Exams have traditionally been the standard to gauge a learner’s strengths and weaknesses.

But is it the only method? Is learning by heart (rote learning) a true measure of one’s cleverness?

One cannot assess a student’s depth of understanding of what he/she has learnt by the traditional test/exam. One has to gauge the student’s performance through continual assessment and to fathom the effects of knowledge learnt on the relationship with other interrelated or unconnected insights.

Education is both imparting knowledge and the evaluating to see if that knowledge has:

1. Been understood by the learner

2. Capable of being used as a tool in real world conditions.

3. Been useful to the learner

4. Enhanced the ability for the learner to learn other things

These are ways not fully investigated but could be the alternative for the test/exam:

 1. Projects that utalise the student’s learnt knowledge.

1.1.       To gauge the student’s understanding of what was taught.

2.    The measure of knowledge or its retention must be related to life experience or real world situations.

3. Performance assessment – Application of knowledge to real world situations

4. Teachers develop comprehensive rubric or criteria for evaluating.

5. The observation of the learner’s progress.

The student’s growth in knowledge must be assessed by a cumulative record over time.

A situation then arises where both students and teachers learn by experience. The constant monitoring affords an immediate feedback of what the teacher has to do to meet the student’s needs (not wants). This has the added advantage of keeping the knowledge learnt relevant.

The symbiosis of teacher and pupil.