Testing at Tables

[Elia Chesnoff]

One concern that I've heard from teachers is how to give formal assessments to students when they are sitting at tables. They ask, "how can we prevent cheating?" The simple straight forward response is: "Could you put up test taking barriers? Or, Can you make two versions of the test - A and B - which you give to the corresponding seat letter? Although I think these are acceptable strategies, it made me think a bit deeper about the question of why students cheat in the first place. My conjecture is that they cheat because they do not know the content and feel desperate not to fail. I can't imagine a student choosing to cheat when he or she is certain of the correct answer or response. With this line of reasoning the best way to combat cheating is to insure that students have mastery over the content by giving them multiple opportunities to interact with the content in different ways. How? Using a variety of structures as a method of distributed practice and formative assessment. The student not only better learns the content and keeps his or her integrity, but also continues to build his or her self-esteem.

[Marinrana]

I like this post here. I'll be sharing the post to get to know each other thoroughly.