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Mantha’s enthusiasm for exams puts him at one end of the spectrum in a debate now percolating in education circles across the country.

If the debate were framed as an exam question, it would be this:

Photo by Jean Levac / Ottawa Citizen

Final exams are:

A) An outdated, stress-inducing method of assessing student knowledge

B) A proven tool essential for bringing focus to student learning

C) An anachronism in an era of iPhones, Google and instant information

D) Necessary preparation for student success in university or college

E) None of the above

Those educators who hold that exams are old, blunt instruments are turning to alternative forms of assessment — sometimes called summatives — that can include projects, interviews, lab experiments, artwork and performances.

Such summatives, they say, offer assessment tools that allow students to do more than sweat out memorized answers under the glare of gymnasium lights: They give them the ability to creatively deploy high-level skills such as critical thinking and analysis.

“We’re finding that there are other forms of assessment that do meet the rigour test and are sometimes more enriching,” says Pino Buffone, superintendent of curriculum for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.

The tug-of-war between exams and summatives is now playing out at high schools across the city as teachers decide how to best assess students whose first semester comes to an end late this month.

In Ontario, the move toward alternative forms of assessment gained speed in 2010 when a new provincial government policy document, Growing Success, was published. Among other things, it required teachers to assess students using methods that are “ongoing and varied in nature.”