Exams as Learning Opportunities: Using Assessment Corrections to Enhance Meaningful Learning and Reflection

Shahnaz Masani

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

1425 Biomedical and Physical Sciences

Lunch Provided

Abstract

Students often view in-semester exams and quizzes as summative assessments, failing to adequately reflect upon and correct their misconceptions and missing out an important learning opportunity. Assessment corrections or exam wrappers are tools that can help improve mastery of concepts and students’ metacognitive abilities (Henderson & Harper 2009; Libertini et al. 2016, Mynlieff et al. 2014). They also increase student engagement and satisfaction, increasing rates of test pick-up and student ratings for ‘fairness of evaluation methods’ and ‘meaningful learning’ (Stephenson et al. 2017). Assessment corrections are relatively low cost interventions, requiring little additional instructor input, but have the potential to provide great learning gains for students. In this session, we will introduce different assessment correction formats and practice developing an assignment that helps students achieve the desired learning outcomes. For example, identifying and correct existing misconceptions by submitting a corrected answer or developing stronger study skills by identifying the associated learning objective(s) and linking the concept being tested to other concepts covered in class. Although assessment samples with student responses will be provided, participants are encouraged to bring in an assessment and example of student work from their course(s).

Biography

Shahnaz Masani is an Academic Specialist in Biology at Lyman Briggs College. She has taught several courses at Michigan State University, including Introductory Organismal Biology, Introductory Cell and Molecular Biology, Eukaryotic Cell Biology and a Senior Seminar Course on Genome Editing. Shahnaz is currently a co-mentor in the Lyman Briggs Scholarship of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning (SUTL) program and is studying the impact of individual and group-based assessment corrections on learning. She is also a Hub Faculty Fellow, where she is collaborating with other faculty to create lecture videos for introductory biology.

Video of Session