A Rough Guide To Writing Exam Papers

One of the most difficult things for me in this job is setting exam papers. Over the years, I feel like I've set enough papers to write assessment books for each level! Admittedly, setting papers is not my strong point and unfortunately there are no TRAISI courses to teach you how to do this. I learnt how to do them along the way, as part of the job and I picked up a few pointers to help me. Hopefully it helps you too!

1. Gather your materials - TOS, SOW, old exam papers
The Table of Specifications (TOS) and Scheme of Work (SOW) are vital documents for any exam setter. The first tells you what kinds of questions should be in the exam, for example, how many comprehension questions or grammar cloze questions. You might think that such things would be the same throughout schools in Singapore and the general format might be the same for the upper primary. However, there may be subtle differences. One school may decide to include more higher order math questions than another. The TOS should make this clear.

The SOW is just as important because it tells you what material the students would have covered up till the examination date. Again, this would vary from school to school and supplementary materials may differ. A detailed SOW would also be useful because it would also reflect the learning objectives for each unit. One such SOW for English may list out the vocabulary items and their expected usage. If you refer to the SOW for paper setting, you would not set questions that are out of the syllabus or that have not been covered.

As for old exam papers, they are useful as a question reference but don't think you can simply erase the old questions and replace them with new ones. I made this mistake once when I was setting one for the first time. I forgot to ask for the TOS and instead set the paper according to an old exam paper, only to find out to my horror that the exam format had changed and I had to reset the paper all over again! Don't do the same mistake I did and always ask for a TOS!

2. Start picking at nits
Everything about the paper must be up to par. Make sure all questions are arranged neatly in line. Check that you used the correct cover page and font. Measure your diagrams to check for mathematical accuracy. You can also print out a copy of your paper to ensure your scientific diagrams can be seen clearly. ( You would be surprised how different they look from your computer screen. ) Remember to update your answer key if you change any questions. Compare your paper with an approved previous exam to see that you have written instructions correctly, or put the check boxes correctly. It is tedious work but if you find it and correct it yourself, someone else won't have to tell you so.

3. Take all criticism in your stride
After you have handed your paper up, the next stressful moment is getting it back. That's when you get it back with all the corrections you have to do by yesterday. Your head should also go over the paper with you to explain the rationale for certain corrections or to clarify her expectations. Maybe the question you thought was a killer turned out to be too easy?

It can be demoralizing the first few times to see so many corrections in a piece of work. Don't sweat it. Most of the time, your head isn't being personal when this is done. Sometimes at the HOD level, they are more aware of the different standards from level to level and they have to adjust whatever work you send in. I always get corrections in my papers and I also see colleagues more experienced than I am get back a paper with tons of corrections too. It's normal for anyone so just take it in your stride and use the experience to learn how a paper should be set.

4. Hide
I would not recommend ever setting your paper in a public setting. You might say that you need your Starbucks frappe to help you do your work, but have you considered that your students, who will be taking your exam, may be drinking at that Starbucks outlet too? Even if you go to the other side of Singapore from where your school is, you never know if you would meet a parent, school or head while you are there. Worse, they might be looking over your shoulder while you type and you might never find out until the truth blows up in everyone's faces. Order that frappe to go and hide in the privacy of your own home to do this piece of work.

Luckily I never learned this lesson the hard way, but I have encountered parents and students while marking in public areas. If I was setting papers instead, I might have gotten into trouble if one student suddenly brags on Facebook about how he really earned his marks.

Hope this short list helps some of you out there. It is not meant to be a gospel of exam setting and I'm pretty sure there are points I might not have thought of or situations that haven't happened to me [yet]. Share with us if you have any other pointers for others!

Using Positive Reinforcement in Class Management

Positive reinforcement is something that has been talked about many times in NIE, in seminars and in schools. In case your memory about NIE courses is a bit hazy, here's a definition I got from Google:

"In operant conditioning, positive reinforcement involves the addition of areinforcing stimulus following a behavior that makes it more likely that the behavior will occur again in the future. When a favorable outcome, event, or reward occurs after an action, that particular response or behavior will be strengthened."

So if you do something good for your students after they do something, that behaviour will be strengthened and they are more likely to repeat it in class.

At this point, I know some will be skeptical as to whether it really works. I don't blame them. When I was a beginning teacher, I was given a particularly rowdy class in one year. I tried to teach as they had trained me in NIE only to find the kids unresponsive or worse, behaving even worse. Like how I tried to talk nicely to a student who had yelled at me in class only to have him yell at me more. Then I yelled at him for yelling and he finally stopped. 

Not my best moment, I know, but be nice, I was a beginning teacher then. Also, I won't be surprised if many other teachers, beginning or experienced, learned that same thing in the classroom: That being 'fierce' works.

Then after a few years of this, I was, frankly, sick of it. I was falling ill at the start of every school year from yelling at them, I felt my blood pressure go up and ultimately, I wasn't feeling very happy at work. 

So I changed, and it worked. My classes became calmer and I didn't get as many sore throats as I used to. 

(Sounds like a miracle cure? Well, of course, because you are reading in one sentence what I had to practice over a number of years to reach an approach that felt right to me and I have conveniently glossed over all the painful times that something didn't work or when something I did led to even more chaos. Remember: It takes time.)

What worked for me? 

1. Every teacher should have a signal to tell the class to quieten down and listen. I made it a point to praise the first child to do so instead of scolding the last ones who don't. This works like a miracle for lower primary classes.

2. I clearly told the class what I expected them to do and praised the ones who did it. In another class when I wanted them to sit in a circle, I told them I wanted a circle, I used hand signals to show them where I wanted the circle to be and I told them that they had to be seated quietly to be ready. 

Obviously when the class starts doing this, there will be massive chaos. I would walk around to help and I would also keep an eye out for children who had done as I had asked and point out what they had done right. Most of the class will get it. If the stragglers didn't, I helped them, because my goal wasn't to catch those who didn't get it, it was to help them do the behaviour I wanted.

3. I found that non-verbal cues worked just as well as verbal ones. Even a simple thumbs-up was enough to fill a child with pride. I've also seen cards and toys being used.

4. Loads of teachers give stamps and points for work done in class. They also took them away for bad behaviour. I generously gave points for good behaviour and took them away only when the behaviour was preposterous. I also did this when I was holding competitions in class, so I would award a group a point for a correct answer and another point for good behaviour, ie, sitting quietly, cheering on their classmate etc etc. 

5. I changed my language to point out most of the good stuff my students did. When I had a class doing group writing, even if there were tons of mistakes, I tried to look out for something good. ("I like this part because...") Even when, er, there was nothing to be found, I tried to phrase it in a way to show I was helping the student. ("I'm going to help you make this better."/"I think it would be better if......")

This sounds easy, but remember, this is after a number of years of tears, frustration, yelling. Even when I thought I got it, I would still make mistakes, so I'm warning you first:

Make sure you are praising for something the child has done out of his/her own effort. Do not, for example, praise them for work done by their groupmates, work they completed by copying from another student, or work that has obviously been done with an adult's help! That only reinforces to the child that I can get recognition by stealing other people's efforts!

Also, and this has been said countless times in countless literature, praise the child for effort spent and progress made, not for the result achieved at the end and not by saying, "You are so clever!". Firstly, because you don't want to demotivate the weaker students for not achieving the same high marks as their peers. Secondly, you don't want to scare the pupils away from trying harder and only do things that they think is easy for them to achieve.

Remember at the end, you want to give the students the confidence to succeed and you also want to give yourself a break. I had a very miserable time when I felt I had to yell at my class everyday, but after change, I found I was much less frazzled at the end of the day and I also had a better relationship with my later classes. It does take time to find a style that works for you but I can assure you that when you do, it works out better in the long run.