Today my students are experiencing their first laboratory practical exam of the course. They have been nervous wrecks for the last several days in anticipation. If you have not taken a laboratory practical exam, it is set out in an immense space where I have 25 different stations. Each station has four questions, and each station also has some array of body parts, models, tissues, histology slides on microscopes, etc. Students come into the space and sit at a station. They have two minutes to answer the four questions, and then en masse everyone in the room gets up and moves to the next station in numerical order. They then get two minutes to answer the new four questions in front of them. This continues until each student has had their two minutes at each of the 25 stations. 100 points total for the exam..... each blank on the 100 question exam they write the correct structure/part/tissue etc... they earn a point. If they leave a blank or put an incorrect answer..... no points. With perhaps ~750 anatomical structures and parts covered thus far in the semester that they are expected to know/learn.... they have a lot of answers that should be within their mind.
I will begin grading them tomorrow to see how they performed. It is tedious grading.
I like laboratory practical exam days because my role is simply that of a sentinel (to discourage cheating) and as a timer....... in other words.... on this laboratory practical exam day, I only have big-voice lecture for 3.5 hours instead of 9.5. But, in some ways it is mind-numbing to be a sentinel and timer.
I remember long ago as an undergraduate when I experienced one of my own, first laboratory practical exams. I remember my jolly professor doing the same thing as me, but he was able to smoke his pipe during the administration of the laboratory practical exam. I remember the aroma was pleasant and oddly comforting during the exam.
Sadly, of course, that would not be permitted today. Although, until I set aside my own beloved pipes, I would smoke them in my research laboratory and my offices. I still have pipes and tobaccos in both locations.
PipeTobacco
That is a very rigorous exam! I hope your students do well. As a French major with an English minor I did many in-class writes, essays and finals. Although many classmates were terrified of the limited time for the exams/essays, I thrived in that environment; it focused my brain like nothing else could.
ReplyDeleteOne would think that fatigue could become a factor. Have you ever noticed this?
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