtitled "a highly abbreviated, super-condensed, and reorganized by topic overview of beginnign algebra". It includes geometry formulas as well as memory aids for exponents, simplifying fractional equations, graphing, polynomials, radicals, statistics, etc.

[EKS]

But to be perfectly honest, there's no way I could work out these problems on my own without reteaching myself Algebra. ... I just grade Algebra, I don't really teach it.

 

 

Based on this, I wouldn't give him a timed exam. Frankly, I probably wouldn't give him an exam at all because in order to write an exam (even if it is just picking problems from a book), you need to be able to pick problems that are representative of particular skills and efficient exams will give problems that require a combination of skills. And even if you could write a reasonable exam, you will only be able to grade problems right or wrong, which doesn't get at the whole picture.

 

Sorry to be so negative, but I always found writing and grading exams to be difficult at best.

[regentrude]

Based on this, I wouldn't give him a timed exam. Frankly, I probably wouldn't give him an exam at all because in order to write an exam (even if it is just picking problems from a book), you need to be able to pick problems that are representative of particular skills and efficient exams will give problems that require a combination of skills. And even if you could write a reasonable exam, you will only be able to grade problems right or wrong, which doesn't get at the whole picture.

 

Sorry to be so negative, but I always found writing and grading exams to be difficult at best.

 

:iagree:

In this case, it would not be possible for you to select which variety of different problems needs to be included in the exam to test a mastery of all concepts covered. If an exam is to accurately evaluate the student's mastery, every problem must "count" for testing a particular concept.

As for grading: without being able to work the problems yourself, you would not be able to distinguish a minor arithmetic mistake from a fundamental conceptual misunderstanding and reflect this accordingly in the grading.

 

I recommend that you outsource the math exam. If your 18 y/o is proficient, have him design and administer the test.

[bobbeym]

I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't very clear in my OP as to what I was doing or looking for.

 

Creating DS's test is as simple as cutting apart the problem sets I photocopied from his textbook. The attached photo shows the problem sets for chapter 1. I would use either the 'Racine' set or 'Palmer' set but not both. Rinse and repeat for each chapter I'm testing on.

 

I have the answer keys to all of the problem sets at home. Step by step solutions are given for each problem where required, and between his work and the answer key, I can usually figure out where the error is when he makes a mistake. He's already used to self-checking and correcting a city problem set as a chapter review so grading the test won't be any different from grading the daily lessons he's already doing.

 

My only real concern was whether I should give him a set time limit - say 2 hours - to complete the test or just let him work on it until he finishes. With his personality, both have drawbacks and I don't know what would work best since we've never done a major test yet.

[Pretty in Pink]

So you are not creating a test, you are pretty much just printing one that was created by the textbook company or whatever?

 

Just let him work the test. He doesn't need a time limit.

[bobbeym]

Thanks ya'll. DH and I talked and decided no time limit for this first test. He'll monitor how long it actually takes DS to complete it and we'll decide from there whether future tests will need to be timed.