Timely indeed. The other day, while mapping out in my head what I would put on the midterm for my fourth year undergrad biochemistry course, I got onto a tangent wondering why so much of our university education revolves around assessment.

I pondered. I asked a few other profs whose opinions I respected, and I asked the students themselves. I wondered if maybe a pass, fail and possibly distinction system would work. You either understand enough of the material to be considered to have mastered it, or you haven't. If you have excelled, that should be noted.

Other profs indicated that it is largely a method of determining who is going on and in what capacity. So, the distinction between C, B+, A and A+ might indicate suitability for further education or a profession.

What really surprised me though was the student response. I thought that I might get a rally of "testing is useless" and the like. What I got though was a lot of blank looks followed by comments that they don't learn it until we test them and they have to have the same questions asked repeatedly before it really sinks in.

I followed this with some queries about what kinds of questions they would like on the midterm. I usually give problems that require thinking (but there is certainly some memorization given the nature of the subject). I was saddened to hear that they would rather have straight regurgitation questions, fill in the blanks and definitions than my usual thinking questions. They won't get their vomit exam, but it did really put me off for a bit.

I encourage students to submit questions to me, and I promise to use some of them. Exam's in less than 24 hours and only one student has submitted any.

I would like to offer the option of writing the final exam on their computers and submitting it electronically. I'll explore that one. 20 years ago when I was an undergrad I could easily take notes all morning and manage a three hour exam, but I doubt I could now, and given the extensive computer use of current students, it may be silly to ask them to perform that way.

Got any good tech assessment suggestions?