Learning beyond exams

If I asked “Are exams a necessary part of college education?”, chances are that many of you would answer yes. As educators we haven’t come up with a better way of measuring student learning, and after all, how would we give grades if we didn’t have exams? But do students learn much from exams? We know that our students often cram in order to pass an exam or quiz, and I hear constant complaints that they do not retain knowledge or that they are unable to apply knowledge learned in one class to projects in another class. While I’m not suggesting that we should blame the lack of learning on exams, I wonder if there are creative ways to use exams to enhance learning beyond the traditional studying that takes place before the exam. What do you do after the exam?

I must admit that akin to this week’s Faculty Focus blogger, I am guilty of often keeping exam debriefs very short; most often I don’t feel like I have the luxury of spending precious classroom time reviewing exams, especially as most students seem to have very little interest in revisiting their exam mistakes. However, if I really want to focus on learning, I know I should take the time – or require the students to take the time – to reflect on their learning through the mistakes they made on the exam. In her blog post, Maryellen Weimer summarizes a few published strategies to enhance learning from exams:

1. Allow students to correct their own questions; this can be done individually or in groups and immediately after the students take the exam (before they know their score) or once the exam has been returned.
2. Require students to reflect on why they made exam mistakes and have them look for patterns that reveal holes in studying strategies, skill mastery, or content knowledge with the goal of improving study techniques for future exams.

I used the first strategy a few times when an entire class performed horribly on an exam; instead of reviewing the exam with the students, I gave them the opportunity to work in groups to correct their mistakes using all available resources including the book and electronic devices. I then re-graded the exams and bumped everybody’s test score with a number of points that was equal to half the difference of the class average of the first and second exam score. This I felt was fair, as the adjusted score still reflected the initial study effort that each student had put in, but also gave everybody the opportunity to raise their scores. Surprisingly, the scores on the re-graded exams were far from perfect, which told me that there were major concepts that the students had not grasped, or the majority of the class had completely misunderstood. This gave me an opportunity to go back and correct misconceptions. In hindsight, I wish I had asked the students to reflect on their learning after the exam and the re-grading exercise, but that will have to wait for a future exam.

How do you handle exam debriefs or retakes? Do you let students take an exam over? How do you deal with exam scores and grades if you allow any kind of re-take? Do you incorporate reflection after exams and, if you do, have you found that it helps students become better learners?

A minute of feedback to feed forward

Guest Blogger: Bill Donohue

“One thing I learned today was identifying the main idea, supporting details, and topics of a passage.” 

“Don’t enjoy Pump Handle too much because you can get suspended and miss class… Also watch after everyone.”

The two quotes come from the “minute papers” that I have asked my ENG 099 students to write at the end of a class. According to Angelo and Cross, “this versatile technique—also known as the One-Minute Paper and the Half-Sheet Response—provides a quick and extremely simple way to collect written feedback about student learning” (p. 148). I use the formative, classroom assessment technique to gauge the student learning and provide direction for what I need to adjust as we strive to meet our student learning outcomes. I usually ask student about the most important thing they learned in class and/or any questions they have.

This year, the majority of the students have been able to provide an answer that matched my main goal for that lesson. Some students have focused on aspects of the current class that reviewed the main goal from a prior lesson—a message to me to make sure I keep reviewing prior information in class as we build on those concepts and learn new ones. I can address questions during the next class period, email students directly if they provided their name, and provide supplemental information on Moodle that addresses questions and further illuminates course content.

And occasionally, I am reminded of the greater impact we have on our student’s lives. In one class period, as we discussed assignment due dates that coincided with Pump Handle, I slipped into “Dad” mode, laid out scenarios that have affected previous students, and pleaded with students to be both respectful to each other and have each other’s back. More than one student let me know that message was the most important from that day’s class.

Have you used minute papers or similar classroom assessments? How have they been useful for you or how do you think they may be useful for your courses?