The March Exams, Behind the Scenes
As exam week draws nearer, students scramble through their notes and hastily complete review packets. But what about the teachers? They start preparing months before most students even begin studying.
Depending on the subject, there's a broad range of times when teachers begin thinking about the exam. Middle and Upper School Spanish teacher Ms. Shawn Fields states that she and other Spanish department members "start thinking about it around January." Upper School biology teacher Dr. Rachel Cox starts envisioning the exam on "the first day of school” and even “maybe the summer before." This promptness comes out of necessity: teachers must structure the exam around the year's curriculum, and therefore they must have a clear vision of the curriculum starting in September. As Dr. Cox puts it, before teaching a course, teachers “definitely [establish] certain basic ideas and concepts, sort of threads that go throughout the whole year, essential ideas, and colors of knowledge in that particular discipline." She explains that she and her colleagues then use those key ideas to “establish a unified idea about what [they] expect the students will be able to show [them]" through taking the exam.
The teachers start creating the questions soon after. Middle and Upper School math teacher Ms. Missi Decker-Alifanz notes that "the actual creation of questions happens around February." For Ms. Fields, the process goes as such: "We'll have the different teachers who are teaching the same level course meet together to discuss where we are, what we want to assess, and what we want to get out of the experience, and then we would write an assessment based on where we are in the curriculum." This procedure was almost identical throughout all subjects.
But a teacher’s work doesn't end once they create the exam. After students have taken the exam, they take on the challenge of grading. For Ms. Fields, the time it takes to grade one exam "depends on the type. For Spanish I, the exam doesn’t have an essay component to it, but if you do, it will take a much longer time. I would usually have an answer key, so I would say 30 minutes to 40 minutes per exam." The time it takes to grade all of the exams depends on the teachers' class size, as well as the number of classes each teacher teaches. Ms. Decker-Alifanz remarks that she grades for "probably a good 3 hours per class."
When I asked the teachers about their opinions on the exams, they all supported the idea of having exams. Dr. Cox explained that many of her students valued the process of going through all their notes from the beginning of the year, consolidating, organizing, and assessing their knowledge. She describes the study process as extremely rewarding, and a beneficial learning technique for students. Ms. Fields shared that the exam is a very good way to evaluate your learning, and as a language teacher, synthesis is crucial. To highlight the importance of not forgetting a unit after you finish it, she says, “I look at it as Lego pieces. We need to build the different layers of the foundation for our proficiency in the language to be strong."
Despite the time and effort that goes into creating and grading an exam, teachers still approve of the idea. As Ms. Decker-Alifanz observes, "The questions we ask on exams are more thoughtful, creative, or cumulative than what we're able to ask on a class period test." Through exams, teachers can use the length of the exam to give students more time to really think through problems, some problems that might not be as straightforward as ones on a quiz or test. Teachers value the lengthened time of the test, the study period beforehand, and the material being displayed. Even though the March exam might feel stressful and challenging for students, the knowledge and practice acquired after an exam make it worth it.
