Carl- We give comprehensive finals for two of purposes that have already been described: 1. to allow questions that show inter-relations among topics 2. to give students a necessity for reviewing everything in the course one last time before the semester ends. I give a fairly detailed breakdown over what to expect (i.e. "control of blood pressure - 4 pts, events of cardiac cycle and ECG - 3 pts, definitions and calculations for cardiac output, efjection fraction - 3 pts. etc"). Our final exam has two parts a regular hour exam over the material since the last exam and the comprehensive part of the exam. Everyone takes the last exam portion but we "exempt" students who have a B+ exam average for the semester from having to take the comprehensive portion of the exam. Everyone would probably benefit from the review of everything covered during the semester, but we use the exemption as an incentive for students to prepare well for the regular hour exams. I had a student who had been struggling this semester pull things together for the final. She was in my office literally every day for the week before the final getting clarifiction on this and that. She actually appreciated that she had the opportunity to demonstrate that she now understood material that she did not understand for the first or second exam. Her attitude toward her own accomplishments increased when she really looked at everything that we had done together over the semester. She is the most recent example of this phenomenon, which I have observed in the past as well. I think of the comprehensive final as a chance of redemption for those who struggled at the start of the course and who didn't really get action potentials the first time through, but who now have a second chance to demonstrate that they DID eventually understand it. If you stick with the concepts and details that you believe are most foundational, studying for the comprehensive final can be a valadiating (although still daunting) experience for students. Margaret W. ________________________________ From: HAPS-L-owner@xxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Carl Shuster Sent: Thu 5/10/2007 3:37 PM To: HAPS-L@xxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [HAPS-L] Comprehensive final exam - pros and cons Hello, everyone, I am right in the middle of putting together my final exam for A&P2. For years, I have given a comprehensive final exam, but I am starting to have second thoughts. I was wondering how many of you give a comprehensive final exam at the end of each semester, and what the arguments for or against might be. I know it is the end of the semester, and I'm not likely to get many responses right now, but I give my comprehensive exam this coming Monday, and the sheer neurosis/stress/panic/hypertension this is causing my students got me to re-evaluate my own arguments for giving one in the first place. Is it worth the angst???? Or am I creating all this tension for nothing? Is it a silly hoop? Discuss..... Carl S (sitting on the fence on this one) Carl Shuster Biology Madison Area Technical College (608) 246-6203 CShuster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.matcmadison.edu/faculty/cshuster/ ============== To manage subscription,send email from the subscription address to imailsrv@xxxxxxxxxxx and in MESSAGE (1) To unsubscribe from HAPS-L, put : unsubscribe HAPS-L, (2)To subscribe from a different address, put : subscribe HAPS-L your_full_name ==============
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