What I Learned from Giving 71 Oral Exams in 12 Days – Faculty Focus

Frustrated with reading countless AI-generated take-home essays and long ago disillusioned with scantrons, I plunged into oral exams this finals season. The classes were lower-division history courses: one comprised mostly of history majors, the other mostly students fulfilling a GE. Using Google Calendar, students picked half-hour time slots beginning the day after the last class and ending the day before my grade submission deadline. The 20 in-person slots quickly filled. These in-person slots occurred in our classroom during our allotted three hours followed by two hours in my office. Students naturally spread out evenly, though weekends were the least popular.

After course grades were submitted, I emailed a Google Form seeking anonymous student feedback, which received 13 responses. Here are the takeaways from our experience.  

Workload

Most exams lasted 20 minutes, which felt right in terms of conversation depth and energy expended. In total, 71 oral exams were conversation boot camp, which tested my own mental stamina and ability to think on my feet. Afterwards, I emerged better at the gift of gab. Psychologically, Bluebook Mountain looks more daunting than a day’s calendar with eight appointments.  

The most irksome aspect of the experience were the no shows. I had six no shows and two last-minute reschedules. Two unscheduled students also appeared. Reminders and penalties for missed appointments seem essential.  

Intense Grading

Face-to-face grading is intense. I saw grimaces and heard despondent voices. I also saw smiles that stretched ear-to-ear and heard joy. I admit early on student nonverbals inflated grades. After a few dozen exams, however, I became inured to seeing emotional reactions. It also took a few dozen exams to see the nuance between grades.  

I do not know how many students read my comments on their papers. With oral exams, students heard what they did well and how they could improve before learning their grades. Instant feedback is more effective (Shute, 2008). Immediately correcting errors became a clear benefit. After three dozen exams, the nuance between grades emerged.  

Though many students were nervous, the fear of embarrassment does not appear to have led to more studying. Several students who entered the oral exam well-positioned (e.g. needing a mere 30 percent to cross the credit/no credit threshold) prioritized something else and displayed no shame in saying “I don’t know” to a topic that a two-hour lecture focused on.

Tailoring Exams

The oral exam resembles a tutorial. A month before the exam, one student told me he was interested in Ancient Assyria. I winced because I had removed the Assyrians from my lectures and knew he would not encounter these ancient people in any other class my department offers. So, on his exam I gave him some historical context, and he analyzed several Assyrian primary sources.  

As expected, students talked to each other about the exam. Over the course of 12 days, I changed questions, which not only reduced concerns over student reconnaissance, but also freshened the conversations for me. Of the 51 exams on Zoom, only one student had her camera off. Due to privacy, I did not tell her to turn it on. Due to academic integrity concerns, I gave her a matchless, improvised exam full of analyzing primary sources.  

After 20 minutes, I sometimes told students, “You currently have a ‘B’. Do you want to quit now or continue for another five minutes and try to increase it to a B+ but risk a B-?”. Most chose to take their current grade.  

“What’s a Question You Don’t Know the Answer to But Wish You Did?”

Asking “what is a question you don’t know the answer to but wish you did” was my tried-and-true tactic. This curveball question made everyone pause to think. From this question, some exams resembled a press conference in which I played a historical character and the student a reporter who peppered me with questions, to which I would answer, then the student either had to analyze my response or ask a follow-up question.  

One student recommended a “charades style game where [the instructor] slowly reveals more information/evidence and the student must guess which civilization [is being] referenced.” Additional teaching opportunities became one of the unexpected delights of oral exams.  

More Accommodating

The flexibility of sign-up days obviated requests to take the final on a different day. It was nice that a sick student took his exam Zoom where his coughs infected and distracted no one. Only one student needed a disability accommodation (it was a memory guide).  

A couple of students commented that they appreciated how much shorter an oral exam was compared to the traditional multiple-choice test. A couple students felt having the exam on Zoom eased their anxiety. For example, one student wrote “Having it on zoom put me a bit at ease as it allowed me to study right up until the time to meet and didn’t leave the limbo time of getting to school to think and stress about the exam.” On the question “where do you prefer an oral exam take place?”, only two of the 13 responses indicated “in-person”.

The Joy of Stimulating Conversations

Oral exams are more personal. The individualized goodbyes pleasantly end a class. Pencil-and-paper exams end with grade uncertainty for students and more work for teachers. Oral exams end with feeling completed.  

Oral exams are also organic. Several went down unforeseen paths. Stimulating, intellectual discussions make universities special places. Complaints, gossiping, and mundanities fill most conversations. But a good chit-chat makes labor joyful and life pleasurable. Indeed, I must credit AI for unintentionally leading my exams into a more enjoyable and human experience.  

Jason Linn is currently a lecturer in the History Department at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, where he has been teaching lower-division classes (Western Civilization to Renaissance, World History to 1000; World at War) since 2013. Linn began teaching in 2006 with the Princeton Review, where he taught and tutored ACT, LSAT, and SAT prep courses through grad school (CU-Boulder and UC Santa Barbara) and a little beyond until 2015. In 2014, Linn earned a PhD in History from UC Santa Barbara. Ancient History, especially Rome, is his area of expertise. Linn’s dissertation explored nighttime in Ancient Rome and he has been awarded five teaching awards (two as a TA at UCSB, three as a lecturer at Cal Poly).    

Reference

Shute, V. J. (2008). Focus on Formative Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 78(1), 153–189.