In regard to comprehensive final exams, I tend to agree with Ed Smith.

Further, to advocate comprehensive finals in and of themselves without
regard
to the level of thinking activity called for, I believe is to miss the
point of education.
For example, I could ask comprehensive questions that only access the
lowest
level thinking activity ("knowledge" in Bloom's hierarchy) by having
students define, list, identify, label, match and select.  This would do
possibly a
good job of testing memory.

Back to John Lynch's original post on this topic, referring to the
Instructional
Excellence Retreat last year.  I was there and do not recall learning
what John did
about comprehensive final exams.  What I remember learning is that
asking students
to summarize what they have learned is one of the best learning
exercises that we can
ask of our students.

I'm interested in knowing how to improve learning. Does anyone know of
research
that demonstrates that comprehensive final exams improve students'
learning?


JIM


--
---------                         "Forgive everyone,
Jim Henry                          Forgive everything."
e mailto:[log in to unmask]                --Morrie
Web site http://chem.engr.utc.edu/jim-henry
College of Engineering and Computer Science
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, Tennessee 37403  USA
phone 1-423-755-4398
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