Teacher tip: How to make an exam

The most important reason why I have never been a good student is undoubtedly that I never liked exams. I find exams to be too constraining, and not at all adapted to the diversity of ways of learning. 

Some people grow with intense desires to fit in society and base a great part of their self-steem in the proud of being good in their social roles: a student with high marks, a perfect girlfriend, a devoted daughter, self-sacrifising mother later on, etc. Other people, like me, find most insatisfaying to do things like everyone else, and to comply with expectations. These people base their self-satisfaction in the conscience of being distinct and original. 

These are only two of the many stereotypes that we can propose to group the variety of psychological caracters. In this way, just as different people has different personalities, different students have different ways of learning. We can imagine various kinds of students, and guess what would be their most adapted way of learning. 

If you find this interesting, you should definitely watch the enlightening Sir ken Robinson's Ted talks on education:

• Bring on the learning revolution
• Do schools kill creativity?
• How to scape education's death valley?

I was lucky enough to study in a Waldorf-style school with Steiner methology, where I learnt that I could be an excellent student if I was evaluated with a school project, teamwork, research work or practical applications, and a mediocre one if I was evaluated only with exams. 

Unhappily, most of our education systems do not provide teachers with the means for dealing with the variety of student personalities, and most teachers, like me, have to continue with the traditional ways of grading through exams. After 18 years of teaching and evaluating experience, I realise how exam results are often dependent on the way of making the exam, for both teachers and students. And maybe this is due to the fact that none is taught how to make an exam. Few students get to understand the upmost importance of presentation: caligraphy, structure, relation between parts, highlining, clarity. Few students are sensitive enough to give teachers what they want, and do a teacher-oriented exam. In the same way, few teachers are willing to do a student-oriented exam, where students clearly know what is expected from them and how to do it. 

I believe this reciprocal lack of understanding in the process of evaluation through exams is the source of a great part of issues: firstly, the fact that grades do not accurately reflect the student's learning. Secondly, students who are not sure of the accuracy of their answer, lack confidence in their habilities and consequently lose motivation.

So, if you are a teacher like me, and you have to do exams, you might find this tips helpful on how to do a student-oriented exam:

1. Be aware that exam evaluations are sustainable process: preparation of students, making of exam, correction and notation. 
2. Students embrace their mistakes after evaluation, and in consequence, finishing a learning unit after a exam, would only leave in students a conscience of failure, and would not give them the opportunity for learning, that is, for doing it right. 
3. The exam must evaluate skills and knowledges, not the exam itself. That is: the form should not make the exam difficult. For doing so,
• write questions in the clearest way
• insist on what is not straightforward or usual for students
• explicit every detail​​
• translate questions into student's native language
• add a table for schematic info so that the students do not forget any information
4. When grading the exams, think to
• explicit the points of each question
• make the total be a round cipher to ease final calculation
• do not force the total of points to be the same as the final notation. For an exam notes on 20, you can have a final number of 30 or 40 points and then do an easy final transformation of the marks.
• instead of giving decimal marks (0,25, 0,3, etc.), give entier number, which are more easier to add up. Then, do the final calculation for a final mark.
• Add squares for the marks of each question. They will allow you to identify quickly the points to add up.
• Guide the students in the sheet space to frame their answers