Training Tips for Ships: Taking the Stress out of Tests
We must assess our trainees. Yet we have all heard the complaints they raise about assessments: “I am a bad test-writer”, “this test was much more difficult than I expected”, “I know the material but I did not understand the questions”, “I was nervous, and my mind went blank”, etc. These are not the occasional concerns of weak or lazy trainees – they are the norm. And we must listen because our trainees are telling us that we cannot rely on our assessment results as an accurate reflection of what they know.
Training Tips for Ships: Tip #5
– The Simple Secret to Making Randomized Exams Fair – In last month’s Training Tips for Ships, we made the important point that we must never give different people the same exam. If we use an exam over and over, our trainees will very quickly learn what questions are on the exam and share the answers with their friends. Suddenly exam scores begin going up, and time spent learning goes down – both for the wrong reasons. There are few better ways to destroy a training program.The remedy is to always provide different exams.
Training Tips for Ships
Tip #1. Immediate exam retakes should never be allowed.It is very common practice, especially in eLearning environments, to allow trainees to immediately retake an exam they just failed. Worse, sometimes training is set up to allow the trainee to take the exam repeatedly until they pass.Never do this. It will ensure that your learners are not learning what you want them to learn.For most people, this raises two immediate questions. First, why not allow immediate retakes? And second…
UBC Students Fight to Save Testing Facility
Mechanical engineering students at the University of B.C. are petitioning to stop the university from demolishing a unique vessel-testing facility to replace it with condominiums. The fight brewing over the fate of the 30-year-old tow-tanks is the latest controversy in UBC's aggressive plan to make millions for its endowment fund by developing its prime Point Grey real estate. UBC has come under fire before for developing its campus, including the introduction of shops to its academic district and the construction of student residences that critics said overlooked nudists at Wreck Beach. UBC's first development venture, Hampton Place, netted $116m for UBC's endowment fund, which generates interest used for scholarships and academics.
