Final Exams An Outdated Practice and What We Can Do Stephen Parisi TEDxGrandCanyonUniversity

we have an epidemic within our education system and it affects everyone here especially us as students our schools have lost track of what is most important and what we should be focusing on our current focus is upon grades and whether or not student will pass or fail and because of this this is the message that our generation is receiving we are hearing that failure is unacceptable our Focus needs to be something different and it has to change it has to be on whether or not our students and our future students value their education and value their learning and from that we can build upon some great things and think because of our current Focus we have some pretty sad statistics that need to share with you the current high school dropout rate in the US is at about 6% of high school students here in Arizona the dropout rate for high school students is at about 7.8% and before you can let that settle it hits even closer to home and gets personal because here in Phoenix only 36% of high school students will be attending university and of that 36% it isn't for certain if they're going to graduate I'm here to ask you simple question why why is it in one of the most developed and flourished countries we have this epidemic present to gain some perspective on the situation want everyone here to think back to when you were in high school think back to your algebra 1 class you're sitting down you're probably messing around with your calculator CU that's all we really did and I'm going to ask you something simple why did you study why was it that for four years of your high school education you chose to study think that within three reasons can sum up most of your answers reason number one is Parental figures would say most people have parental figures who at least want us to do well in school and get good grad and along with that it is in our best interest as students to not get grounded over the weekend and in order for that to happen we need the grades reason number two does come extracurriculars sports are major part of our high school culture and we get excited about it and in order for our Tom Brady to play in the state championship come back in the second half for the win we need him on the field with the right grades and that's how he's going to do it and along with sports does come music and the Arts for myself music was big motivator to continue my education and reason number three is quite simple it's just grades would not be standing here if didn't have the right GPA to attain certain scholarship to be on the stage and along with that does come final exams and before the students start stressing out and everyone else rejoices for being done with finals let it sit for sec and with grades in mind and scholarships would like to cue the ushers from the right side of the Arena the left and the back to start passing the offering place to support that Steven needs to go to education and be an educator Foundation no I'm just kidding wouldn't do that but if you want to be no I'm just kidding I'm just kidding and so with this said think these reasons are fine by themselves I'm not saying they're bad they're good motivators but they have one simple problem with them all in common extrinsic motivation I'm not saying that this reward-based motivation is bad mean we use it in our daily lives just did it last night for instance have laundry and the reward and the reason am motivated to do that laundry is the reward of clean clothes but think when that's the only kind of motivation for instance grades within our schools there is big big issue so let's take for an example the student who does not have pre prevalent parental figures and further what if he or she is not involved in sports or extracurriculars should we expect that student to be motivated and should we expect this dropout rate to start lowering to 1% think there's this sad reality that we have this big group of students who simply cannot be motivated to the level we want them to be we have this huge standard that every students has to be at the same level every day of class when in reality the rest of the students who can't be motivated are down here and they can't get highed what we need so desperately is intrinsic motivation we need students who say want to be in school because value learning and want to know more and pursue an education that's all intrinsic motivation is you are motivated because you find personal enjoyment out of what you do and that's what we need for those students with that said I'm not telling you that have some Perfect Solutions will lower the dropout rate to 1% am here to say that have idea and somewhere to start because we it needs to start now so let's go back to the final and students stop what you're thinking know you looked at the title and it said final exams and outdated practice no uh-uh we're not taking it away and before you stop listening because as student I'm saying we need finals that's crazy give me it to explain there are three main reasons for the final exam and plenty of others but I'll give you the main three one we need to be put in stressful situation where we need to use and retain our information two you get put in stressful situation like said and teachers get an accurate representation of that and they can see where you're at and where you need to go and three comes testing we would not have Med students if they did not practice testing as simple as that honestly do not know how you guys do it am very impressed so like said we do need the final but there's one problem have it actually three the final exam is not creative for students it's not empowering it's not motivating firmly believe that the final exam as it is the biggest assessment of the Year needs to be something that pertains to our work Force it's something where students can get an experience and say this was worth my time and it's something want to do and look forward to do you hear that that means student would want to take the final exam that's insane so what is this idea what is this thing I'm talking about well it's another way to take the file it's Project based final and it's an alternate one so student would be empowered because they would get to choose what final they want I'm not saying they'd have to do this new one they could take take the normal final that's fine but it would Empower students because they have the choice and it would be creative because would let students create an idea apply what they learned in the school year and put it into project so let's take the 10th grade English classroom there are lot of standards in this classroom for good reason we need to keep our schools and teachers in check and they need to make sure our students are learning what they need to know for the next level education so let's say student was in this English classroom and said would like to write story short story or even research paper and then present on his or her findings at the end of the year and let them be assessed on that because think if we have more experience more project and experiential learning then our students will get into the workforce know their strengths and weaknesses and be prepared as prepared as they can be and they'd be motivated you know why hopefully it's something they're passionate about non-writer is probably not going to write an entire story just because they wanted to they probably wouldn't be motivated to do so so in this class we might get passionate writers along with teacher who was probably passionate about that subject as well and it would promote creativity because with the standards think there are so many that it restricts our teachers and if teacher is less creative because of this it reflects on the classroom having less creative classroom and if we have less creative classroom there's higher chance of less creative students and that is not what we want want for the future and with this said cannot go out without addressing one fatal flaw to this idea and the Fatal flaw is that we need the right teacher to try this we can't say hey Arizona United States let's try this because at that level quite quite frankly if we tried that don't think it would work think we should say hey here's teacher who was already motivating their students to sit in plastic chair 5 days week that's big deal and two the motivation is there and they're already creative in the classroom for their students and say hey here's our idea this is what we'd like to do here's our goals and here's an example and even if that failed even if it didn't work don't think there'd be problem it would just be matter of time you took into the project because think if the student tried the project it would be an experience and they couldn't make that up if they wanted to do well on this they would have to know what they know because they're using it in practical situation so even if that student was like look can't do this anymore and the teacher was like sorry we're not doing this idea anymore bet they would do better on the normal final exam give it to them think if they know their information from experience think they would do best in the class and you want to hear something insane when was was senior in high school as student was part of similar idea and he has no idea I'm saying this and he probably doesn't want all this going towards him but the teacher who implemented the similar idea was speaker from this morning he was doct tonkinson and he said look it might not be specific to the subject it may be close but he said let's let students create an idea that might change the society we live in and let's give them an experience and that teacher decided to guide them in the process once every few weeks and we experienc something so unique in our education something that we valued and the message we were sent was not that failure is unacceptable we learned including myself that failure is not stopping point failure is stepping stone towards POS positive change and success and we learned to mess up and it wasn't bad thing it was something good CU we could improve that that's why this event got here because they improved from the ground up and even though there were mistakes it's here today and it's working with that said why are you here why' you decide to buy ticket sit down and and listen to some speakers you are intrinsically motivated you are here because you thought you might find some personal enjoyment out of sitting down and listening and it might challenge your curiosity and you might learn something and you would want to do that so why am here why would want to speak in front of everyone that's scary it is it's lot of people and the reason is because realized something recently in college remember when asked you why you study that simple question and the reasons gave you those did not fully apply to me while was motivated because of those things was intrinsically motivated wanted to sit down in plastic chair for 6 hours day 5 days week that's unreal might not have been all those minutes and all those seconds but wanted to be there I'm the kind of person who has to be constantly moving up and down and keeping going and the only reason why would want to sit down for more than an hour is if it was something was actually motivated and passionate about and firmly believe that if we start implementing ideas we might get more students intrinsically motivated because was motivated because enjoyed half my classes it is that simple two music classes an English class History class enjoyed those and think if we start bringing in intrinsic motivation we might start sparking new idea of the value in learning our students might learn more and they would would want to learn so that when I'm in classroom in 20 years down the road I'd be 40 years old and when asked my students why you studied think they would say study because enjoy my education study because want to and enjoy education and studied because want to pursue higher education thank you