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1 | Timestamp | If MiraCosta decides to eliminate our current finals week format (one 2-hour meeting) and end the semester with a regular week of instruction, how would you modify your final assessment, and what potential trade-offs impacting learning and course completion do you anticipate students will experience? | ||||||
2 | 12/14/2023 11:47:03 | No impact on assessments for noncredit programs in the last week. Noncredit has regular instructional hours during finals week. Thank you. | ||||||
3 | 12/14/2023 17:39:42 | I assign a cumulative project, not a final, so it would have no impact on learning/course completion. | ||||||
4 | 12/15/2023 9:04:16 | There would be no tradeoffs. We have gone away from major comprehensive assessments during finals week. This would be a welcome change. | ||||||
5 | 1/13/2024 17:16:53 | This would not affect my final assessment in my department. The final assessments are made over several class periods and whether it's finals week or not, the assessments would be made without any impact on learning. The students are so burnt out by the end of the long semester we currently have that any shortening of the semester is a huge benefit to them. | ||||||
6 | 1/14/2024 15:01:03 | Being that I do not offer in-class exams, the 2 hour finals week format is not truly applicable to my pedagogy or philosophy. I have students submit project-based assignment with composition components that are carefully scaffolded throughout the end of the semester and that are not contingent upon a 2 hour final's time designation. My assessments processes neither teaching schedule would be negatively impacted should we eliminate the "final's week." As a matter of fact, I have found that a different finals week schedule confuses students and add un-due stress in anticipation of a finals week. | ||||||
7 | 1/14/2024 19:34:42 | I would just use it as an extra day for students to present their final projects. | ||||||
8 | 1/15/2024 8:44:11 | My final assessment already takes place in the course. | ||||||
9 | 1/15/2024 9:31:02 | Not sure what I would teach that proposed last week in lieu of my 2 hour final. Students would likely not attend unless a final was scheduled. Why are you trying to eliminate finals? I vote to keep current format. | ||||||
10 | 1/15/2024 12:13:43 | There would be no impact on my class | ||||||
11 | 1/15/2024 12:21:49 | As I am not an instructor but rather a Lab Assistant with the Design Department who helps students with any sort of projects and questions they may have regarding their instruction, I feel that this may help students with their preparation for their final. I feel that, depending on how the Final class session gets scheduled, it can throw off students who have committed to a routine for the previous months leading up to the Final. While it is nice to have the extra time for studying and individual instruction, maintaining the same schedule for Finals week may encourage more students to come into the Maker Lab and get additional help they might need before their Final. However, I could also foresee the issue of increased procrastination that might come along with the false sense of security that is presented by having an extra day of instruction. Professors would most likely know better, however, I feel that the potential benefits to the students may outweigh the potential harms. | ||||||
12 | 1/15/2024 12:42:11 | The ART Department uses a variety of models for conducting finals - some studio courses hold final critiques for final projects during the exam session, some use the day for lab cleanup, some hold final critiques during the last class session and use the final exam period to return student work. Art History courses would be most impacted, with most holding a final exam session and/or having final papers due at that time. We also use finals week as a way of tying up loose ends - for example, photography shuts down the photo labs for the break and follows up with any equipment loans still outstanding. That said, I personally think the exam week is becoming less relevant and with increased reliance on online forms of testing, the largest impact on studio courses would be to eliminate a single "work day" and shorten the window for administrative catchup. | ||||||
13 | 1/16/2024 7:26:12 | |||||||
14 | 1/16/2024 7:29:43 | I would rather not eliminate finals week. There are many universities that have a finals week and our finals week is good preparation. Also many certifications industry have a similar timed test that must be passed to gain the certification. Final week provides an opportunity to prepare for the next stage for our students. | ||||||
15 | 1/16/2024 7:49:15 | No modification, as I usually just give a non-cumulative exam during this time | ||||||
16 | 1/16/2024 14:32:51 | Regular week of Instruction will be helpful for my course. I set aside one of the regularly scheduled lab time as a "lab exam block" during finals week. On that day during exam week, students turn in their final lab projects and participate in a review for the upcoming non-cumulative final exam. | ||||||
17 | 1/16/2024 18:32:03 | ADM 280 would not change. There is an online exam and a final paper turned in online as well. | ||||||
18 | 1/17/2024 6:03:20 | I would make my lab and lecture finals include slightly more material due to the presence of another week of time. I think the students would welcome the additional week of content because there would be fewer faculty who use finals week to give too large of an exam | ||||||
19 | 1/17/2024 13:52:25 | In an online 16-week course, the 2-hour final meeting does not apply. Completing final project solutions in an area of design takes many more hours than 2. For that reason, my students receive the entire 17th week for their final work submission. We conclude the course's instructional materials on Week 16, and students can focus on their final projects on the 17th week. They seem to appreciate having this less task-intensive time to complete their final "masterpieces" of critical importance. I also teach the 8-week version of the 16-week course where the 16-week content is compressed into half of the regular course time. The course is intense as it is, but it makes things more difficult to have to complete learning materials and finals work all at once during the 8th week. I always wish students could have an extra week exclusively for their finals. Ideally, I'd prefer if students had an additional 9th week dedicated solely to their final project solutions. I think that students in project-based design courses would not benefit from the elimination of the 17th week. As mentioned above, it is not about not having one 2-hour meeting. It is about losing several undisturbed hours to produce a high quality project solution. | ||||||
20 | 1/17/2024 16:45:47 | Final assessment will be modified only slightly, to fit within the timing of a standard lecture class. This is not a problem and students typically complete their work within this time frame as it is. Data on students' mental health has shown that finals week is associated with significantly more stress, anxiety and distractions for college students. IMO - I say let's remove yet another barrier for their success and incorporate our last assessments into the same pattern/schedule/routine that they are already used to. | ||||||
21 | 1/17/2024 18:02:43 | No | ||||||
22 | 1/17/2024 19:03:51 | The proposal is hugely problematic for lecture/lab classes in which the 3-hour lab might follow either the first or the second class meeting for lecture (each 75 minutes). If the lab follows the first lecture meeting on week 16, then the exam given on the second class meeting would need to be crafted to be completed in 75 minutes and could include content from the lecture and lab meetings earlier that week. However, if the lab follows the second class meeting, then the same amount of instruction would require that content (3 hours' worth) be delivered as instruction on the same day as the final exam. I hope you see the problem there. How would I modify my instruction? Haha. I'm going to retire before any of this happens, suckas! | ||||||
23 | 1/18/2024 6:11:15 | I prefer having the last week with our regular schedule and I believe it's less confusing for students to come to finals week on their regular schedule. In my class we don't have final exam, we have final project, and I use the final's week for student's presentations. Having two sessions for presentations would give students more time for their presentations since I could split the class into two groups. Some might prefer having only one time slot for finals and dedicate the extra time to study for other classes. | ||||||
24 | 1/18/2024 7:22:09 | Career studies is a 2-faculty department with 4 associate faculty. Final assessment in each of our classes is a project. We would not need to modify final assessment and there would be no trade-offs for students were finals week to be eliminated. Thank you for your diligence in collecting perspectives. Donna | ||||||
25 | 1/18/2024 7:24:08 | Design Department: We are a small department and most of our courses don't give final exams. We tend to be flexible with our final projects either making them due/presented on the last day of instruction or if more time is desired, presented during our final schedule. | ||||||
26 | 1/18/2024 7:30:11 | Philosophy/Religious Studies: We had our department meeting this morning, and it seems that the department is strongly in favor of getting rid of finals week. Most of the classes the department offers are online and most on-ground instructors have final papers as opposed to final exams, so having a two-hour window to take the final exam does not do anything for them. In addition, some associates contributed that other San Diego community colleges (such as Grossmont/Cuyamaca) are dropping finals week, and not having it at MiraCosta will make it easier for them as well. Some instructors noticed that finals week is confusing to students, and that they have had students coming to the final late because of being offered at a different time (despite repeated warnings and announcements). Nobody could think of a good reason for keeping finals week. | ||||||
27 | 1/18/2024 10:30:00 | I believe that the Finals week is important because, it gives students that push to complete their incomplete assignments. We give ours students up until the week before Finals week to complete all of their missing/late assignments. So, if we eliminate Final's week then students won't get that push or motivation to complete their assignments and start looking forward to completing their End of the Semester project to present on the Finals Day. All the rest of the content overage can be completed prior to Finals Week, no problem, but giving students that time to work on their CAP stone or Fianl project is important. Also, the days and times for the Final are different which makes hard for students to plan out their other class finals and our CS classes (so confusion occurs). | ||||||
28 | 1/18/2024 10:35:31 | My BTEC courses are 5 week long and will not be impacted by the calendar modification | ||||||
29 | 1/18/2024 15:23:46 | I have experienced finals week at San Diego Mesa College and then the elimination of that week. For students that take all their classes on either M/W or T/TH, that means they now have all their finals on the last day of the semester. At least that is what SDCCD does. My concern is that it sets up students to take multiple finals on the same day, which is very stressful and not conducive to success. It can cause "interference" with regards to memory. Especially, if the student is taking classes in similar subject matters. Again, anecdotally, the feedback I have received from students for nearly 2 decades is that they do not like this design. Thanks, Joline Bourdages jbourdages@miracosta.edu | ||||||
30 | 1/18/2024 16:20:53 | I could split the final over two days. | ||||||
31 | 1/18/2024 18:50:23 | If MiraCosta decides to eliminate our current finals week format (one 2-hour meeting) and end the semester with a regular week of instruction, I would dedicate the last module of the semester to the final exam, rather than a content module. Therefore, it would impact the semester by reducing the content (just a little) that we review over the semester. | ||||||
32 | 1/18/2024 23:59:06 | Because I recognize that this would likely result in what is effectively a 16-week semester, it would be very detrimental to student learning experience. Having the additional week for final assessment is critical for my students to do well. I would hate to lose final exam week. | ||||||
33 | 1/19/2024 9:26:43 | There would be virtually no change whatsoever. I would just place the finals assignment on the last day of the semester. The assignments would just be compacted to fit within the existing term. I'm totally in favor of eliminating finals week. | ||||||
34 | 1/22/2024 8:10:20 | Thanks for soliciting input, but I feel like the writing is on the wall that MCC will eventually adopt a 16-week semester. That's fine; both me and my students will adapt. I've always wished finals week was a regular instructional week (no special schedule, no lost or gained hours). If we lost that 17th week, my final assessment would not radically change. Most of my classes have 'final projects' due that week. Losing that week would give them less time and take away some instructional time that was a part of the class. The same content would be contracted into a smaller window and students would have more to do each week as a result. I don't that week would really affect course completion; the tradeoff may be lesser quality, more rushed final projects done under more time pressure; the benefit would likely be a fall break and less disruptive Thanksgiving week in which students could potentially catch up a bit prior to the final push. | ||||||
35 | 1/22/2024 17:18:31 | I think it would be beneficial to end the semester with a regular week of instruction for ceramics. I typically complete my course with an extended final critique, and with a large class, it is very difficult to fit the entire critique within a 2 hour window. A regular class period would allow students to further engage with one another and provide more in-depth feedback, and they would feel less rushed at the end. This extra time would also give students slightly more time to prepare for the final critique. I would modify the final assessment to take place during this last class period, rather than spread between the last class day and final exam period, which would give students more work time during the semester. | ||||||
36 | 1/23/2024 10:35:10 | My final assessment would not be affected at all- it would fall on the first day of the class during finals week and the last day would be other course activities & events already in place. This would no be disruptive at all. In fact, all of my class meetings are 2 hours and 50 minutes, so having full class sessions would be a greater benefit. The 2 hours that we have now do not work for meaningful assessments anyway. Regarding course completion- this is only going to affect students that are expecting to leave town earlier in the week. I have had several that make winter or summer plans that cut it way close to our final day- sometimes having to miss a class or rearrange travel. The impact is overall low. If having no "finals week" as we do now means that we have Thanksgiving week off, then this is a YES! Because there is a lot of absences during that week AND faculty have to make arrangements for their own childcare. I worked at a College that did not have a "finals week," and there were no problems at all. | ||||||
37 | 1/24/2024 9:39:31 | It would impact my class greatly. We use the final class to review students final projects, give feedback and generally share the excitement and enthusiasm of film making with all of the students. The ones who excel are the best inspiration for the ones who don't. It's the one day of the semester where students teach each other by sharing how they put their learned skills to use. loosing that day would be a huge loss for the film class. As it stands I generally go long on that class just to ensure that all students get their work seen on the big screen and get sufficient encouragement and feedback from their classmates. | ||||||
38 | 1/27/2024 7:58:01 | Given that I do not give exams, but students write final papers, I would not see a shift in anything in my classes. | ||||||
39 | 1/29/2024 10:27:25 | As an associate faculty I teach at other institutions that end the semester with regular class sessions. I teach in the visual arts and have found the full class session final week gives more time to present final projects for critique. This may differ in non-studio art courses, but we use the first class meeting of that week as a studio clean up day and often have time for early feedback. The real difference is these institutions tend to start a week later and have meeting time that might differ by 10 min between the two day meeting times. My hope would be that Mira Costa and my other schools could finally start the same week and have the same spring break schedule. | ||||||
40 | 1/30/2024 8:10:43 | There would be no modification. I do not administer a final exam in the wood/furniture class. They would simply have an additional week to finish their final project. The final critique would still occur on the last day of class. | ||||||
41 | 1/30/2024 8:44:52 | Feedback from meeting with Bio Tech: only a few courses (180, 110, and few upper division) would be impacted by not having a final exam week. Many classes are already offered as 8-week, 15-week, and 5-week intrasessions. Bio Tech faculty agreed that all course assessments can be adjusted and while it would require substantial work, open to redesign. Additionally, a winter intersession would benefit BA students (incoming transfer students) who need to catch up on some 5-week courses only currently offered during the regular semester | ||||||
42 | 1/30/2024 8:52:13 | From meeting with Business: - finals week affords time for students to study for exams - finals week affords peer review for final projects - culm final assessments incentivize engagement with later-semester content - current practice: review exam content/provide feedback on final project; without finals exam week, time for these practices will require redesign - extending class time blocks (compressed calendar) may be beneficial - concern that without finals exam week, students will be taking final exams all on the same day/similar window of time Other feedback: - for asynch offerings, can we clarify when the semester officially ends? Sunday preferred | ||||||
43 | 1/30/2024 9:00:14 | From Meeting with Chem: - final exams in Chem are cumulative, comprehensive, AND integrative (requires time for exam warm-ups and a sustained engagement with assessment content) - STEM students have a heavy workload (calc, chem, GE reqs); eliminating finals week - concentrates the burden of assessment on the last day of instruction for all classes - limits the number of instructional days - potential disproportionate impact on neural diverse students? - How productive will an additional 10-20 per class meeting be? - What is the impact on STEM students at other CCs and Univs that do not have a final exam week? Major Concerns: - the ACS standardized test requires 110 minutes - if finals exam week is eliminated, a major modification to CHEM curriculum will need to be undertaken | ||||||
44 | 1/30/2024 9:07:19 | From Meeting with Physics: - Lab finals require 2-3 hours - finals week is used as a special focus/project week: sustainability, community building - adjusting to compressed calendar would require redesigning the pace of instruction to gain a week of review/special focus/projects - expanding class meeting time blocks by 15-25 minutes may help integrate special focus/projects; however, Physics class blocks already run from 9am - 9pm - compressing the calendar in general may help with student burn out issues | ||||||
45 | 1/30/2024 9:14:25 | From Meeting with Computer Science: - CS has already undertaken a major review and redesign of curriculum and instruction to center student experiences, retention, and learning - 8-week class offerings already for not have a finals week - CS course units are 5 LHE for faculty and 3 LHE for students (instruction and lab) - many CS instructors assign final projects instead of exams; finals week is time for work - many students utilize the Learning Centers during finals week to work on their projects - the current finals week format that schedules classes at odd times once during the week is disruptive and confusing to many students AND associate faculty who teach at other colleges - cumulative final assessments incentivize sustained engagement | ||||||
46 | 1/30/2024 9:21:32 | From Meeting with Biology: - Biology is an "exam based discipline" - compressing lecture-lab: where do the "extra minutes" add up? Lecture preferred due to the Friday holiday problem - current practice: studey time is built into and around final exams week: a buffer of time benefits bio students preparing for exams - the current pace and scaffolding of lecture + lab course design could be re-mixed/integrated - students experience anxiety during final exams; how do we help with that? | ||||||
47 | 1/30/2024 9:23:55 | From Meeting with Int Language: - current practice: speaking exams - curriculum is flexible (across sections); updating the syllabus will be enough to adjust to a new calendar - classes already offered in multiple modalities without final exams scheduled | ||||||
48 | 1/30/2024 9:27:41 | From Meeting with Psych: - some course impacted more than others: Research Methods - different impact for asynch versus scheduled courses - changing the final exams schedule will change the final exam assessment process, experience, and value - experiences teaching at Mesa College make this seem doable | ||||||
49 | 1/30/2024 9:33:51 | A few patterns curry observed: - a scheduled final exam schedule should be right sized and not standardized at 2 hours irregardless of course/discipline - current finals week format is potentially very disruptive to associate faculty who teach at multiple institutions and for students with scheduled obligations outside of MCC - associate faculty have developed curriculum, compressed, and assessments for their institutions that do not host a final exam week: if we eliminate finals week, our associate faculty colleagues will have the experience and models we need to transition | ||||||
50 | 1/30/2024 11:27:54 | I will modify the assessment by using the last day of class to complete and also combine Canvas for a portion of the assessment. My assessments are mostly reflective in nature, so students may complete the assessment online and in class without needing an additional 2-hour time block. Finals week presents more confusion and challenges for student schedules and my assessments do not require an added day. | ||||||
51 | 1/30/2024 15:47:50 | Final assessment is done on Canvas for most classes (online and on-ground). Currently use the 2-hour final meeting to review the final assessment. Would continue with protocol if current finals week were eliminated. No impact on student learning or course completion. | ||||||
52 | 1/30/2024 16:03:28 | Eliminating current finals week format will not impact learning/course completion for my classes. Would still like to be paid for finals week as an associate faculty member. Thank you. | ||||||
53 | 1/31/2024 8:01:37 | Students may opt out of the final exam to replace one missed module activity, but they do have a final paper to write. That would substitute the need for a final exam. | ||||||
54 | 2/2/2024 16:46:29 | This will not affect most of my courses as I don't have final exams. I try to finish up my courses with final projects by the last day of instruction. | ||||||
55 | 2/7/2024 12:26:50 | I no longer hold a traditional final exam; instead I have a final writing assignment due that week. For me personally, I would be able to have a bit more class instructional time which would be beneficial, I think. | ||||||
56 | 4/30/2024 14:43:44 | If we eliminated finals week, my final assessment would actually have the full normal class time whereas our current final schedule is actually less time than our normally scheduled class times. Without a final week, there would be more clarity for faculty and students as to when the last day of classes are. Possible impact to course completion could be positive- Because there would be clarity as to when classes meet. Having no finals week would also result in natural ending of the semester- As opposed to a prescribed “finals time”. In fact, without a Designated finals week, This could create a more positive working Experience in approaching the end of the semester for students. | ||||||
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