Points this term...

After changing to a different format this year we had our Mid-Term exams last week and all teachers are sweating over the pure pain of filling in the points that the students got to the excel spreadsheet we have to hand to school...

One thing that caught my eyes were the fact that this year the mid term test is 15 points, the final exam is 15 points and all I can give is 50 points total... That means that 4 tests in one year makes up 60% of the grade, only 40% of the grade comes from the work students are doing in class...
I wonder what will happen when they find out that???

Can't be right that 6 hours of tests will make up 60 %... in a school year that has 72 hours??? Not a fair system to give points if you ask me, what do you think?

Personally I would like to give them 100% of points in one test at the end of the year!

nakhonsi sean wrote:Personally I would like to give them 100% of points in one test at the end of the year!

Is that just a cover up for stating that you are lazy???

What about projects? Homework? Class participation? What about Language usage? How can you test 60 students for about 5 minutes after a year and then give 100% of the points you hand out???

There should be an even spread of points...

No, would be a three hour test on all we have done for the year. Would force the students to remember and understand everything. With homework, projects etc., they can copy to much or get other students to help them so learn little. A well invigilated exam would mean if they did not know their stuff they would fail!

Fair enough but then the problem would be that they would have a greater chance to fail the course, would it not be better with several progressive tests and then the teacher set the grade according to that + homework and projects and other things that happen during the school year.

It is a bit unfair to have one test and they will get judged by that alone. I agree they would have to remember more and understand more, but what if something happened and they would "forget" everything during that test, it can happen and it does happen.

To set a final grade on a student, sure a long solid test would be preffered, but before that the students should also be evaluated on their work throughout the year, if not, why even bother to study? Why come to class?? Why do homework? Why even copy down what the teacher is saying? Remember that we are not talking about University students here, this is young learners, and no, they do not have the self control to do this by themselves!

I agree with Nakhonsi Sean. Given the problem of copying homework and projects, one exam would force those who care to work harder. They would still have to complete their homework and projects throughout the year to be eligible to sit the exams, and the ones who copied their homework and projects throughout the year would hopefully perform poorly in the exams.

I cant find myself to agree that 100% of the grade should be given in an English subject in 1 test? 1 TEST??? How can you justify that? Why even show up for school, give them the books and then have the test when the teacher is ready... (we are not talking about uni students here...)

I'm basically thinking of my days at school in England with the old 'O' and 'A' levels. You studied for about two years for each of them and marks were based on a single test. Everyone knew if they screwed up the chances of a decent job or university were out the window. Was a great incentive to knuckle down and study hard! There was the chance of resitting them six months later if you were not happy with your marks, though the questions were different of course.

I agree that the tests should be tougher at a higher level but for lower levels it just does not make any sense that it is like this...

For lower levels where the students have to learn alot of silly stuff, that we all know to be useless, we should test them often and they should get points for working during the year.

Once you get above Matthayom 6 there should be a one test possebility, if you don't know it, you don't pass, but up till then, no, there have to be different ways of judging them... 4 tests, 60% of the grade, and how can a teacher that comes at the end of the year give a student 1 grade for the whole year? How can 1 teacher be sure of what the other teachers have taught?

In Thailand as it is now they should have more tests and tighten up the NO COPYING policy... Copy and youre out!

Snowflake wrote:I cant find myself to agree that 100% of the grade should be given in an English subject in 1 test? 1 TEST??? How can you justify that? Why even show up for school, give them the books and then have the test when the teacher is ready... (we are not talking about uni students here...)

You would still need to meet certain criteria before you sit the test. Attendance being the obvious one.

So all you have to do is to show up and then you will be allowed to sit the exam?

Snowflake wrote:So all you have to do is to show up and then you will be allowed to sit the exam?

Yes. And, with any luck the ones who don't prepare for the exams, don't get good results.

I wish it was like that when I was young...

If we are talking about Uni students I agree, but should one do that with Anuban? Prathom? Matthayom? Remember that these are younger and does not understand the importance of attending classes...

When you are older you should be responsible enough, but give it some years before you throw them into the deep end!

I really fail to see the point in giving grade point averages to Prathom students. It just puts undue pressure on them at an early age.

Matthayom is about the right time to start. Remember, in Thailand education is only compulsory up to Matthayom 3. There should be a meaningful national test at age 15. Tests and marks produced by schools are always going to be suspect and open for abuse by the schools. Being Thailand, there is just to much incentive to save face for the school, hence the grades from schools are meaningless as there is to much pressure on the teachers to hand out high marks and pass everyone.

I single national test would overcome this problem.

I guess the whole educational system is wrong here...

And there is nothing we can do about it...

Still, there have to be a better way to grade students than points...
Back home they did try smily faces for a few months... then the teachers went into spasms as they ran out of bad smily faces...

Grades are a good way of telling them where they are in the learning curve, worked for all of us! Or did you not get any grades?

A national test would help alot if it was more of a guideline after ended M3, wait they have it here already!

No, I never received grades from our school. Sure we were tested but there were no actual grades. The tests were just to see how you were doing and to prepare you for the national tests.

Yes, they have national test in the form of O-net and A-net exams but they are poorly implemented and the schools GPA has far to much weighting in the system.

So how to get into university when you have no points???

The universities wants to see how well you do in school, what better way is it to see that???

I seriously doubt that you did not get any grades, there must have been a way that your mum/dad could follow what you are doing...


ps... Back home I did not get grades for the 3 first years in school, then the teacher just wrote down student comments in a grade book, the problem with that was that my mum and dad never believed the teacher. It is easier to see that their little child is doing something and not completely off by looking at a number scale, from 1-4... 3.5 is good, not bad.. 1 is bad, might want to study harder...

I think the system is wrong, BUT it is better than just one test at the end of the year...

If that is the case then the Unis would have to implement their own enterance tests, which in turn would be good for them since they do make more money on them... I know some schools have them but why not stick to the point system in Matthayom? It works... Maybe teach the teachers to be stricter and allow the students to fail would be better...