Salah,
Yes, mastery of information and understanding essential information requires independent thinking. Open book assessments may have a place, but I would suggest their use for assessment of mastery of information.
Barry Westling
no i m not with you in this point because learning is accumlation of information but need to be organizedso test important and project ,the open book test some time good but it is work for short time and the leaner not remember any thing after ending the test.
Leslie,
Projects are a good activity if the students learn what's needed from it. Ultimately, students will be held accountable for demonstrating mastery of some body of information related to the course. How that's measured can be varied, but the emphasis should be "how best to measure learning". It doesn't have to be tests necessarily. Questioning students individually could be one method that effective, if it can be done objectively and fairly to all students. Also, essays that allow the student to express their ideas and convey they know the material is another way. Setting up a grading rubric for either of these methods would seem to be a good idea, as both student and instructor will know how the activity will be graded beforehand, and both are committed to abiding by the grading rubric standard.
Barry Westling
