My director recently asked how I felt about having students given oral exams by a teacher they weren't used to. For example my students would be assessed by some other teacher and I'd assess his/her students. I said that would be fine. The important thing is that all students in a class are assessed by the same criteria and person since each class is curved.
By curved, I mean each class can have x number of As, x number of Bs, etc. which is really bad as a student might end up with an A in one class but the same student might have received a C in another class. It all depends on how well the other students do.
I don't like it because it's like saying that only some students can be good and some have to be bad. That's not motivating where I come from...
Posted by James Trotta at January 3, 2004 9:46 AMConsistancy or reliability is important in the exam,but so is familiarity with the teacher. If a student is being assessed by a teacher they have not interacted with then they are likely to be reticent and make more mistakes.
I think it is a bad idea, but even worse is curving grades. There is an interesting article about the validity of grades in Macleans magazine. http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/education/article.jsp?content=20040112_73072_73072
Posted by: Sean at January 13, 2004 12:40 AMESL blog is one of many Blogs for learning English & teaching English. Translation services information.