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Never Finish a Lecture without a Quick Test. Rong Yang University of the West of England, Bristol Rong.Yang@uwe.ac.uk. Bassey suggested that immediately working on a taught subject makes a learner remember the subject better. Our Initial Motivation.
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Never Finish a Lecture without a Quick Test Rong Yang University of the West of England, Bristol Rong.Yang@uwe.ac.uk
Bassey suggested that immediately working on a taught subject makes a learner remember the subject better
Our Initial Motivation • Introducing a small learning activities during lectures, so that rather than just being listeners students have to some work • Monitoring the learning progress (for both the teachers and the students) • Taking lecture’s attendance
The Solution – five multiple choice questions at the end of each lecture The outcome of this project: • A question bank designed for a first year undergraduate module on computer science concepts • The results of a small-scale empirical study on the relation between in-class tests and online tests.
Setting the questionsan example – inductive definition (easy) The following is an inductive definition of a set S. • Basis: 1 is in set S • Induction: if x is in set S so is 2x (i.e. 2 times x) • Closure: only numbers generated from the above two steps are in set S Can you tell what the set S is? (a) S is a set of positive integers, i.e. {1,2,3,4,5,6,...} (b) S is a set of positive even numbers, i.e. {2,4,6,8,10,12,...} (c) S is a set of numbers which are powers of 2, i.e. {1,2,4,8,16,32,...} (d) S is a set of squared numbers, i.e. {1,4,9,16,25,36,...} All questions are related to the content of the delivered lecture !
Consider the following Java program static public void print(int n) { if(n == 0) System.out.println(n); if(n > 0) { System.out.println(" "+n); print(n-1); } else { print(n+1); System.out.println(" "+n); } } Q1. What do we get on the screen when we call print(5)? a. 0 1 2 3 4 5 b. 5 4 3 2 1 0 c. 0 d. 5 Q2. What do we get on the screen when we call print(-5)? a. 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 b. -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 c. 0 d. -5 Setting the questionsanother example – recursion (harder)
Running the test and marking • use the last 5 minutes of the lectures • students work on a pre-printed test sheet and return the sheet to the lecturer for marking • the model answers are published on our website after lecture • The individual results are not published, but the participations are shown on the website
Advantages of having in-class test – for teachers • It gives the teacher instant feedback on the lecture delivery • It makes lectures well planned with clear objectives • It records lecture attendance
Advantages of having in-class test – for students • Students can self-monitor their progress • Students are encouraged to digest topics instantly • The in-class test makes students listen better • It helps students become familiar with the final exam questions
Students’ feedback on in-class test • ‘the in-class test helped me to learn the module’. - 100% students agreed with it • ‘It is easy when being given a lecture to listen, but not really take in the information given. By doing short practical questions at the end I am able to consolidate the topics learned.’ • ‘The in-class tests make me listen to the lecture better’.
Q. If in-class tests were moved out of class, taken online, it would be more effective No 64% Yes 18% Don’t know 18% A survey on in-class and online test
Why in-class test is more effective • I would forget to do them if the test is not in class • I would forget to do them and not be enthusiastic when doing them online (many similar answers like this one and the one above) • I can’t see many people finding time to do them if online • The subject is still fresh in my head if I do it in class • A test at the end of lesson helps reinforce what has been taught • We like to take in-class test because we can discuss the problems together and ask questions to the lecturer. • The internet is not always accessible • In-class tests help to monitor a lecture’s attendance
Why online test is more effective • We can do it in our own time • Tests often overrun the hour lecturing session • Tests use up lecture time The conclusion on comparing two methods • In-class test is more effective • But, we should have both in-class tests and online tests running in parallel.
How does the in-class test approach affect students’ learning outcomes? • an increase in the first-time pass rate in the year when the in-class test was introduced. It changed from 73% to 78% which is a quite significant increase. • the percentage of first-class students (i.e. mark above 70%), which is 20%.
disadvantages and problems when using the in-class test? • Marking overhead – a potential problem if the student number increase • Sometimes the lecturer forgets to leave enough time for the test, so that the test overruns the one-hour lecture session
Conclusion • We have applied a teaching method which ties lecturing and formative tests together. • We found that the approach is effective. Both teacher and students can be more reflective when having in-class tests at the end of a lecture. • Students’ performance has been improved. Feedback from students shows that they learn better with this approach.
As a Reusable Learning Object • From the development aspect, we have produced a set of online tests on computer science concepts. • From the case study aspect, we have investigated students’ view on in-class and online tests. • The teaching materials developed in this work and the research conducted will bring a shared interest in the ICS community.
