How to test students for maximum learning

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How to test students for maximum learning

• Emily Peterman

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My interests

• Strike a balance between
• Designing testing material that tests students
  for what they know rather than what they dont
  know.
• Making sure that tests stretch students so that
  they have to wrestle with the material to test
  how far they can go with it.

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How to achieve maximum learning

• Must know what we want students to walk away from
  the class knowing
• Process-oriented or fact-based knowledge
• Must realize that there are different learning
  styles and attempt to provide opportunities for
  all students to achieve success
• Variable format of testing for grade
  calculation
• Must provide a reason to go to class and learn
• Many students are not self-motivatedpart of our
  task as educators is to make the material engaging

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Things to keep in mind

• Not every student will want to do every
  assignment
• Assignments are more often completed (and
  completed well) when there is motivation
• Provide list of topics vs. free choice vs.
  classic format for essay-type assignmnets?
• Students are grade motivated
• Make it worth their while to go to class and hand
  in assignments

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What I propose to do

• Design a syllabus that explains the material that
  will be taught and the methods of evaluation
• Each assignment will be evaluated in terms of
  pros and cons for different learning styles as
  part of this presentation
• The course will be evaluated objectively to
  determine if the goals of the course were met

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What will it look like?Week-to-week

• Weekly quizzesindividually and in groups
• Quizzes will ask students to draw a diagram,
  label a diagram, interpret a graph, define terms,
  etc. (5-10 minutes MAX)
• One quiz in the middle of the class will ask for
  student feedback on the format, the amount of
  work and any changes they think would make the
  class better
• Weekly labs to reinforce material (will include
  field trip with written component)
• Homework assignments bi-weekly

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What will it look like?Paper and Exam Format

• Essays 2 essays (evaluated by CPR??)
• One will involve them interpreting given data
• Another will be a long-term project that is
  journal style and allows students to pick a
  topic, investigate it and write about it. They
  also must present it to the class (? very
  important!!)
• Short answer midterm and exam will include
  next-step of the homework questions
• In a Geo 2 type class, explain different types of
  volcanoes and different types of plate margins
  with homework questions targeting these.
• Exam would then ask students to explain what
  types of volcanoes they see in different settings
  (i.e. western coast of South America) and WHY
• They would have to mention at least two other
  pieces of information they used to come to their
  conclusions

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What kind of help outside the class will be
provided

• Since no late work will be accepted, homework and
  quiz solutions will be posted in hallway of
  building as well as online
• Practice questions for midterm and final will be
  available online
• Similar to http//www.usd.edu/esci/exams/ in that
  they will have respond format
• Extra credit will be given to students for
• Trying to answer questions (logging onto network)
• Score will only be allowed to go up if they
  retake and highest score will be factored into
  their grade as extra credit