Participatory Exams

Brief Description: 

Students learn from designing and answering exam questions, from evaluating their peers' performance, and from reading questions, answers and evaluations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VH5ttRH10A

Problem: Online exams are challenging because students can cheat more easily.

Solution:
"The online participatory exam transforms the traditional exam into a constructivist, cooperative and engaging learning experience. Students learn from designing and answering exam questions, from evaluating their peers' performance, and from reading questions, answers and evaluations. This paper, aimed at faculty who teach online and at researchers interested in online learning, describes the procedures, advantages, and disadvantages of this new approach to the examination process. Five semesters of participatory exam research are analyzed. A majority of students preferred the participatory exam and believed that it increased their learning."

from
Engaging Students with Constructivist Participatory Examinations in Asynchronous Learning Networks.
Dezhi Wu, Michael Bieber, Starr Roxanne Hiltz. Journal of Information Systems Education. West Lafayette: Fall 2008. Vol. 19, Iss. 3; pg. 321, 10 pgs

Comments

Let students grade themselves

by Anonymous - 03/20/2009 - 20:36

Yes, I agree, online work shouldn't just be limited to responding to discussion forum topics and quizzes/tests shouldn't simply be multiple choice.

I recently decided to allow my students to grade themselves for one assignment during the semester. I give them back their essays, as normal, with feedback, but with no grade. Then it's their job to go home, read over my comments and their essay, and compose a brief online response explaining what grade their essay deserves and why. 50% of the essay's grade comes from what they assign and 50% from how well their response pinpoints their grade.

I find this a great way to exploit online learning because I'm having students think more about their writing, and then write about it. Online learning doesn't have to be about reading lots and doing a bunch of informal writing assignments. Metacognition, they call it, right?