Final Exam - aka "Celebration of Knowledge"

Rationale

The final exam, or Celebration of Knowledge, was developed as an open note, long-answer, cumulative content, summative assessment of the course using a collaborative process in the spirit of inclusivity and learning through scientific practice. A specific structure was provided to the students to cover the major course content and all were invited to contribute questions to a shared document that became the study guide. The course instructor held veto power over any inappropriate or poor questions and this information was provided to the students. The prompt for the students was as follows:

"As we discussed in class, you can be in the driver's seat here! What would be fair assessment questions for the final exam that address the course topics? I encourage you to come up with fair exam questions and add them to this document. You may edit or add to each other's suggestions too. My hope is that you collectively dream up the ultimate fair final exam: I will choose your questions, and you will have collaboratively made your own study guide. Populating this document with deliberately basic or obtuse questions is against the spirit of this opportunity!"

The real assessment comes from a final reflection assigned to the students that asks them to evaluate their achievement of the course learning objectives. This reflection assignment is provided below under resources. The final exam in our pilot courses included a student-generated question from each category as well as the final reflection and was given as an open-note exam.

Structure

For the Final Exam there are four main categories that encompass the course content:

Scientific Habits of Mind

• Being a scientist/teaching science
• Growth mindset
• Cross-cutting concepts & science and engineering practices

Energy

• Basics of energy
• Application of energy to the natural world

Density

• Basics of density
• Application of density to the natural world

Forces

• Basics of forces
• Application of forces to the natural world

Instructions & Assessment

Instructions within the exam delivery for these student-generated questions were as follows.

Scientific Habits of Mind

Throughout the semester we have demonstrated and practiced doing science with a growth mindset. We have also discussed, used, and applied two of the "3 Dimensions" of learning science from the NGSS: Cross-Cutting Concepts and Science and Engineering Practices. Be sure to support your answer with evidence and/or justification that specifically comes from our class materials (lessons, labs, readings, etc.).

Energy, Density, and Forces

Our second/third/fourth unit in this course was on Energy/Density/Forces! Be sure to support your answer with evidence and/or justification that specifically comes from our class materials (lessons, labs, readings, etc.).

a) Basics: i.e. fundamental physics concepts, not applied to the Earth

b) Application: i.e. specifically related to Earth systems and processes

Each question was equally weighted at 5 points with points distributed more or less as 3 for scientific correctness of the concept and 2 for use of an appropriate example as supporting evidence for the concept.

Example Questions

The following questions are example questions that were generated by students during the piloting of this course curriculum.

 

Resources:

Final Learning Objectives Reflection: Unit 4.4 Reflection - Learning Objectives v2 (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 71kB Aug30 24)