I’m not giving any final exams this term.
On the one hand, we tell students to value learning for learning’s sake; on the other, we tell students they’d better know this or that, or they’d better take notes, or they’d better read the book, because it will be on the next exam; if they don’t do these things, they will pay a price in academic failure. This communicates to students that the process of intellectual inquiry, academic exploration, and acquiring knowledge is a purely instrumental activity—designed to ensure success on the next assessment.
Given all this, it is hardly surprising that students constantly ask us if this or that will be on the exam, or whether they really need to know this reading for the next test, or—the single most pressing question at every first class meeting of the term—”is the final cumulative”? —Stop Telling Students to Study for Exams – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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Actually, I agree with you. As a middle school teacher, studying really means memorizing using short term memory. As we move toward "Common Core" standards, I hear we will be more project based, instead of exam driven. That makes more sense, learning to create something, not just learning for exam performance.