Hi,

Having been under the ‘yolk’ of time restraints, class numbers, meetings,

preparation and discipline issues as a Teacher, it was not easy to teach

exam technique to my students.

Now having benefited from several years involved in exam writing and

industrial training where I was judged and paid on staff obtaining  their

exam certifications, I am able to develop, improved and implement my

understanding of exam technique.

In fact, I was very successful, having worked for City & Guilds as an

examiner and with 15 years teaching, I was able to integrate good teaching

practise and the understanding of how to take an exam. This  lead to being

one of the top Microsoft Certified Trainers and Soft Skills Trainer in the

UK.

For years there has been debate about the actual value of exams in providing

employers as true and valid indicators of a person’s intelligence especially

from an academic or educational viewpoint, but whatever the argument is,

the simple fact is, employers, colleges and universities need some form of

assessment indicator to allow them to screen and choose who they wish to

employ or accept for further study. Thus exams are with us, they were around

in Archimedes day and I expect will always be with us always, in some form

to rate a young person moving from school to work or higher education. 

Society has deemed a young person after 10 years of education, needs to show

the result of that time in form of GCSEs or A-levels which will be achieved

in the form of taking an exam or course work.

By definition an exam, in it’s very manner of a time restraint, no access to

resources, requirement for recall and the application of learnt and practise

techniques is in truth what is really being tested – not the subject.

How many of us, even at a very high professional level, have to show

evidence of knowledge gained over 2 years in a 90 minute interval, not have

access to resource books and now the Internet, not be able to ask a

colleague, not share the problem with a team member.

After a long period of 15 years away from teaching, I returned for a short

period as a Temporary Head of Business Studies, and I was amazed to find in

most topics a lack of understanding or desire to teach students exam

techniques and the realization I was just the same during my teaching

career, and I had come from industry.

Just as I use to, many Teachers tell students to ‘read’ the question and due

to their often high academic ability, knowledge of the subject and every day

involvement of the use and language of their topic, they just can’t see how

the student reads the question.

This fact is well known by Universities, Colleges and some companies now,

who induct their intake or new staff with training programmes to teach those

skills that they want students to have and are the same ones required to be

successful at taking an exam.

These skills are not difficult, do not take a long time to learn and can be

applied to all aspects of working life where instructions or projects are

given in written form.

Much of my tutoring, and why I am successful is because  within my teaching

of the  subject I include exam technique. 

In my next article, I shall detail and give examples of some of my

successful techniques to get students with very low marks to achieve much

higher ones, in a quite short period of time.

Dave Burridge – Maths Private Tutor

http://iomtutoring.weebly.com/