Get Your Students Hired
Testing needs to be rethought too. Students often understand the information, but can't pass tests. This leads to a return to passive learning. Tests do not care if you understand something or have the information memorized.
Until testing methods are changed passive learning will be the norm.
Hi Ryan,
Nicely stated! A great balance is to use varied teaching methods to reach the different types of learners. You want to reel all of your students in to a level of understanding.
Patricia Scales
All the comments on this are great, and I agree with them all. There definitely needs to be a blend, or balance of styles to ensure everyone in the class can benefit and that no one is left behind. I don't think it's possible to exclusively use one method, there have to be multiple teaching methods and styles employed in order to effectively transfer the information to the various learning styles. As it's been mentioned multiple times in previous comments that some students can perform the hands-on task flawlessly and still fail the written test, or the other way around. Some students are able to fully understand the topic both in theory and practice just from hearing the lecture, but most do require far more than simply being told something in order to comprehend.
Hi Tyler,
Awesome! I am sure where you cater to all types of learners, your students are grasping the concepts. Each student is different, and we need to determine the type of learner the student is, and teaching student according to their learning style.
Patricia Scales
Hi Daniel,
I have seen this as well. Students who have English as a second language typically do not do as well and then on the other hand I have had some students who have English as a second language, they do better than students who have English as their first language. It really depends on the student.
Patricia Scales
I agree that this can be a big issue. Another may just be that English may be a second language to the student (it seems to be happening more and more lately), and the student may understand the verbal and hands-on lessons, but has more to lose "in the translation" while paper testing (no pun intended).
I agree with everybody above. I believe that if you use both active and passive learning, it will help the students do better in the end. Some students learn better one way and some students learn better another. The school at which I am with we also have the added benefit of learning in the classroom and learning in the shop environment and that can get the visual, auditory, and hands on learning students a fighting chance to learn the material and be successful!
Hi John,
I agree! We as educators are too focused on memorization because that is what has been instilled in us. Being able to find how to do something is important as well. I understand your point.
Patricia Scales
Closed book testing is not always the best option. Sometimes it is better to have the skill to look things up. In the courses I teach, you may be working on a lot of things at once and you need to be able to look the specs up for each step you are doing. Not everything is about memorization. With time comes the memory part.
Hi Henry,
I am right there with you! No instructor should want to trick a student. Let's do what we can to help our students gain success. Some people thrive out of making things challenging for others.
Patricia Scales
First I would like to commend the creators of this course. It was definitely my favorite of all those I have completed so far.
Chris has posted here what I have thought many times. I often see quizzes at my facility test a student's reading comprehension ability far more than it tests their retention and understanding of the course material. I don't like when questions are specifically meant to be tricky. Who does that really benefit anyway? Does the creator of the test get a certain type of enjoyment for creating a question that in my opinion is specifically designed to be tricky?
Hi Joe,
This is a good percentage break down to help balance a student's grade. A lot of students can do the hands-on portion, but they do not do well with the written part.
Patricia Scales
Hi John,
Your school may want to look into closed book and have the instructors give thorough reviews and study guides.
Patricia Scales
Much like Andre, where I teach we are both hands-on (active) and lecture. We put a high value on our practical exams and our written test. This is a slight problem for a lot of our students as they are very good at the hands-on part but not great test takers. Even with open book testing, we can have a high failure rate in some classes. Just to add, our passing standards are higher, 80%, because it is open book.
Hi Andre,
I concur! In a perfect world you want your students to understand the theory and hands on, but this is certainly not always the case.
Patricia Scales
Hi Albert,
You must find a good balance between theory/application. Students must understand the theory in order to apply what they have learned. Give students a solid foundation with the theory you share.
Patricia Scales
Hi Keith,
In the technical setting I like to know that my students can fully apply what they have learned.
Patricia Scales
Perhaps your institution limits the means of testing but where I am employed we have both traditional pencil paper testing and hands-on testing as well. So a student who is poor with tests in the traditional sense is not totally sunk if he/she is capable of doing what is ultimately required. It is interesting however to see the vast difference in the results. Many can turn in seemingly perfect labs but when put on the spot to perform show that they truley didn't get it. On the contrary many can perform a task well, but when asked to verbalize the task or make a conclusion about the results they often are unable. There really does need to be a mix of testing styles if therre is going to be a mix of teaching styles.