<p>This came up on the "Something Wicked..." thread and Faline thought it would be a good idea to start a new thread. So...here I go.</p>
<p>I teach a freshman reading comp class and US History (not AP). I do not give comprehensive finals in history, but do in the reading comp class. My DDs are both taking three APs and higher level math classes in which they will have comprehensive finals..I am glad they will be getting that prep for college. </p>
<p>The final I give in US allows the students to show,in depth, what they know about one of the units I have taught and to share that knowledge with the rest of the class. It works for my student population.</p>
<p>The reading class, being a skills based curriculum, dictates a comprehensive final so that's what they get.</p>
<p>As a parent I have no trouble with my kids having project based finals in electives and non-AP classes but I expect them in the APs and in Math.</p>
<p>My high school required final exams in all courses and my kid's high school does too. There's a week devoted to exams and then, because my kids are in NY another two weeks or so devoted to Regent's exams, which can cover more than a year's worth of materials. In courses with Regent's exams scheduled there aren't usually separate high school exams. To me, it seems much more logical to have a final in US History than in composition. It's easy enough to make a final exam. Some multiple choices or short answer, some Identifications, some essays or DBQs.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, very few of my finals in college were comprehensive - especially in my science classes. They usually were just another unit test, or, 1/2 the test was over material from earlier in the year and the other 1/2 was material that had been covered since the previous test. Of course, most of my science professors avoided a true mid terms (1 mid term, 1 final) in favor of 3 or 4 tests and an exam during the scheduled finals period. So in reality, any comprehensive exams in HS weren't accurate. Further, when I did have comprehensive finals in HS, the teachers would prepare study guides and things to help us prepare. In college when I did have comprehensive exams, they didn't do this unless TA's tried to put it together. So even then, the HS experience wasn't particularly helpful.</p>
<p>The way my medical school curriculum was set up, there are no comprehensive finals, and even my friends at other schools in which the curriculum is more similar to undergrad than mine, they don't have finals either. Of course Step 1 of the USMLE kind of takes care of that role for the entire first two years...studying for that is 6 weeks of my life that I'd really enjoy having back.</p>
<p>I'm also a high school history teacher--APUSH, regular US History 11, and honors world history. I substitute a semester project (National History Day, which if it is done well, is an enormous amount of work for students) for a comprehensive exam first semester. I do worry some about the time involved for AP students in the NHD project, but I just can't ignore the original research element of historical studies, even though it is not reflected on the exam, and actually I think it lets students more confidently tackle the DBQ, since they have a lot of experience working with documents. My own daughter did NHD for two years and did well at the national level, and I think that is one of the reasons she was very successful in her college applications even though her stats were not particularly high. More importantly, I knew that if she could do that kind of work in high school I could sign up to pay out a third of my income in tuition without any qualms, because I knew she was prepared.</p>
<p>In regular US and honors world, we have standardized end-of-course assessments for all students in our school system, and students in APUSH are required to take the US history exam, which only addresses the time period of the regular course (1877-present). In APUSH second semester I do give an additional semester exam that also includes material from the first semester, and it consists of questions I've pulled from released MC portions of past AP exams plus additional items I write. My thinking is that if I'm preparing students to take the AP exam (and my success as a teacher is measured by students' AP scores, which are analyzed in detail at all levels of our school system), there should be something within my course and grading that is comparable to that. </p>
<p>It's been a while since my own college years, but I recall mostly comprehensive exams. In my grad program at Whitworth, a school I've discussed with you, in addition to regular comprehensive exams in most courses, we also had special comp exams. I don't remember now if it was two or three, but we picked from a list of approved comp exam courses and scheduled the exams starting in the second semester after we had taken the courses, so at least a year later. I do remember filling two and a half blue books for the historical/philosophical foundations of ed comp!</p>
<p>My daughter is finishing her first semester next week, and she has final papers in two classes (a linguistics-themed first-year seminar and another one I can't think of at the moment), and comprehensive finals in Russian and computer science.</p>
<p>Our h.s. has comprehensive exams for all classes except AP's due to AP exams. </p>
<p>The rub to that is that AP exams don't count toward the student's final grade but the comprehensive exams for regular and honors classes count a whopping 25% of the final class grade. </p>
<p>Our system pays for all AP exams so there is no monetary investment for the students and some just view it as a day off sch. with an exam they have to sit through. </p>
<p>So the APUSH student can make an "A" all year long, blow off the exam and make a 2 but still keep his "A" for APUSH final grade whereas an Honors US History student may have an "A" all year and say it's a low A, he makes a low B on the exam and gets a "B" for the the final. That part of it just doesn't seem fair to me.</p>
<p>Renee...so have you all started talking about Conflict and Compromise yet?? Our situation is different. w/ a school population of <500 9-12th graders most of us core teachers are the only option at our grade level. ie there is only one teacher per subject per grade. I am the only non-AP option for US history therefore I am awarded a lot of autonomy. I can see where it would be important to have a standardized testing and grading policy if you were not the only show in town. I am grateful that I am able to work alone.</p>
<p>We don't do History Day per se, but the 11th grade Eng teacher, the APUSH teacher and I work together to have our students write a research paper on the HD theme. Eng teacher scores it for MLA content and we history teachers look at content. </p>
<p>Pack mom I agree, that doesn't seem fair. How would they fix that other than by doing away w/ the comp final?</p>
<p>Our HS had not only comprehensive finals, but ability grouped classes in math & English. So the kids in all the classes took the same final, but the kids in the easier math class might have been earning an A all along, ut when they took the final and could not do the more difficult concepts, it averaged out to a fair range of grades. The kids in teh most difficult course had done work in class which was not even on the final, their final would tend to boost their grade!</p>
<p>It actually worked out quite fairly, no need for all the farsical weighting of classes, honours or not, who took band and got a lower average, etc. By the time the term was over, you learned to mastery all through the year, building some confidence or stretching yourself, but still faced the same final as every one else and the rankings were remarkably right on.</p>
<p>In the same area D finds finals at university to be 35-60% of her grade, with that 60% being a tough science course!</p>
<p>I have nothing against the comp. final, just think it should not count for such a large percentage of the final grade. Also at our school, the first semester exams are given 10 days after returning from Christmas break. It would be so much better for the kids if they didn't have to go back to school after the holidays and gear up for exams immediately.</p>