I agree completely with John Lynch that comprehensive final exams are very
important.  Based on my own experience as a student, and on decades of
experience giving comprehensive finals, I believe that students who study
for comprehensive final exams remember the material much better than
students who do not.  I am disturbed when I hear that in some classes,
students are given the option of skipping a comprehensive final exam as a
"reward," either for a high end-of-semester average or some other reason.
Presumably, we all think that what we are teaching is worth learning--and
worth remembering even after the semester is over.  "Rewarding" a good
student so that he or she is less likely to remember what we have taught
them strikes me as a bad idea.  What, after all, is the purpose of going to
school if it is not to remember what one has been taught?

Betsy Darken

>Dear Community of Scholars:
>
>One of the things I carried away from the retreat last year was that
>students can hold a lot of information in short term memory.  If you're not
>giving comprehensive finals there may be little left for students to carry
>out of the class.  If people prepared for athletic events the way many
>study for exams the sweats wouldn't go on until the day before.
>
>Hope to see you at the Instructional Excellence Retreat.  The process can
>be great.
>
>Cheers,
>
>John
>
>John A. Lynch, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry
>Department of Chemistry, #2252
>University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
>Chattanooga, TN 37403-2598
>
>
>Office:        437 Grote Hall
>Phone:      (423) 755-4491
>Fax:          (423) 755-5234
>Email:        [log in to unmask]



Mathematics Department, #6956
UT-Chattanooga
615 McCallie Ave, Chattanooga, TN  37403
Phone:423-755-4580;Fax: 423-755-4586; Email: [log in to unmask]