Proposing Questions for the Upcoming Midterm Exam

Leslie Gertsch

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Undergraduate required introductory course in physical geology for non-geology (usually engineering) majors. See the course profile page.

Constructive reading and note-taking, taking tests in a concept-driven rather than calculation-intensive course.

This exercise is conducted as the in-class part of a review during the class period prior to a midterm exam. There are four midterms in addition to the final exam.

To review the material covered since the last midterm exam and critically examine it. The precise topics depend on the exam being reviewed for.

Development and stabilization of conceptual models of the material, by "turning it around" to make a usable exam question out of it.

Working in groups; giving, accepting, and incorporating constructive criticism.

To begin, a map of the lecture hall is shown, with each of 18 seating areas assigned a particular type of exam question (diagram, matching, ordering, multiple answer, or short essay answer) and a topic that will be on the immediately upcoming midterm exam. Ten minutes is allotted for the students to form groups of 2-3, review their assigned topic, and create a reasonable question and answer set in the appropriate format. Then another 10 minutes is allotted for groups to evaluate each other's sets and work out changes if needed. At the end I collect for each set a copy of the question, the answer, the names of the originators, and the names of the checkers. All the question/answer sets are posted on Blackboard as fast as I can enter them, so they can serve all the students as a review basis for the exam.

I review all the proposed question/answer sets, evaluating their correctness, pertinence for this exam, and clarity. Each team's score is determined half by their question/answer set and half by the score of the set they evaluated.

None used.