“I just put my attention in a pair where the students, the main student was a very good student, but the girl, it’s a student with a very low performance. I realized that solving the process was that they was following what’s the correct. Finally, they give me their exam and previously, they was the first pair that finished the exam. I checked the answer was correct. For me, it means that when they have to interact with the better students, probably they complement their understanding even more useful in a more useful way than from the teacher. In conclusion, I will continue to promote a collaboration within the quizzes session, not just discussions. When they are in a evaluation framework, I think they feel pushed to do a very good job and to take advantage of their knowledge of their colleagues.”
Quiz
Instructor write their own quizzes and some use the conceptual questions as a source.
“I concentrate on conceptual questions, which are at the end of the book, which are harder than the problems that are solved online. They’re harder even than some of the homework problems that we have. But they make them think a little bit more about the theory.”
Conceptual questions assess students conceptual understanding rather than problem solving:
Multiple choice
Small amount of calculation
Quizzes can be used to evaluate both instructors and students.
“I’m kind of approaching the quizzes as more of an evaluation of how well I’m able to deliver the topics rather than maybe how well they’re able to execute them in a 20 minute environment.”
“If there’s something that everybody is struggling with then we need to go back and look at it again. So really those quizzes are how I kind of gauge how the semester’s going.”
Design the quizzes and give instructions to encourage students to collaborate.
“I purposely design them so that one person cannot do them.I tell them that unless you split the work, unless you allocate the work, there’s no way you can do it. And then if somebody has a problem, perhaps you can start talking about helping each other out.”
“If there’s 100 people in the class I pass out 100 pieces of paper. But I tell them if we work in groups of four, I only want 25 back. And it forces them to truly work together.” –Instructor & Freeform Developer
Walk around the class and pay attention to students who are not interacting with others.
“I go around and if I see them not talking to each other, I tell them: You know this is a group thing you’re doing, why don’t you talk to your friend. There’s no way you can finish that alone.”