Effect of adding study session during class time

Submitted by Sonya Zetlan on
What is the Purpose of the Assessment?

Students do poorly on exam 1. Many report exam was not what they expected,  they did not dedicate sufficient time, did not study the right thing. Need to emphasis what and how to study?

Describe the necessity for this assessment

Students are told to cut up tissue charts at home and reassemble them as a puzzle. The majority of students do not do this activity. Do students need to see studying modeled for them?

Describe how the practice will be implemented

I cut up and made 12 individual packs of all 6 tissue charts. Students could work singly or in groups of two to talk about and reassemble the puzzle pieces into whole charts. Students could do one chart over and over again, or complete them all. I  allowed students one class period of 1 hour 15 minutes to study the material on tissues.I walked around the classroom, keeping them on track and asking/answering questions, so I know they were working on tissues the entire time. 

Interpret, compare, and describe the results

47 students in activity group. 107 students w/no activity.  Control average: 69.0. Activity average:  68.5.  107 students in control cohort recieving A /B: 17%. In activity cohort:  27 %. Class averages did not change. Some grades in the class shifted upward. Perhaps B and C students improve at least one letter grade with a concencentrated active learning.

 

 

 

 

 

After analyzing, and reflecting on the outcome, what are the next steps?

 I will continue to do this activity, and encourage students to attend office hours, tutoring, counselling, study sessions.  Students not doing well after the first exam will be referred to early alert so that a counselor can determine if other factors are interfering with their learning (lack of food, housing, support, time). 

 

Abstract

Students do poorly on exam 1. Students participated in a study activity during one class period one week before exam 1. The activity emphasized novel presentation of material (puzzle), repetition, additional study time, interaction with other students and the instructor.  The material studied accounted for about 50% of the first exam. Averages of the exam 1 did not differ from averages of 7 previous classes, but grades of A and B almost doubled in the activity group.

Division/Department
Life Sciences
Completed Full Cycle
No
Course Number
BIO 201

Comments

Becky Baranowski Thu, 09/13/2018 - 1:22pm

Hi Sandy, 

    Thanks for taking time to share this information.  I am sorry to see that the time you took for class to do this did not help.  I am sure you had to take out other activities from class to do this with the students, too.  I have had times where I gave students a study guide, gave the exact same thing as an exam, and still had no impact on exam scores.  I think when we have students who do not put the time and effort into our classes, this is exactly what you mentioned (lack of housing, support, time, food, or motivation).  These, for the most part, are out of our control, and this is hard.  

I see your comment says in progress - so I am looking forward to seeing what else you will say with this.  THANK YOU for taking time to document this in our CATS system.      

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Sonya Zetlan Fri, 09/14/2018 - 10:26am

OK, better than I thought. When I went beyond just the averages, there seemed to be improvement with the activity.

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