Grafton Globe Newspaper
Winter 2020 Edition
It is being suggested—however, nothing has been confirmed—that there will be a change to the way that we, as students, are formally tested during the middle and end of the year—our midterms and finals. The suggested plan for next year is that there will be no midterms and a different way to test students in place of a final. No more stressful and intense studying nor last minute cramming. No more impractical stopping in the middle/end of the school year to get assessed on topics that you already learned. The proposed plan also includes getting rid of the 90% or above requirement in order to avoid the final since the standard way of taking an end of the year assessment will be changed.
In our interview with Mr. Pignataro, he explained to us the reasons behind the ideas for what is happening. In addition, there is a board of teachers who suggested the change, and they will ultimately be the ones to decide all of the adjustments. The thought behind the midterms and finals is that there is almost no difference between these huge tests and the normal tests that students take throughout the year. Having a midterm and final is the equivalent to memorizing information, then just repeating it, rather than knowing the information by heart. Mr. Pignataro notes that, “We have found that the grades on finals have been significantly lower,” and that we as a school system “base so much on a grade. Grades are a big thing that is a big focus and it shouldn’t be,” Mr. Pignataro explained. “That’s where our education system is so wrong. Is it about studying or is it about learning?” It is also stressed that by taking away midterms and finals, it will leave more days for teachers to teach students the course material. “With that extra week of school, we would gain more instructional days,” Mr. Pignataro told us. “To me, that’s a beautiful part of it: we are going to gain more time.” Extra teaching days are quintessential for AP courses, since they have more information for their AP tests, and less time to learn it. What is proposed is that we remove midterms and replace the finals with assessments that will properly evaluate a student's knowledge on the course. An example that Mr. Pignataro proposed is replacing the final with an exam such as a lab or presentation. This way, the student’s knowledge is portrayed in a way that is more interactive and prone to showing what the student learned rather than selecting a multiple choice or fill in the blank. “We want kids to be able to demonstrate they don’t understand how [the material] can apply to real life.” By making these modifications to our midterms and finals, Grafton High School hopes to change the way students look at learning in general. Although none of the said above is official, there have been meetings and discussions about what this change will bring and how this will change the curriculum. For faculty, it will bring more academic days to teach the full course. It gives a chance to bring more for students to learn and a chance to fully assess all the material needed to be covered before finishing the year. Mr. Pignataro believes that by making changes like this he is “[giving] kids an opportunity to learn.” It is creating a learning atmosphere based on absorbing knowledge and not just memorizing. He hopes to see a change in viewing how kids perform. Teachers will be given the choice to have midterms and finals. Right now, we are given about an hour to do each, and without the exam weeks, we would have the class period of 45 minutes. If your teacher decides to give you the midterm or final, then it is their choice on how they approach it. Students showing what is learned can be done in many ways and hopefully, in future years, students will be able to express this in different methods. The finals and midterms are well known for being stressful and grade droppers. They are used to prove that children know the information. But it has been proven people need to learn the information to know it, not just memorizing it. To keep knowledge is not to repeat it ten times over; to truly understand a topic is to truly comprehend it. With the changes to midterms and finals, I believe that there could be a change in more than just grades, but to the students as well. Maybe this could be the first step in changing the way kids learn. We have already seen a change in curriculum to try and provide a positive learning space, hopefully we can apply the facts of comprehension vs. memorization to the way it is taught.
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February 2020
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