Proposing Questions for the Upcoming Midterm Exam
Leslie Gertsch
, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Summary
This in-class activity involves groups of 2-3 students who review assigned sections of course material to generate exam questions (including answers), in one of several assigned formats. They then trade results and check the other group's work. Scores are shared.
Context
Audience:
Undergraduate required introductory course in physical geology for non-geology (usually engineering) majors. See the course profile page.
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered:
Constructive reading and note-taking, taking tests in a concept-driven rather than calculation-intensive course.
How the activity is situated in the 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.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity:
To review the material covered since the last midterm exam and critically examine it. The precise topics depend on the exam being reviewed for.
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity:
Development and stabilization of conceptual models of the material, by "turning it around" to make a usable exam question out of it.
Other skills goals for this activity:
Working in groups; giving, accepting, and incorporating constructive criticism.
Description of the activity/assignment
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.
Determining whether students have met the goals
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.
More information about assessment tools and techniques.Download teaching materials and tips
- Activity Description/Assignment (PowerPoint 40kB Mar10 08)
Other Materials
- Example of proposed question&answer sets for a recent exam. (Acrobat (PDF) 195kB Mar10 08)
- The key for the exam that followed the exercise several days later. (Acrobat (PDF) 142kB Mar10 08)
Supporting references/URLs
None used.
