A New Approach
This year I have really been thinking about assessing student understanding. Exams are one part of this, and I really strive to test the essential parts of each unit. In the past I have been frustrated with the "this stuff only matters until the unit exam" mentality I see in some of my students. In the past I have combatted this to a small degree with cumulative semester exams (something that we agree to - mostly - as a department). However, this year I decided to do something else and I tested it out with Western Civ last semester. After each exam, I tally how many students missed each question on the exam. If more than 40% of students (in all sections combined) missed a particular question, I noted what knowledge was tested by that question. I then came up with a list of items from that unit that would be tested again on the second unit test. I posted the items on my website and made studying them a continuous assignment. This worked alright, but some students seemed to blow off studying the old information, figuring that it was only worth a small percentage of their exam score. (Interestingly, many of them put the effort in to study old information for the final exam, possibly due to the fact that it was so important to their overall final exam score.)
This semester I am trying something different, and I am doing it with all of my classes. I am again tallying the most-often missed questions. However, instead of testing that information on the second unit exam, I am testing it on a separate quiz one week after the original unit exam. This information is the only information on that separate quiz, and my hope is that it will be even easier to see who is putting in the effort and who is not. Although this does make more work for me, it does fit in with what I am asking of the students: to see a semester as an organic whole, with information and themes that all tie together.
The other reason that I am doing this is that (as I explained in an earlier post) I expect all students who earn Ds and Fs on exams to come in and see me to discuss the test and make up some questions that were missed. I often have students who earned Cs and Bs come in to talk to me, and ask if they, too, can make up points. This can become completely overwhelming! Talking to 30-40 more students is not a big deal, but adding 30-40 more papers to grade for what is really a tiny amount of points is not worth it. This new strategy, of quizzing over the most-missed items will allow everyone to do potentially do very well on a small quiz score, which will be added to the overall exam category and raise it slightly. Thus, the students have a chance to get what they want (the ability to show that they understand the material better than they demonstrated the first time), and I get what I want (a second chance to teach difficult material).
Oh and by the way - it is interesting to point out to juniors that often the most-missed material is related to items that I put them in charge of for the unit. In a three-day-per-week class I cannot possibly be responsible for re-teaching all topics covered in the homework when we reconvene. That is one drawback to the overall very positive variable schedule.
This semester I am trying something different, and I am doing it with all of my classes. I am again tallying the most-often missed questions. However, instead of testing that information on the second unit exam, I am testing it on a separate quiz one week after the original unit exam. This information is the only information on that separate quiz, and my hope is that it will be even easier to see who is putting in the effort and who is not. Although this does make more work for me, it does fit in with what I am asking of the students: to see a semester as an organic whole, with information and themes that all tie together.
The other reason that I am doing this is that (as I explained in an earlier post) I expect all students who earn Ds and Fs on exams to come in and see me to discuss the test and make up some questions that were missed. I often have students who earned Cs and Bs come in to talk to me, and ask if they, too, can make up points. This can become completely overwhelming! Talking to 30-40 more students is not a big deal, but adding 30-40 more papers to grade for what is really a tiny amount of points is not worth it. This new strategy, of quizzing over the most-missed items will allow everyone to do potentially do very well on a small quiz score, which will be added to the overall exam category and raise it slightly. Thus, the students have a chance to get what they want (the ability to show that they understand the material better than they demonstrated the first time), and I get what I want (a second chance to teach difficult material).
Oh and by the way - it is interesting to point out to juniors that often the most-missed material is related to items that I put them in charge of for the unit. In a three-day-per-week class I cannot possibly be responsible for re-teaching all topics covered in the homework when we reconvene. That is one drawback to the overall very positive variable schedule.
posted by Crosby at 8:31 PM
1 Comments:
I had students in my western civ request that I do the cummulative section on all exams again as well. They thought that this really helped them for two reasons, one to prepare for the final, two that they held on to information that they learned. I did poll the kids that I had and all of them said they wanted it again!
I too am going to do this with U.S. history as well.
Post a Comment
<< Home