Cumulative Finals

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welcome to re teach a place where professors know that student equity gap can be closed. And I willing to put in the work to figure it out. We are dedicated to our teaching, and our students were passionate about improving our classrooms and our communities. We can make a difference. We will make a difference. I am your host, Bruce Hoskins, in my mind and heart are ready to learn. So what's up, everyone? So, hey, this episode on final cumulative exams is going to be my final episode for the fall season. I have. Finally, I've decided that I'm going to split it up this way and, um s So there'll be a fall season and, you know, be a spring season, right? And so the next episode Joe here after this is going to come Thursday, I still like Thursday's. It works really well for me, and hopefully it works really well for you. It'll be Thursday, January 23rd. Um, honestly, is just because, you know, the week before that that's when we come back to school and I don't want to hit anybody with any new things during the first week of school. So I'll wait one week before I give you the new stuff, right. So anyway, so let's talk about these final cumulative exams and I'm gonna back this up because I said this before and I will say this again. And I will say this to my dying day and and I mean it when I say it that final cumulative exams are an abomination. Toe learning. Hopefully I said it like that. I didn't do a check, but I'm fairly confident. I said learning not teaching necessarily. They're not an abomination to teaching because they very well may be a reason for us to have to do a final Kimble of exam. However, when it comes to learning student learning, I would argue that this is an abomination. This this does not promote student learning the material. Okay, and here's the deal is that we actually know this. We actually know this just from our own experiences of what not, But this is what the research says. Research says that if you have a standard, you know, multiple, you know, let's say 100 multiple choice Kimble of final or something like that. And that's a student. Eight days spent all this time studying for this after they take the exam 24 hours later. If they don't study anymore, right and you gave them that same basic exam is that they will have dropped 50% of the knowledge that the, you know, off the things that they have remembered. Within 24 hours, they will have dropped 50%. Now, for some folks, it will be more for other folks. It'll be less. But the idea, though, right with this research is saying, is that Look, if this is your your style, that this is your thing, please don't expect students to remember what you know. They jammed into their head what they crammed in their head while they're doing this Kimble of final because 24 hours later, they will have dropped 50% about 50% of what it is today crammed into their head. Now, here's the deal. The same research said Okay, So what do you what percentage do you expect them to remember a year later? And like the percentages like like less than 1% they will remember less than 1% of what it is that you had them cram into their head. And so this is This is me saying And you know, in making the statement of saying that cubicle finals are an abomination to learning, not necessarily teaching, but learning. And now let's think about this, you know, from an equity perspective. Is that poor students? Because let's think about this. Why do we do criminal finals? Well, I don't know why you do a community final, but I'm just saying it's like because what we know about Cumulative Finals is that it takes a lot more time to prepare for cumulative final. It just does. And it's like, You know, if a regular test takes two hours to study for in your class, then accumulate Final is gonna take probably anywhere between, like six hours to 8 to 10 hours, depending on how deep you roll on your killer final and how much guidance you give to the students on that Cuban the final. And so then I have a question for you. If you know it takes more time to study for a cumulative final, then who do you think you affect while you affect people that don't have a whole bunch of time and that again comes back to the student who's working the lower social economic student who has to work, not remember. Most students are working, most students are working. However, poor students have to work. And so when you construct ah, Final, where there is studying anywhere between 3 to 6 times more than what they would normally study in a week. Whoa, Now you've just affected. You've affected how much time they have to study, right? And so not only that, but here we are. And this is the reason why I'm picking on finals, right? Accumulative test. Or, you know, if you wanted to do it in the middle of the semester of something like that, Well, that's kind of a hit or miss type of situation. But when it comes to finals, well, all of us are giving finals also all at the same time. And so if you have a cumulative final and there this student is taking four classes and all four of these classes have cumulative finals, Well, now you've just multiplied their entire workload by a factor of three or six or however much it is. And my question to you is is that what we're trying to do? Are we trying to make poor students who are dependent on their jobs? Are we trying to inhibit their progress? Because to me, right, this is not necessarily about teaching or is not about learning, right? It's not. That's doing a cumulative final doesn't have, I would argue, doesn't have anything to do with student learning. But it might be something that you need to teach, and so and to separate these two things out. So this really does break down into Why is it that you would have a cumulative final, right? If the idea is that you you're gonna make this because clearly what we're doing is we're making it harder, right? We're making the end of the semester harder, and my my question always comes back to. Is there a purpose and a reason for that? If there is purpose and there is reason to knock yourself out, make it happen, do that thing. But if there's not a purpose and a reason, that's what we have to come back, and we have to think about what is it are we doing that's creating these inequities and despite you know, disproportionately impacting certain groups of people, right? We have to come back to that space. Why are we making this harder when it doesn't have to be harder? If if If the goal is about student learning, it doesn't have to be harder. It doesn't have to be harder in order for students to learn. But sometimes it does have to be harder in order to teach something right way might have to teach something that so then the time that it is wholly appropriate to me in order to have a cumulative final is when you're preparing them for a test that is like this, if you would. So here's here's an example. I didn't explain that very well. But if you're if you're in a class, if you're teaching s a T, then yes, the students should have to take an S a T in order to prepare for the S A T tape of deal like, Right, So and so if you're I hear about this and like nursing or something like that, it's like, Well, there's a test. There's a There's a cumulative test that they have to pass right multiple choice tests. They have the past in order to be able to get into nursing and not only get into nursing, but also to I think it's to get their degree or something like that of the final thing. But that is some cumin, a live test or whatever. Well, it's like, OK, well, then you need to teach them how to take that test. You're right. Hopefully, that actually makes sense. You need to teach them how to take that test. If that's the goal, I would argue, You know, it's like I argue with, you know, whoever it is I need to argue with to say that's not the best way to measure what students know and how they live and what they've learned. However, if that's your bar, if you have this Cuba live test or whatever that that that has to be prepared for them, by all means. By all means, prepare your students for that test, by all means. However again, I'm gonna come back to this and I'm gonna keep coming back to this. If the reason why you have a cumulative final is to, you know, to try to make them remember it well that the research already told you, it's like that That's not what's gonna happen. You're not gonna make students remember anything by making it harder for them at the end. When they're jamming all this stuff into their heads, they're not gonna remember any of that, all right? It's like they're never gonna remember very little of that. If your rationale as to why you're doing this is because you went through it Well, then, come on. Now, this is why you listening to re teach in the first place, right? Is to say is like, Yeah, that's that's just because I went through it doesn't mean that other people have to go through it right. It's like, let me think about how ridiculous that is. When you actually put that to the test is like because I went through it and I learned from it. Then that means everyone should go through it. Was I? Well, then that means that I mean shoot. That means that people should go through slavery in order to learn what slavery is about it. That means that people should have their, you know, genitals mutilated in orderto have them understand and get to the spit. No, no, no. That doesn't need to happen. It doesn't need to happen that way. We can do better. That's why we do what we do. That's why you listening to me hopefully and helping me become better and do better things in a classroom, right? And so anyway, and so poor students to me, is like that's That's the low hanging fruit. But the other parts of this is that, you know, we're also doing a disservice to students with alternative learning styles. Remember, I don't like using a word learning disabilities, but so so then, you know, students were alternative learning styles. You're making things really hard on them, right? S so you know, that's that's part of the drill. And and then students were test anxiety, right? And it's like whether this is diagnosable tonight and everything, it's like we just were literally amping up their anxiety there in the space. And, you know, I know like I said, a lot of folks is like, Well, I went through the same thing. And so therefore, and this light look, I'm not saying that making things harder doesn't benefit folks at times. What I'm saying is, is that making things harder doesn't necessarily promote student learning, right? Not only that, but I don't think that people really think about like, the fact that a lot of students, especially community college students, they go through a lot of K through 12 trauma that they've been traumatized by the K to 12 system is. So then they're not just taking this test that they're they're literally reliving their past when they're taking this test and when they don't do well, it's, you know, a reaffirmation, if you would, of off all the negative things that they took on and they took on, you know, they've been socialized to indicate to 12 systems. So I really, really, really want us to get back to a space. Will we appreciate and understand that just because we went through it ourselves, it doesn't mean we have to put our students to it. And just by making something harder, it doesn't mean that they're gonna remember anything better. It doesn't mean that they're gonna remember Maur or whatever. As a matter of fact, they'll probably learn a zoo matter fact. They will learn less. They will learn less by doing this. And so then what can we do about this right. And so, look, I'm gonna keep coming, but do you really need a couple of final? Do you really need that? Right. So if the answer is yes, because you're preparing them for some standardized tests they're gonna take on later on. Well, that's that's that is what it is. I can't do anything about that. But if you're if not, then why not just have a regular test, right? I mean, if you got you know, it's like you got 12 chapters to cover in a semester. And why not have the last test Just cover the last re chapter? You know, you split it up into four. You know, exams. What not? Why not? Just have the last exam. Be representative of what you've been doing throughout the whole semester? Why not? I'm just just throwing that out there. And however, look, I'll tell you this is that if you're gonna do that method, then then you don't want to design your class around Dropping an exam, right? Is like, you know, when you when you design a class around dropping an exam, you know, that's a lot of ways that we want to try to help students with their grades and, you know, and to try to increase that student success is dropping an exam. I get that right. But think about that, right? If you don't have a killer final than dropping an exam means that they didn't have to, like steady ah, whole section of the class on what? Not in order to be able to still pass. And that's not the gold. The gold is still learning, right? It's like we still want students to learn it. So right, think about that. It's like if you don't want to have a cumulative final, then you need to. You need to have a different structure on grading that. I would argue that you don't know that you don't want a structure on grading where you drop unexamined because you know of the consequences of that space where they literally wouldn't have to even study or be in class. For that, however, you know that section, if you would, and so that's something to think about right. It's like if you're if you're going to not have a cumulative final, this is a design issue. It is a design issue, right? As so, then also how many points are you putting on this on this final, right? And so if you, I mean, think about it. So not only are you gonna put in a cumulative final, but then you like, and then we double, if not triple the point value of this versus the other exams and sling. And so this is now again way more anxiety. For what? It's always going to come back down to what? But what for What? Why are we doing this? And so then for me, if you're gonna put a higher value on it like I said, yeah, you just have to do everything on purpose and with purpose. If you put a higher point value on it, I put put a higher point value on my final also. So I don't want you thinking that I don't do certain things. I just want us to think about what is it that we do and why we're doing it. And so I put a higher point value. But I'm doing that in order to try to make sure that I'm either that I help the students on their grade because since I have in my stats class I have, like, eight exams, and so and so I try to. So what I'm doing is I want the final to be ableto affect their grade by one letter grade. So that's why I'm putting more points into that space I want to. So if they do really well, I want their grade to be able to come up. But then also, if they do really poorly, I want their grade to come down. And so then, lastly, I want to talk about just a different type of Kimble live final. Okay, Because this is something that I now do in my introduction to sociology class. And that is I give them, um it's a take home essay. And the question that I asked him is tell me three things. The most important three things that you learned in this class. Now here's the deal before anyone gets themselves all bent out of shape is that I remember like this. So if you're questioning the validity of like having them do this right, it's like because remember, I focus on and I want us to focus on student learning, like, what did they learn, right? Versus Do they remember what I taught him. It's a very different model, right? Think about that. And just saying It's like this this this model of focusing on students, learning well, it should cause us to do different things in a classroom, right? And this is one of them is that my final is literally just a you name, the three most important things that you learn in the class. And I tell him, Look, you know what? When I was going in graduate school, there were four questions that I had to do over a weekend. And one of those questions, right was, well, tell me what you think is important. Tell me what's the most important thing in race and ethnicity for people to understand from your perspective? And so I really feel like there's a lot of value in just getting students just reflect on what it is today learn or what is it that they think is important? And so that's me. And I'm saying when you do this, it essentially becomes a cumulative final right because they literally can pull from any of their experiences throughout the semester. So that's part of it now. Of course, they're students that really just focus on the last few things that they learned What not but their most students. Most of my students actually go all the way back to the beginning in order to talk about the sociological imagination in order to talk about how race and racism, effects and sex sexism effects our interactions with each other. And they'll do things like that versus just focusing on the last things which talk about, like education and family and whatnot, which is that's not a bad thing. It just It just is as so and giving them that lead way. They will go all the way back to the beginning versus me saying, Hey, the social article imagination important and constructing a final that make sure you know, that that they learned that it was like, Look, if I've done my job correctly, which I feel like I feel strongly that I have there's no way that they're not using their sociological imagination by the end of the semester, and so I don't feel any need for them to remember that phrase for the rest of their lives, if you would, what I want them to do is remember the technique and to remember what we learned and remember what they've learned do their whole life right and whatnot is So. That's why I asked the question the way that I do. And with a question like that, you need to help students out because some of them really want structure. And that's that's my biggest critique. I'm gonna let you all know it was like the biggest critique from from certain students, not all of them nowhere close to all students and most of the vast majority of students. They really you know, whatever agree. They appreciate my style. But there's some students who want in need structure. And so it's like I s So I tell them it's like, Hey, you know what? If you if you want to answer this in the most straightforward way possible, pick three concepts and, ah, you know, picked three constants that we talk about in class and Orrin Textbook and just give me examples of what? What is it that was important to you and why that was important to you? S So that's just a you know, the most straightforward way. But I also tell them it's like, OK, so that's the stand. That's a standardized way of answering that. But you know, if the most important thing that you learned in my class was about poetry, because I have a client just like we do a lot of poems in my class, then talk about that. All right, if the most important thing was this, you know, certain workshops that I didn't class of certain activities that I did in class or, you know, things like that. Then that's what winds up being to meet like this, like Cool. Well, you learn something. You did learn something and it was valuable. And look, it happened in the sociological context, right? That's just the space that they keep on. Trying to get us back to write is that analyzing your social world, understanding that what you learned is valuable and, you know, and just telling me, what is it? Did you learn? And, um and look, the vast majority of people are answering about things, and it's like it's all things that they learned in class. And these are things that they've felt is valuable. And so that's why this is a value to me, right? Ondas wives valid and regards to, ah, grading system and what not? And so then you know. So when we think about cumulative finals, can we think about them differently? Can you do something like that? I don't know. I don't know what your discipline is. I don't know what the rigor is of it. You know, the requirements I should say, not recur because this is hard. But they still have to write an essay. They still have to be reflective and all of this stuff. But it may sound easy, but if they do, if they've been, you know, participation, participating throughout the semester, then all of a sudden this is like a space where they get a summarize and wrap up everything that they've they've learned versus me, trying to dictate to them what they should have learned. Hopefully, that makes sense. But that's really really it is a different model, right? In regards like teaching, focusing on teaching students something versus focusing on what students have learned. So this is pretty much all I have for Camila finals. You know, hopefully you learn something and all of this stuff have you been, you know, listening to every single one of these episodes are really appreciate that. I know some people want to get caught up in everything. And so because remember, this is I'm taking a break. Um, and I will come back Thursday, January 23rd. And you know, just the foreshadow what was coming, you know, in the in the spring season is that make sure it's like, you know, of course I'm gonna talk about student equity because that's what we're doing here. I'm going to make sure that I do some episodes regarding how teachers of color have affect my life in the same way that I've did. You know how white teachers have affected my life? I'm gonna definitely do how people of color have affected my life. I'm definitely gonna go Maur into classroom design and connecting all of this stuff. I really want to spend some time focusing on how teaching philosophy manifests itself into teaching technique. On what? Now, Another thing I'm gonna make sure I do is talk about creative assignments. That's something that I'm actually really surprised that I didn't cover in the first season in the fall season. And so I'm gonna make sure that I do that because I do a lot of creative projects I allow, I should say, for creative projects in class. And so and then I also have, you know, poems that I actually have students write poems in my intro class. And so, like I said, I'm really surprised I didn't do that in the first season, but I'll make sure I do that. And then, lastly, I want to bring in some more interviews, You know, some some folks to give us some different perspectives. And I'm definitely going to bring in folks from the stem field to talk about things that we can all do in order to affect student equity. Because, you know, I think I mentioned to you that, you know, I had a little dust up and regards to me offending some stem folks under what now, But but good things actually happen when that group and I, we talked with each other and some really good things. Really positive things happened in that space, and I want to share that through the podcast and everything and make sure that people understand. It's like, Look, I'm not picking on on anyone. I just want us t get better at teaching and to really use student equity as a lens toe look toe, look at our teaching in order to try to help as many of our students as we possibly can. And so, anyway, that's all I got for this this episode. That's all I got for this season. I will check you back out on Thursday, January 23rd piece. Thank you for listening to this episode of Re Teach. If you want to learn more about me or my open source introduction to sociology textbook, please go to Bruce Hoskins dot com In closing. I want to leave us all with the question. If you learn something today that you think would help closure student equity gaps, how long would it take to incorporate this into your classroom? A year, A semester? Next month. Today, no matter the time table, we must commit ourselves to becoming better. Teachers are students deserve it. All of them, not just the ones that are good already