I just finished grading my Math 097 exams this afternoon. There were two parts to the exam. The first part was a 125 minute in-class exam with one page of notes. This is the standard sort of in class final that you would expect from a math class. The second part was a two day take-home final, where students could work together in groups, talk to tutors, and do whatever it takes for them to figure out what's going on (except asking me for help). It's also exactly the same test as the in-class exam.
The average for the in-class: 42.5
The average for the take-home: 55.5
13 point improvement... That's not too bad. However, the exam was out of 94 points. That means that even if the students were allowed almost unlimited resources, they were still only able to get about 60% credit. I find this very disappointing. I also don't understand why the students couldn't pull off at least a solid finish. This is even more confusing to me because the take-home part was worth a full 13% of their final grade!
Sadly, this result on the final exam means that over half the class failed. There were a couple of bright spots. I had a couple students who worked very hard and came away with a well-deserved B.
