Day 10: Friday = Quiz Day

This year, I’ll be quizzing every Friday. If students finish early, they can work on the WebAssign problems due the following Thursday. (Since the WebAssign HW lags behind the in-class content by a week, this works well.) Also, the quizzes are done in SBG format, with about 3 concepts assessed. Each week, the oldest concepts rotate out as new concepts rotate in. So, for example, last week’s quiz was on:

1. Vectors
2. Gravitational and Electric Forces

Today’s quiz was on:

1. Vectors
2. Gravitational and Electric Forces
3. Electric Fields

Next week’s quiz will be on:

2. Gravitational and Electric Forces
3. Electric Fields
4. Dipoles

This appears to be supported by research referenced in Make It Stick (thanks to Julie Reulbach for this summary).

Day 11: SBG and Collaborative 2-Stage Exams

AP Physics C: On Monday, AP students took an exam on most of the material in Chapter 2 of Matter and Interactions. Today, they took the same exam in groups. Open notes, open each other, open anything. Whatever they didn’t finish in class is tonight’s homework. (Note: They did not get Monday’s exam back yet.) I don’t know if I’ll keep doing it — that’s a lot of time to devote to assessment. But yet the conversations going during class today were so great. I think that is what has to keep them honest — hearing the discussion and the explaining and the learning. As soon as it turns into one kid telling all the other what to write down, or everyone working in silence as they all copy off the same kid, then we won’t continue any more.

In my SBG system this year, I’ve switched from last year’s binary system (✓ or ✗) to a traffic light system (green = mastery, yellow = partial mastery, red = no mastery). The binary system had led to a defeatist attitude in some students. Plus, I wanted students to feel some sense of accomplishment for understanding part of a learning objective. Having a partial mastery level also allows me to recognize students who understand the concepts but might need some help or prompting. Students that demonstrate mastery of a concept on a group assessment will score yellow/partial mastery.

Read more about 2-Stage Collaborative Exams here: “Collaborative Testing: Evidence of Learning in a Controlled In-Class Study of Undergraduate Students” by By Brett Hollis Gilley and Bridgette Clarkston.

Day 42: Buffet Quiz

College-Prep Physics: Today we had our end-of-quarter “buffet” quiz. During the quarter, students had been keeping track of which concepts they mastered and which they were still learning (that’s the yellow sheet in the student’s hand). In true buffet style, students were allowed to pick-and-choose which questions they wanted to answer based on which concepts they still needed to demonstrate mastery.

Also, Miley Cyrus made a guest appearance on today’s quiz:

Day 7: First SBG Quiz

AP Physics C: Last Friday my AP students took their first quiz. After the quiz, we immediately went over it and students left themselves feedback with red pens. Today, I returned the quizzes with a chart attached (pictured) and we discussed the grading system for this year.

Instead of grading the quiz by assigning points, I took the above chart and highlighted the learning goals that were met as evidenced by a student’s answers.

The chart is broken into three levels, and each level has several learning objectives. On subsequent quizzes, students will be able to show knowledge of the learning goals they may have missed the first time around.

On this quiz, there are no learning goals for Level III yet. Level III goals usually require application of more than one concept and/or problems that have little to no scaffolding.

[NOTE: We are using the Matter and Interactions text, which is a bit non-traditional when it comes to mechanics. Also, I’m going to be jumping around in the text in my own non-traditional way AND also supplementing heavily with old AP questions.]