{"id":11860,"date":"2012-10-19t08:00:42","date_gmt":"2012-10-19t13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=11860"},"modified":"2012-09-21t11:23:55","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21t16:23:55","slug":"ask-professor-pedagogy-midterm-exams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2012\/10\/ask-professor-pedagogy-midterm-exams\/","title":{"rendered":"ask professor pedagogy: midterm exams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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ask professor pedagogy<\/strong> is a twice monthly advice column written by 2022年世界杯中国小组赛积分 staff. one aspect of our mission is to cultivate dialogue about teaching and learning, so we welcome questions and concerns that arise in the classroom; particularly those from vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff. if you have a question that you’d like professor p to address, please send it to us<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

dear professor pedagogy,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

my students just took their mid-term exams, and many students bombed it! i thought the class had been going well up to this point, so i was really surprised to see how poorly they did on this test. obviously, the students did not understand the material as well as i thought they did. what can i do between now and the next exam to make sure the students are \u201cgetting it\u201d?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

dr. disappointed<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

dear dr. d,<\/p>\n

kudos to you for recognizing that your students\u2019 poor performance on an exam is not necessarily a reflection of laziness or indifference on their part, but perhaps an indication that they are struggling to grasp the material you are teaching. unfortunately, traditional approaches to teaching often do not attempt to assess students\u2019 understanding until major graded assignments, which (as in your case) sometimes creates an unpleasant surprise for the instructor. the good news is that you now have an opportunity, before the semester gets away from you, to take a different approach and find out what\u2019s really going on in your students\u2019 heads.<\/p>\n

when we talk about assessing student learning, most of us think about grades. but grades are really only one kind of assessment; they are part of what is known as\u00a0summative <\/em>assessment. summative assessments evaluate a student\u2019s performance (usually with a grade) at the end of a particular effort (a unit of study, or an entire course, for example). in contrast,\u00a0formative<\/em> assessments provide students with frequent, informal opportunities to re-think and revise.\u00a0 they also provide instructors with information about student learning that can be acted upon prior to future summative assessments.<\/p>\n

it sounds to me like your students could benefit from some opportunities for formative assessment. some of the most useful approaches to formative assessment are known as\u00a0classroom assessment techniques<\/a><\/strong>, or cats. cats are informal, ungraded, usually anonymous assignments that students complete in class. cats are designed to give you particular information about how your students are thinking about the course material, and where they may be struggling. here are a few cats you might be interested in trying:<\/p>\n