Tests: To Time or Not to Time?

This will be the first in a series of issues that have been on my mind lately. Since this article popped up on my twitter feed today, I felt it would be a good issue to start with, as I think it leads to some of my other internal struggles with my beliefs about math teaching and about teaching in general. I am going to to present these in dramatic fashion, as a dialogue between Skeptical Zach and Ideal Zach. (Are these really the names I want? I'm not sure but that's what I'm going with for now.)

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Ideal Zach: What an interesting article about math anxiety. This suggestion of eliminating timed tests is especially interesting.

Skeptical Zach: It's especially stupid, that's what it is! Don't you want our students to be fluent? Timed tests are important. They let you know whether or not a student really gets it.

IZ: See, but that's the issue. The anxiety that is generated from timed tests might actually hide how well the student is getting it.

SZ: Well, they better get used to it. A lot of tests are timed. College professors are especially strict about not letting students finish tests. We have to prepare our kids for the future!

IZ: I'm sure that's not universally true. Even if it is, we want to make sure we do our best so that they will be prepared for the future.

SZ: Well, I'll tell you something else. If the students actually studied for the test, they shouldn't have any trouble finishing it. We always try to be fair in taking the test ourselves and then multiplying the amount of time in order to see if it's a fair amount of time. Plus, you know that some students who don't finish will try to come back later after they've gone and looked up the answer.

IZ: There you go blaming the students again. But now I have another question. If the kids can really easily go back and look up the answer, isn't that more of a problem with what types of questions we are asking them on our tests?

SZ: I don't know. I think that might be a good discussion for another day.

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A final note on this, two years ago I was a total dick about not letting students finish tests, especially with my honors classes. A few of the tests probably were really pushing it on the length, too. When I was working on some of the lessons in Jo Boaler's class last summer, I felt like the biggest asshole ever. I likely have caused a lot of math anxiety in several people.

This last year I had a change of heart. I shortened a lot of my tests, and if extra time was needed, I allowed it. Sometimes, I would put the condition on it that I would ask them an extra question to make sure they really knew the material and were not just going and looking up the answer. The change in students' dispositions towards class and towards math in general were monumental. In many ways, I was very happy with this past year.

A problem though (and maybe I'm just impatient) was that I felt sometimes that the students were taking a lot longer than they should. I'm sure for the most part they "studied," but I don't think most of them did any homework outside of class. (Our school doesn't grade homework, so it's been a real struggle, but again, these last two things I mentioned are worthy of their own posts, which I'll get to later this summer.) In other words, my biggest worry about not timing tests is that it lets students off the hook for not preparing as well as they should. Again, though, I think another issue to explore further on its own.