In CIS105, we offer common exams across all sections. This assessment involves 5 chapters from the book. The teaching styles include: class activities, lectures, reading assignments, videos, pre-quiz review in the classroom. The student is asked to take an open-book, multiple-choice, true-false quiz per chapter. At the end of those 5 chapters, there is a combined multiple-choice, true-false Unit Test. Statistics show:During Fall 2012, the students averaged 80% over all five individual tests and 83% on the Unit test. (ALL open-book). During Spring 2013, the students averaged 83% over all five individual tests (open-book) and 59% on the Unit test. (closed-book, closed notes). What else changed? The unit test was modified to be essay style question list based on a summary of information found within those 5 chapters, lectures and activities. What to do? Offer 10-minute assignments at the end of each class session. Unit Test 2 and 3 will be offered in essay format. Results will be captured.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| p2pclientservernetwork.jpg | 2.2 MB |
| cables.jpg | 1.28 MB |
| transmissionmedia.jpg | 1.56 MB |
| homenetworkconfiguration.jpg | 1.18 MB |
| cis105spring2013networksquestions.pptx | 66.37 KB |
Comments
It will be interesting to see the results after offering the 10-minute assignments. Are these assignments the last 10 minutes of class, or are they to take about 10 minutes out of class for the assignment? Also, are you doing anything to help prep students for essay test-taking techniques (such as a review of grading rubrics, etc.)?
I'm curious on what prompted the change from an open book multiple choice unit test to a closed book essay test. Usually students have a much harder time with essay exams because they're more free form, and they're not sure "what we want". I agree that reviewing some essay test taking techniques may help, but students may also benefit from having several questions guide their writing for a given essay rather than just one.
Hi Pete and Marianne,
Thank you for your comments and questions. There is something I should clarify. Not all questions are necessarily in the full form of an "essay" - what I was trying to say is that they are not multiple choice, Fill in the Blank, T/F. There are questions to describe the various components of a computer, describe the 4 functions of a computer and list 2 hardware components for each function, define some terminology (i.e. OS, RAM/ROM), read an article and answer a couple of questions about the article, etc.
In terms of rubric, I am not really sure what rubric to provide to them. During review, I indicated what would be on the exam, which diagrams to focus on, how much the exam was worth, etc.
I basically wanted to test their learning of these base concepts in a different way because the multiple choice didn't seem to reflect their true understanding. During classroom time, I repetitively said "take notes", "write this down", "make a note of this, I'll ask you about it", etc. Some took notes. The others did not answer when prompted and were not ready to discuss. Students were getting the 80 percentile on multiple choice but could not answer basic questions during class time. I knew something was missing. I decided to do this assessment.
I hope this addresses your questions/concerns. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Meha
To jump off of Marianne's post, there are three competing hypotheses as to why the students did worse on the closed book, essay test than the open book, multiple choice one. Having access to an open book during the test is certainly good for getting more answers right. Perhaps the students never really got it but made up for it with the open book. Another hypothesis is that students don't express as well on free form answers than multiple choice. The only way to know for sure is to tease these effects out by doing an open book, essay test or a closed book, multiple choice test. Another thing to consider is if the test instrument is accurately reflecting what you want students to know and be able to do. Perhaps a better solution than a multiple choice, T/F, or essay test is to have the students complete a project in which they have to use the skills they learned in order to complete it.
Meha, this is very interesting and maybe I read too fast as to what a 10 minute assignment is - I am thinking a short assignment?
Hi there,
I did consider many different approaches for redoing this exam. The closed book mutliple choice would have been the same format, but would not have tested the "understanding" of the topic the way that I expect students to "get it" based on the book, my lectures, classroom discussions, etc. This goes back to Erik's point about the test instrument. Therefore, I am taking a different approach.
Here is some more information in regards to this assessment, that might help answer some questions, including Bronwen's question about the 10-minute assignment.
In class last week, I had the students get into groups of 3 or 4 and had them read a section from the chapter on Networks, which is going to be part of the Unit 2 Exam. Each group was to discuss, put a visual on the board and share what they understand from their reading and from each other with the entire class. I have attached a link to a few pictures of their visuals. They did a good job! As they bring up what they learned, I provide additional instruction. This activity took two 50-minute class periods. In the last 10 minutes of the second class period, I projected a list of questions to the students, these questions are similar to what will be on the Unit 2 Test. The students are asked to individually answer those questions and determine whether they understood the lesson or not. We will review these again before the Unit 2 Test. The questions are in a PPT file.
I hope this answers some questions. I could not attach a file to this reply so I have done two things:
1. Attached the files to the original post above.
2. Created a share link below. To use the share link, please do the following:
Clicking the link below will give you an error. Instead, please copy the link below. Click on the windows Start button, paste this link where it says "search programs and files" and hit enter:
file://TRIVEDI/Users/trivedi/Documents/MehaTrivedi/Year2013/CIS105/CATS_CIS105ExamAssessment
Meha