final-exam

I recently read Daisy Christadoulou’s new book “Making Good Progress? The future of Assessment For Learning”. It was a good read and helped clarify several questions or ideas I’ve had about assessment in education. In her book, Christodoulou discusses why formative assessment hasn’t delivered the goods, the pitfalls of invalid summative assessments, and how to improve both of these. It’s worth noting that the generalities of Christodoulou’s book apply for everyone but there are some things that are specific to England’s education system.

It’s that time of year again where the courses start to wind down. Which leads to the most anticipated question of the year. “Will there be a final exam?” This can be a tricky question at the best of times. For my grade 9 science students, it’s beyond tricky. There are lots of arguments to be made about final exams. I don’t want to do a complete analysis of these arguments but I would like to say what I think the various pros and cons are.