A great idea to improve learning in students & works more like how decision-making takes place in today's workplace ... as a team. Plus it may sow the seed of curiosity & learning in students than students just preparing for a test without understanding or remembering any of the material as soon as the final exam is over.
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Immediately after each student completes a 30-question, multiple-choice exam, Gilley makes all his students take the exact same test again, only, this time, in groups of four. ... But does it help prepare students for life after university? “Nobody goes into a room & writes a multiple-choice test for their job,” Gilley says. “People sit down in groups & discuss things to get points across.”
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Immediately after each student completes a 30-question, multiple-choice exam, Gilley makes all his students take the exact same test again, only, this time, in groups of four. ... But does it help prepare students for life after university? “Nobody goes into a room & writes a multiple-choice test for their job,” Gilley says. “People sit down in groups & discuss things to get points across.”
A recent study co-authored by Gilley showed higher retention of course material when students have collaborative group tests immediately after the individual test. “It’s not just that I know the answers better,” says Danny Congleton, a first-year bachelor of arts student at UBC. “I understand the reasoning behind why certain answers are correct.”
Faculty over the years have seen the benefits of the two-stage exam, to the extent that more than 50 classes at UBC have implemented them today, across courses in physics, chemistry, biology, math, statistics & computer science.
One drawback to the test, however, is that consensus doesn’t necessarily translate into the correct answer. As well, for some difficult questions, a group may leave without any certainty over which answer was correct.
“The longer you delay the feedback, the less useful it becomes,” says Jim Sibley, a staff member at UBC’s Centre for Instructional Support & co-author of a book on team-based learning. “Can you imagine you hit a golf ball & I tell you in a week in which direction it went, & then you try to adjust your shot?”
And, to make sure no slacker shows up unprepared, the two-stage exam system can be weighted such that the individual test accounts for 85% of the exam mark, whereas the remaining 15% comes from the group test. In that case, everyone knows the right answer by the end of the exam, everyone has individual accountability, & the students learn from each other. “You’re not the teacher anymore,” says Sibley. “You’re the architect of a learning experience.”
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