Our Voice

We are taught for tests, not long-term learning

As we go through school, we are constantly told to get good grades and join as many extracurriculars as possible to have a fighting chance at getting into the college of our dreams.

But something strange often happens when we reach the collegiate level.

We get up early to register for classes that we may or may not retain knowledge from.

The Colonnade believes that in numerous instances we are taught to get good grades on tests and not necessarily taught in such a way to remember the information long term.

Many professors at Georgia College, and no doubt other institutions, lecture over reading material that many students do not complete before class.

When test time rolls around students, cram a few days before and sometimes the instructors tell the students specific examples of what is on the exam.

This seems great at the time, but once the test is over the information memorized in the cram session is lost.

Some professors strive to combat this by having comprehensive finals detailing everything learned that semester.

That may be one of the best answers to overcome this problem, but other solutions could be offered.

More sections of core courses could be opened so students have more of a chance to get into them.

In addition, more courses could be created to offer a wider variety of options to appeal to a more diverse group of students.

The benefits to this would be twofold: more options and class sizes could be kept in check more easily, which is a mission of Georgia College.

If we were able to take courses we were interested in, the information disseminated would surely stick more than it does now.

Posted by gcsunade on Feb 23 2012. Filed under Letters to the Editor, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.