Preparing for final exams

Final Exams. Two words that stir anxiety in students like no others. It seems that this time of year as many in the general public are preparing for the holidays, those of us in schools are preparing for final exams. For educators, final exams signal the end of the semester and the start of a well-deserved break. Sure the grading will be tedious, but we have two weeks off to get that accomplished. For our students though, the anticipation of winter break fails to overcome the anticipation of exams
Final exams have been built up in our society as the ultimate challenge. Take a whole semester’s worth of work and put it into one multi-hour assessment to test what a student has learned. Ninety hours of instruction plus additional hours of homework squeezed into a three hour exam. That’s just two minutes of test time for every hour of learning.
Teachers build up the importance of exams all semester. Finals are at the center of movie and television plots. Parents tell horror stories of their experience. No wonder students fear finals, they have been conditioned to fear them. We know that this fear and anxiety can impact a student’s ability to recall information and perform, so what can we do as educators to ease that tension and allow finals to truly assess our students?
Build Confidence– I’ve heard teachers in my schools talk about their exams as a way to intimidate students. Often this is specifically in regards to the first test of the year. They make the first test significantly harder than the others as a way of setting the precedent that ‘my exams are hard and you need to study.’ This approach may work for some students but for others it causes them to shut down. Why not take the opposite approach? The first test should be the easiest so students do well. Once a student has that confidence build the next exam to be require more effort, by gradually increasing the difficulty of each exam the students still learn to study but they also develop the needed confidence that they can succeed, even in a challenging course.
Practice– The final exam should be similar in appearance, style and scope to previous exams. If all semester long you ask multiple choice questions and suddenly the final exam is short essay questions, the student will be thrown off. As a teacher you won’t know if the students didn’t understand the material or if they didn’t understand the question. We’ve all heard the expression practice makes perfect. This holds just as true for test taking as it does any other area. Use your tests and quizzes throughout the year as a practice for final exams. Finals are stressful enough for students, they don’t need a last minute audible.
Review Sessions– Hold regularly scheduled review sessions. Sure the week of the exam you might need to hold a few cram sessions, but research shows we all learn better by taking information in smaller chunks spread out over time. Consider holding a weekly review session throughout the term. Students will develop the habit of coming in for help and studying throughout the term instead of just the last minute.
Demonstrations– Does your final exam need to be an exam? The goal of a final is to assess the learning that has taken place over the course of the semester. Is a test the best way to gauge that learning or better yet is a test the best way to show application of learning? Think about alternative ways to test your students. Is there a demonstration they could perform? Can they write an essay or research paper? Would a group presentation demonstrate a higher level of understanding? What is a real world application for the knowledge you’ve passed along?
Final exams can be stressful, but as educators we can create assessments that reduce stress and are more meaningful. What are things you’ve done in your classroom to help students tackle final exams?

Resource: Finals_Tips