Testing huh, what is it good for?
Danielle Myburgh's recent post on the utility of examinations, made me wonder if their is any use for examinations in this age of education. Danielle posed many questions in her why style. Danielle is skeptical towards the effectiveness of examinations. However, their is evidence to suggest that exams enhance learning in a way that studying topics alone cannot. My students moan about my chemistry class. Every Friday, I require students to take a test. Every single Friday. With so much riding on test results for both teachers and students, the external examinations required by the Cambridge system my school employs appears to encourage more cheating than learning. At best, they foster memorization, but at the expense of originality and critical thinking. The dreaded teaching to the test. Today, information can be more easily—and accurately— searched online than mentally recalled, old-fashioned testing strikes its critics as obs...