R.E.F.O.C.U.S. to Beat Stress

From: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/energize.htm

Is your energy level dropping? Do you feel burdened with too much work and too little time to do it? Do you sense that your students are becoming lethargic? Then you and your students may be experiencing midcourse droop--an insidious yet common syndrome. Why? When enthusiasm wanes, the ability to cope with stress decreases and the joy of teaching is sometimes lost. Thoreau reminds us that "None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," says Emerson.

At registration time, energy levels were high as you and your students envisioned the mountaintop of growth and possibilities inherent in the learning experience to come. Now at or near midterm the storm clouds of academic and personal problems may have obscured the summits of success.

Midcourse letdown strikes students when they have underestimated the time required to learn the content of your course. Or when poor time managements skills cause them to delay the completion of major assignments until the deadline approaches and panic sets in. Disappointments occur when students fail to achieve the level of success they envisioned. Lower than expected test scores, poorly received contributions to class discussions, rejection by teammates assigned to a group project and the frustration experienced from working with lazy lab partners have taken their toll. What was first perceived as an enjoyable learning adventure may have by midterm become a code-3 struggle for survival.

On the other hand, you may be feeling discouraged because text scores reveal that the class exam averages are much below what you expected. Assignments may have been turned in late or poorly done. You feel that some students seem unable to write clearly and concisely and are exhibiting punctuation and spelling skills. Participation in discussion groups seems to be lackluster, and dozing has become more and more common during your lectures. Furthermore, this group of students seems to be taking twice as long to complete the required lab projects than usual, and in general you feel a bit panicky about how you will ever cover all the required material before finals. If this description fits you, you may have slipped into the quicksand of a mid-semester slump.

Survival experts tell people caught in a bottomless quagmire in the woods to stop struggling -- uncoordinated effort only causes the victim to skin ever deeper. Only by calm, purposeful and coordinated actions can the victims save themselves by swimming through the muck or sand to the safety of a solid shore.

How can you extricate yourself from the ooze of a midcourse sinkhole? Try a REFOCUS strategy. REFOCUS means:

Recognize
Empower
Focus
Objectivize
Commit
Unburden
Surprise

First, consider that a likely cause of midcourse letdown is a slow change of the thought focus from achievement to deficiency. Each time reality doesn't measure up to an envisioned ideal, emotional energy is drained, self-esteem is lowered and feelings of being in control are diminished. The result is instructor burnout. Here is a prescription that can help you rebuild your enthusiasm:

Recognize

Recognize your achievements thus far. Remind yourself of the lectures that were well organized, delivered and received; the visuals that enhanced understanding of a complex issue; the assignments that sparked critical thinking and the innovative ways in which you activated and involved your students in the learning process. Give yourself a pat on the back for learning all your students' names, staying after class to answer questions, meeting with your students even though you don't have an office and taking the time to develop the individualized feedback designed to help each student improve his or her performance.

Recall the work that your students have completed despite the demands of other classes, a job and perhaps a family. Acknowledge the progress your students have made.


Empower

Create a list of your strengths as a teacher. Are you an excellent communicator, manager, instructional designer or leader? When are you at your best -- leading a discussion, planning a collaborative learning activity, delivering a lecture, or going one-on-one with a student who needs help? Maybe you're an outstanding motivator. List your five greatest personal achievements in the past year. Can you remember how you felt during these moments? Reliving these peak experiences can really empower you to teach with greater enthusiasm and sense of purpose.

At the beginning of the second half of your course, perhaps after springbreak, ask your students to begin a class by sharing in a small group setting a personally significant learning experience. Encouraging them to remember and publicly affirm their academic achievements helps motivate and energize learners. Also, many students don't appreciate what they have learned while engaged in the process of reaching an academic goal. Therefore, help your students identify the skills, attitudes and knowledge they have acquired in only a few short weeks or study. For example, many aviation maintenance technology students were gratifyingly surprised when asked to list all the pieces of equipment and tools they could now use as well as the repair and troubleshooting procedures with which they were now familiar. It was then recommended that they update and keep these lists in a folder as data to help them prepare a resume upon graduation. Don't assume that students realize all they have learned or will learn in your course of the value of this education to bettering their lives.


Focus

Concentrate your attention on the material to be learned in the second half of your course and the selection of the most effective teaching style possible. Take a few moments to visualize the students' increased skills and changed behaviors or improved performances that you hope to see at course's end. Take a quick look at your syllabus. Are you on track? Will there be enough time? No? Then you have a management problem. Use a triage system to gain control of the situation. Triage is a strategy used in medicine under emergency conditions to son patients into treatment categories. The number one priority is to treat those who will benefit the most and who require the easiest treatment. Then move to those who require more difficult treatment but will benefit greatly. Last, attend to those who require difficult treatments and probably won't benefit from it. In other words, in difficult situations work to achieve the highest benefit with the least amount of time and effort.

When course time is short and learning is proceeding slowly, work on the material that will bring the greatest reward with the least effort. Plan to accomplish first the learning tasks that will bring the highest reward for your students. When you assign the easy, important tasks first, you often motivate them to continue working until even more difficult responsibilities are completed. Triage thinking can help you more effectively manage the second half of your course.


Objectivize

In the intervening weeks since you formulated your learning targets or objectives, the stresses and strains of teaching and daily living may have caused you to veer from your original instructional plan. If you have refocused your teaching priorities, it's important to create learning targets to guide your post-midterm efforts. Learning targets are a series of statements that describe levels of performance increases that are required for your students to advance. Some faculty think that only teachers in occupational, technical or professional curricula need to develop performance targets. With today's accent on critical thinking, learning to learn, collaborative processes, total quality management, etc., faculty in humanities, business, fine arts and developmental education could significantly improve learning by teaching for doing rather than just knowing. For example, compare two statistics course sections:

Section A is built with knowledge objectives. The objectives are that "at the end of this course students will know the concepts of central tendency, variability, normal distributions, hypothesis testing and analysis of variance." How does the instructor know that these objectives have been achieved? By grading homework problems, unit tests and a comprehensive final test. Students achieving above 60% pass; those scoring below fail.

Section B is constructed using performance targets. The target statement says that "at the end of this course students will have chosen a random population, created an hypothesis, developed a questionnaire, completed an analysis of variance and presented a final report using a PC and recommended statistical software packages." In this course the instructor not only teaches statistical knowledge but ensures that each student can put this knowledge to practical use in a holistic manner. With this design, learning evaluation can be performance based rather than strictly knowledge based.

Which course would you rather take or teach? Which would be of more value to your students? To energize your teaching, apply performance targets.


Commit

After you visualize your goal and create specific, measurable learning targets for your students, commit to achieving them. To reach your goal you'll need a strong commitment; one that will not waver as you encounter difficulties. In teaching nothing goes completely as planned or as expected. The number of variables in the learning process are too great to permit total control. A staunch resolve enables you to persevere through tough times, and it builds self-esteem. Ask your students to recommit to success in learning. Their initial commitment may have weakened and they need to reenergize for the second half of the course. Remind them of the benefits of making short-term sacrifices to obtain long=term rewards.

To illustrate the point, remind them of the value of priming the pump. An old story illustrates the principle. As the tale goes; old Desert Dan traveled the deserts of the southwest digging wells an installing pumps to aid those traversing the parched sands of this region. Buried beneath each pump he left a full jar of water with instructions on how to use it to prime the pump and thereby obtain all the water a thirsty traveler could want. Each dehydrated passerby who reached one of these watering holes was faced with a difficult decision. Drink the water in the jar and hope that it was enough to sustain life until the next water source was reached or commit this precious resource to punp-priming and the promise of greater reward.


Unburden

You don't have to be perfect; you just have to be yourself. You may hold the expectation that as a college teacher you should know all the answers. Once you accept the fact that successful teachers emphasize the roles of learner, presenter, guide, coach, facilitator, designer, evaluator, manager and leader and minimize the role of expert, you unburden yourself from unrealistic expectations. Then teaching becomes much easier and more enjoyable. Your students will appreciate knowing that you and they are on the same learning path. You have just proceeded farther than your students.

Unburden your students by applying good management techniques to your course. Look for barriers to learning that hold your students back or cause them to devote time to unnecessary work. Question your assignments and tests and align them to your learning targets.


Surprise

During the second half of your course variety is often desperately needed to keep your students motivated. Two surprise teaching techniques are discussed:

1. Tell a story. It is said, "A good story can touch something familiar in each of us and yet show us something new about our lives, our world, and ourselves. Stories can also be powerful tools for growth and learning."
However, there are several things you should consider before choosing to tell stories as a teaching strategy. Before telling a tale experienced storytellers consider these aspects -- purpose, practice and priority.

Purpose. Stories should be used to fulfill a definite instructional purpose. They help students visualize and internalize complex issues or concepts. Anecdotes draw students into the learning process by activating their imaginations.

Practice. Storytelling takes practice to master. Effective communicators practice by developing narratives in three parts: context, challenge and climax. Begin the account by setting the stage; describe when and where it happens and introduce the characters. Next, add the dilemma and explain how each of the characters are affected. Resolve the problem in words that convey the kernel of learning contained in the story.

Priority. There are times when excessive storytelling in classes get in the way of learning. To prevent this situation, prioritize your strategies according to their effectiveness and time-benefit. Brief stories can serve as introductions to units of learning or as mental rest spots during a long lecture. Stories spaced about every 20 minutes work well for many faculty who lecture extensively. Narratives can help you summarize material in a memorable way and enable your students to understand how your course material relates to the "real world."


2. Simulate a crisis. Crisis situations occur in most occupations and students should be prepared to think under pressure. "The Crisis Game" provides an excellent way to explore crisis thinking and introduce the element of surprise into your class.
To play, announce to your class that the red phone has just rung and the president or other authority appropriate to your subject area has requested that a student advisory panel be immediately created to deal with a sudden crisis. (You have previously prepared a handout describing a crisis situation applicable to your course's study material.) Then divide your class into groups of five to eight students.

Explain to them that they will have a limited time (say 30 minutes) to discuss the emergency and prepare a contingency plan to meet it. You may wish to assign roles to group members to facilitate this learning activity.

After ten minutes interrupt the groups and verbally add some additional information that simulates the dynamic environment of crisis situations. About ten minutes before the end of the game declare that because of mounting pressures from the press, the group must complete their plans and participate in a press conference in five minutes. This new time frame increases the pressure on the groups to work quickly.

When the time limit is reached the recorder of each group presents the details of their plan to the entire class. After all plans are shared. It is recommended that students be debriefed about how they reacted to the crisis situation and the added pressures of changing information and compressed time schedules.

Through this game, you can accomplish two goals: (1) help students learn how to better function in emergency situations and (2) review in an intriguing manner critical course materials.


This seven step REFOCUS strategy will help you to renergize and renew, and it will help you to continue to teach for success!

Handling the Paper Load

From: http://mwp01.mwp.hawaii.edu/resources/qt-paperload.htm

The kind of patient work that goes into devising appropriate assignments and responding to them intelligently does take more time than other kinds of teaching. But it need not pose impossible burdens. And some work that faculty undertake with the best intentions is actually counter-productive to the goals of improving student writing and thinking.

Some faculty may think . . .
That conscientious teaching requires marking all grammar and language errors.

But research shows . . .
Students can catch more than 60% of their own errors if they are taught to proofread and held to appropriate standards of correctness. By marking every error, we are actually training our students to rely on us as copy-editors. Teachers may instead

1. mark errors on the first page only

2. mark representative errors

3. place checks in the margins where errors occur

4. look over a set of papers quickly and return error-laden essays for proofreading and correction

5. use style editors or other software packages to scan student writing for error. (This last strategy requires some awareness of the limitations of these programs)

6. create peer editing groups in their classes

Some faculty may think . . .
That teachers need to read everything that students write.

But research shows . . .
Students can be asked to write for brief periods at the beginning or end of a class to help them focus or achieve closure. When discussion lags or reaches an impasse, students can be asked to write out a response to share. Students can bring to class written definitions of key terms to debate or questions to stimulate discussion. This kind of informal writing need not even be collected. Its purpose is to stimulate discussion and encourage active engagement with the material.

Some faculty may think . . .
That teachers need to evaluate every piece of writing they collect.

But research shows . . .
Students tend not to read lengthy instructor comments, especially if they will not be allowed to use those comments in composing an additional draft. Non-evaluated assignments can work well and even be the most frequent type of writing used in a writing-intensive class. For example, journals and informal writings, if collected, can be evaluated using a "minimal marking" scheme (i.e., points for completing the assignment plus extra points or a "+" for an insightful response). Or students can be awarded credit for the number of entries submitted, and they can single out a limited number of these for closer scrutiny, grading, and response. For more ideas, see the Writing Activities to Get Students Thinking and Learning.

Some faculty may think . . .
That more is better in terms of how much teachers respond and how thoroughly they address the conceptual problems of the essay.

But research shows . . .
That students are often overwhelmed and paralyzed when they receive essays on which the instructor's comments trail into every margin and leave a depressing map of error and negative response. Even when response is positive, saying too much is often confusing. It is better to choose two or three elements of the essay to focus on, giving highly specific constructive advice or commentary, than to attempt to cover all possible areas of concern.

Some faculty may think . . .
That requiring two drafts of an essay doubles the work.

But research shows . . .
That students usually attend to comments only when they are given a chance to revise. Otherwise, they are likely to give a one-minute glance to the remarks you spent twenty minutes writing--or worse still, look at the grade and toss the essay. It makes more sense, then to invest time and energy responding to the first draft and to make these comments truly facilitative. Respond to the final draft only briefly, and let these comments be more evaluative.

Some faculty may think . . .
That "writing-intensive" means that students should do 3-5 separate, unrelated assignments, each one entailing extensive time commitments in devising assignments and responding to them.
But research shows . . .
That students often benefit most when the work of the semester can be conceived as one project, phased in stages or logical sequences. Moving through a logical sequence of assignments is one way to increase the level of conceptual difficulty gradually, and to ensure that students build on material they have studied in earlier portions of the syllabus. It is more cost-effective for instructors as well, since in some cases they will have seen and responded to smaller components of a project before the cumulative work comes in.

Allaying Students' Anxieties about Tests

From: http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/allay.html

Anxiety can interfere with students' performance on tests. You can reduce students' anxiety and enhance their performance by taking care in how you prepare students for an exam, how you administer and return the test, and how you handle makeup tests. All students, but especially freshmen and sophomores, can benefit from knowing what they will be asked to do on an exam and under what conditions. Students will also feel more relaxed and less intimidated if you provide reassurance and encouragement rather than dire warnings about a test's difficulty. The suggestions below are designed to help you prepare your students to do their best on tests.


General Strategies

Make the first exam relatively easy. Research on motivation indicates that early success in a course increases students' motivation and confidence (Lucas, 1990). In particular, students who do well on the first test generally improve their grades on subsequent tests (Guskey, 1988).

Give more than one examination. The length of the school term, the difficulty level of the course, and the amount of course material all determine the number of exams an instructor gives. Periodic testing during the term has been shown to improve students' performance on the final exam (Lowman, 1984). Giving two or more midterm exams also spreads out the pressure, allows students to concentrate on one chunk of material at a time, and allows students and instructors to monitor progress.

Avoid "pop" quizzes. Unannounced or surprise quizzes may penalize students who are unable to prepare for every single class meeting. (Source: Jacobs and Chase, 1992)

Give students advice on how to study. Help students develop appropriate study strategies to organize and understand information from the assigned readings and class notes. Consult with your student learning center for information. Also see "Helping Students Learn." (Source: Mealey and Host, 1992)

Encourage students to study in groups. According to researchers, students who study in groups recall more information than students working alone and are able to overcome their feelings of academic inadequacy and isolation (Mealey and Host, 1992).

Schedule extra office hours before a test. Some instructors schedule extra office hours for the week or so before an exam to give students a chance to ask questions and go over difficult aspects of the material. They especially encourage study groups to visit during office hours.

Schedule review sessions before major exams. See "The Last Days of Class" for advice on how to structure a review session.

Ask students how you can help them feel less anxious. Students often make requests that faculty can easily accommodate, such as providing information about the test format, offering a review session, or refraining from walking around during the exam. (Source: Mealey and Host, 1992)


Preparing Students for an Exam

Give a diagnostic test early in the term. An early diagnostic test alerts students to the prerequisite skills and knowledge they need to succeed in your class. Some faculty give diagnostic tests throughout the term to identify which students are keeping up and which need help and to enable all students to identify the areas they need to work on. These diagnostic tests provide students with quick and frequent feedback and typically do not count heavily in the final grade. (Sources: Ericksen, 1969; Svinicki, 1976)

Attach a pool of final exam questions to the course syllabus and distribute both on the first day of class. A faculty member who uses this technique attaches to the syllabus fifty essay questions, all of which the class discusses during the term. The final exam is composed of five essay questions from the list. Under this system, students need not spend the semester worrying about what will be on the final. If the exam is too long to be attached to the syllabus, bind it to the course reader so that every student has a copy at a small additional cost. (Source: "Exams: Alternative Ideas and Approaches," 1989)

Put old exams on file in the department office or library. Reviewing past exams gives students clues about what to study. Students can analyze old exams for format (length of test, number of points for each type of question), types of questions, and level of difficulty. If your campus is networked, you can enter exams onto a file server and students can retrieve them whenever they want.

Distribute practice exams. Practice tests with answers help students gauge what is expected of them. You can use practice exams as the basis for review sessions or student study groups. If you will be administering a multiple-choice test, you could distribute the stems of multiple-choice questions but not the response choices; for example, "Which of the following statements best characterizes Melanie Kleins view of the first year of life?" (Source: Erickson and Strommer, 1991)

Before an exam, explain the format to students. Let students know the number of questions, whether the test will be multiple-choice or essay and open or closed book, and whether they can bring in notes.

Give students advice on how to prepare for an exam. For example, remind them to allocate their study time in proportion to the relative importance of various topics. See "Multiple-Choice and Matching Tests" and "Short-Answer and Essay Tests" for suggestions to give students for those types of exams. To lessen students' tension before a test, give the following recommendations:

Avoid cramming by spreading studying over several weeks.

Eat sensibly the night before a test and get a good night's sleep.

Arrive early for the test.

Take deep relaxing breaths as the test starts.

Administering Tests

Duplicate extra copies of the exam. Have extra copies on hand to replace copies that have blank pages or are collated incorrectly. (Source: McKeachie, 1986)

Administer the test yourself. You will want to be present to announce any corrections (of typographical errors, for example) or changes in the exam. Your presence can also motivate and reassure students and signal to them the importance of the test. Arrive early on the day of the test to answer questions and stay late to talk with students. (Sources: Jacobs and Chase, 1992; Lowman, 1984)

Read the instructions aloud at the beginning of class. Even if you write the clearest of instructions, it is helpful to read them aloud to the class. Ask students whether they have any questions about what they are supposed to do. Be brief, however, since students want to use their time to show you what they know.

Plan for "what ifs." Decide how you will respond to questions such as "What if we don't finish?" or "What if we think two answers are correct?"

Minimize temptations for cheating. Actively proctor exams, unless your institution is on the honor system. See "Preventing Academic Dishonesty" for advice on ways to reduce cheating during exams.

Don't hover over the class. Bring a book or work that will occupy you so that you will not be looking over students' shoulders. But be watchful to discourage cheating. (Source: Mealey and Host, 1992)

If there is no clock in the room, keep students apprised of the time. At the start of the exam write on the board the beginning time, the finishing time, and the time remaining. Once or twice update the time remaining and announce the last segment ("You have five minutes left."). Some faculty give students prompts during the test ("If you are not yet on question 5, you need to work a little more quickly"). Keep to the finishing time -it is unfair to allow some students to go on working when others must leave to go to another class.

Devote part of the session to reviewing the answers with students. One faculty member gives a thirty-minute midterm in a fifty-minute class. Students turn in their answer sheets after thirty minutes, but they keep the question sheet. The remaining class time is devoted to going over the correct answers and answering questions (Friedman, 1987). A variation on this technique is to divide the class into small groups and have them review answers and then reconvene as a class to discuss areas of disagreement or confusion. Another option is to ask for student volunteers who will meet with you immediately after the test to identify any specific problems with the exam. Or you could set up a student exam review committee. See "Preparing to Teach the Large Lecture Course."

Make one copy of the answer sheet available at the end of the test period. One faculty member described by Jacobs and Chase (1992) places a corrected test copy (multiple-choice items) on his desk so that students can review it after they have turned in their own exam. This is only possible, of course, in small classes.


Letting Students Show What They Know

Give students the opportunity to comment on the test. Researchers report that giving students space on the test itself to explain their responses to multiple-choice items helped relieve students' anxiety and reduced posttest complaints from students. Students were directed to write a short justification for any answer they felt needed more explanation or for questions they perceived to be tricky. The researchers noted that students averaged less than one explanation per test over four tests. The instructors added a point for a "good explanation of a wrong answer" and subtracted a point for "a bad explanation of a right answer" (Dodd and Leal, 1988; Nield and Wintre, 1986). Or you can ignore the comments on those items for which a student selected the correct multiple-choice option. Some faculty offer students extra credit for rewriting multiple-choice items (limit two items per test).

Include a blank question on the exam. Ask students to write a question or pose a problem that they were well prepared to answer. Grade students on the quality of the question (level of difficulty, appropriateness) and their answer. (Source: "Exams: Alternative Ideas and Approaches," 1989)

Include one or more extra-credit questions on the exam. Give students the opportunity to answer additional questions for extra credit at the end of the test. Add these points to their scores and to offset items they answered incorrectly.

Let students "buy" information from you during the exam. Tell students that midway through the exam (say, between twenty and thirty minutes of a sixty-minute test) they can ask you questions for a price. The price is losing points from their total score. For example, a student might ask whether an answer is right or wrong at a cost of one penalty point; an equation or formula may cost two penalty points; a diagram setup, four penalty points; and so on. A faculty member in mathematics who uses this technique reports that half of a typical class takes advantage of this approach to help them "unfreeze" on difficult problems. A chemistry professor uses a similar strategy but makes the option available to all students. He distributes a "test insurance page," in a lottery scratch-off format, to students along with their exams. The page contains clues to answers; each time students scratch off a clue, points are deducted from their total score. (Sources: Ellis, 1992; Gordon, 1988)

Let students bring in "crib sheets." As reported in "Exams: Alternative Ideas and Approaches" (1989) and Janick (1990), some faculty have had success by asking students to prepare one 5" x 8" index card that they can consult during the exam. According to the faculty, this technique helps students make decisions about what material is most important, and it can alleviate pretest anxiety. Vessey and Woodbury (1992) report negative effects of using crib sheets. Students, they believe, become "crib sheet focused"; they fall to answer the exam questions appropriately and instead look for key words on the test question that they can match to key terms on their crib sheet. When a match is found, students simply end up transcribing their crib sheet to their test.

Encourage students to evaluate the exam. If you want a sense of how students felt about the exam, ask them to complete an unsigned evaluation form that poses questions such as the following (adapted from "Let Students Grade the Exam," 1987):

Did the content you expected to see appear on this exam?

Identify the questions you never expected to see.

Were the questions clear enough that, even though you may not have known the answer, you knew what was being asked?

What questions confused you?

Or ask students to give a letter grade to the content, format, and fairness of the test.

Give students "a second chance to learn." After students turn in their in-class, closed-book exam, they receive a second copy to take home and complete as an open-book exam. Both exams are scored, and students can earn back up to one-half of the points lost on the in-class exam. A variation is not to give students a take-home test but instead to schedule, some days later, a repeat test containing equivalent items. Grading is handled by weighting the two exams differently: the lower score counts 25 percent and the higher score 75 percent. (Sources: Davidson, House, and Boyd, 1984; Murray, 1990)


Returning Examinations

Return test papers promptly. Most students are anxious to know how they have done, and a quick turnaround also encourages relearning or corrective learning. Most experts recommend that tests be returned within five days. Laws governing the privacy and confidentiality of student records forbid the posting of grades by name, initials, or student numbers; confidentiality and concerns about security also dictate that exams not be left in a pile in the department office for students to pick up. If you cannot return papers to your students during class or office hours (using photo IDs if necessary), arrange for a staff member in the department to return the tests. For example, let students know that they can pick up their own test from the department secretary between 3 and 5 p.m. in the department office. (Sources: Lowman, 1984; Unruh, 1990)

Use some class time to discuss the overall results. After making some general comments on how the class performed as a whole, you can show the general distribution of scores, note items missed by many people, and correct widespread misunderstandings. For essay tests, describe what you expected in a good answer and the most common problems. Some faculty read or distribute unsigned excerpts from outstanding papers. Smith (1992) returns graded multiple-choice exams to students and then divides them into groups to discuss the answers among themselves. "Questionable" questions are referred to the instructor for discussion by the entire class. She reports that having students review exams in groups often takes less time than her own reviews and students report enjoying it more. (Source: McKeachie, 1986; Smith, 1992)

Schedule extra office hours after returning a test. Students who come to see you may be angry or may try to have their grades changed.

Request that students wait twenty-four hours before coming to see you. This gives them a chance to reread the exam, cool down, and prepare specific questions.

Let students know that if they request a review of the grading of their test, you reserve the right to change the grade either positively or negatively.

Ask students to come with specific questions (not "Why is my grade so low?"). Some faculty request that students prepare a brief paragraph expressing their complaint and justifying the correctness of their answer.

When a student comes to see you, listen carefully. Do not interrupt the student to rebut each point.

Try to shift the focus of the discussion from grades to problemsolving. Ask, "What can we do to help you do better next time?" Help the student shift his or her attitude from blaming you or the test toward gaining motivation to work more effectively.

Don't change a grade out of sympathy or compassion but only because you have made a clerical error or mistakenly evaluated a response.

(Sources: Jacobs and Chase, 1992; Jedrey, 1984, McKeachie, 1986)


Arranging Makeup Tests

Avoid the need to arrange for makeup tests by giving frequent exams. Makeup tests are problematic. If you devise a new test, it might not be comparable to the original test. But if you use the same test, some students may have talked to others who took the original test. Scheduling a makeup test also poses logistical problems. One way to avoid using makeup tests is to give four exams, for example, and count the grades of only three. Students who take all four tests can drop their lowest score. Students who miss an exam will be graded on the three they have taken. Some faculty who give two midterms give double weight to one if a student misses the other. (Source: McKeachie, 1986)

Give students options on the number of tests they take. Buchanan and Rogers (1990) offer students the following options: (1) four multiple-choice tests, (2) four multiple-choice tests and a final, or (3) three multiple-choice tests and a final. In options one and three, each test is worth 25 percent of the course grade; in option two, each test is worth 20 percent. Students who miss one of the multiple-choice tests must elect option three. Students who miss two tests are handled on a case-by-case basis. The researchers report that about 5 percent of the students elect to miss any given test.

Give an additional exam for the entire class at the end of the semester. The grade on this extra test can replace a missed exam or replace a lower grade. This procedure frees you from policing excuses and illness on exam days. This option also helps out the student who has an off day on a test. (Source: Shea, 1990)

Hand out essay questions in advance. If you distribute in advance a list of essay questions from which the midterm questions will be taken, you will not have to write a makeup test. (Source: Lewis, 1982)

Give a two-hour rather than a three-hour final exam and use the last hour for makeup tests. By administering makeup tests during the time block reserved for the final exam, you can avoid the complexities of special scheduling.

Give an oral exam as a substitute. Oral exams are a practical alternative only in small classes and are more effective in advanced courses, where higher levels of learning can be assessed. Oral exams typically cover less material, but in more depth, than written exams.

Completely Rework Your Lecture Notes

From: http://teaching.berkeley.edu/compendium/suggestions/file30.html


IF YOU WANT TO:

1. Be well-prepared

2. Maintain your enthusiasm for the subject matter

3. Have your course reflect your own professional growth

YOU MAY WISH TO CONSIDER:

Completely reworking your lecture notes each time you teach the course.

"It's important to completely redo my notes each time I teach the course," says an economics professor. It helps me rethink the material so that the ideas seem fresh and new to me as well as to the students. This increases my enthusiasm for the subject matter and I think this is communicated to the students."

"My lectures change somewhat every time I teach the course," says a professor of psychology. "In this way, over a period of six to eight years, they change quite radically. This is partly because the field is changing, but it is also because my own ideas continue to develop."

Although the myth of the professor who teaches with yellowed and musty notes is almost unheard of in a major university, the importance of re-creating lecture notes each time a course is taught -- even if back-to-back within the same year -- was stressed by nearly all excellent teachers as a way of keeping themselves fresh and interested as well as interesting to the students.

Limitations on Use of Suggestion

Discipline: None
Course Level: None
Course Size: None
Mode: Lecture, primarily

Copyright 1983 by the Regents of the University of California

Preparing or Revising a Course

From: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/prepcors.htm

By Barbara Gross Davis

In designing or revising a course, faculty are faced with at least three crucial decisions: what to teach, how to teach it, and how to ensure that students are learning what is being taught. Often, the most difficult step in preparing or revising a course is deciding which topics must be excluded if the whole is to be manageable. Many teachers, hoping to impart to students everything they know about a subject, attempt to include too much material by half. The following suggestions below are designed to help you limit the content of your course, structure and sequence the activities and assignments, set policies, and handle administrative tasks.

General Strategies

If the course is new to you but has been offered before, talk with faculty who have taught it previously. Ask your colleagues for their syllabus, list of assignments and papers, and old exams. Find out about the typical problems students have with the material and the difficulties the instructor encountered. If appropriate, look at past student evaluations of the course to help you identify its strengths and weaknesses.

If the course is new to you and has never been offered before, review textbooks on the topic of the course. Reviewing textbooks will give you a sense of the main themes and issues that your course might address, which is especially useful if you are preparing a course outside your areas of specialization. (Source: Brown, 1978)

If you have previously taught the course, begin by assembling everything associated with the course. Gather a copy of the syllabus, textbooks and readings, handouts, exams, your notes for each class session, and the past evaluations by students. Read the evaluations to get a sense of the course's strengths and weaknesses. Then take a look at the various course materials in light of students' comments, changes in the field, and your own changing interests. (Source: "Course Materials Review," 1987)

Identify the constraints in teaching the course. As you begin to design the course, ask yourself, How many hours are available for instruction? How many students will be enrolled? Are the students primarily majors or nonmajors? At what level? What material can I safely assume that students will know? What courses have they already completed? What courses might they be taking while enrolled in mine? Will readers or graduate student instructors be available? What sorts of technological resources will be in the classroom? (Sources: Brown, 1978; Ory, 1990)

Think about how your course relates to other courses in your department's curriculum. Does your course serve as the introduction for more advanced classes? Is it a general education course that may provide the only exposure nonmajors will have to the content area? Is it an advanced course for majors?


Deciding What You Want to Accomplish

Establish goals. What do you expect your students to do or to produce as a result of taking the course? Writing down goals is important for at least four reasons (Erickson, n.d.): (1) the process forces you to clarify what you want your students to accomplish; (2) your list of goals will help you select appropriate teaching methods, materials, and assignments; (3) you can use your list of goals to communicate your expectations to students, to let them know what they are expected to accomplish; (4) your list of goals will be useful to colleagues who teach courses that rely on yours as a prerequisite. McKeachie (1986), however, warns faculty against becoming obsessed with writing detailed behavioral objectives. The chief purpose of writing goals is to help you plan your course and specify what you want to do.

Identify both content and noncontent goals. Fuhrmann and Grasha (1983) recommend identifying both content goals (for example, "understand the key forces affecting the rise of Japan as an economic power") and noncontent goals (for example, "become a good team member and work collaboratively with other students" or "learn to tolerate opposing points of view"). They advise faculty to start with a general list and then refine the goals to make them more specific. What do you expect from students? How will students demonstrate that they have mastered the goal? What will constitute acceptable performance? For example, if the general content goal is for students to understand the rise of Japan as an economic factor, a specific content goal might be that students will analyze in depth how technology has affected Japan's economic dominance. A specific noncontent goal might be that students will work in groups of three on an out-of-class project and prepare a joint report.

To get started in writing course goals, think about "the big picture." For example, imagine yourself overhearing a group of graduating seniors who have taken your course and are discussing why it was among the most valuable courses they have ever taken. What would they be saying about the course? Or imagine that several of your students will become local or national power brokers, or that half of them will have to drop out of school and work full-time. Would you change the way you are teaching your course? Why? Is there anything different you would like these students to learn? (Source: Bergquist and Phillips, 1977)

Scale down your goals to a realistic list. Adjust your ideal goals by taking into consideration the different abilities, interests, and expectations of your students and the amount of time available for class instruction. How many goals can your students accomplish in the time available? (Source: Lowman, 1984)


Defining and Limiting Course Content

After you have "packed" all your topics into a preliminary list, toss out the excess baggage. Designing a course is somewhat like planning a transcontinental trip. First, list everything that you feel might be important for students to know, just as you might stuff several large suitcases with everything that you think you might need on a trip. Then severely pare down the topics you have listed, just as you might limit yourself to one or two pieces of luggage. Research shows that too much detail and too many topics work against students' learning the material (Beard and Hartley, 1984).

Distinguish between essential and optional material. Divide the concepts or topics you want to cover into three groups: basic material should be mastered by every student, recommended material should be mastered by every student seeking a good knowledge of the subject, and optional material should be mastered by those students with special interests and aptitudes. Lectures and exams should focus on the basic elements of the course. Recommended and optional topics, labeled as such for students, can be included in lectures, supplementary materials, and readings.

Emphasize the core concepts. For example, in engineering, as one professor points out, there are thousands of formulas, but all of these are variations on a very limited number of basic ideas or theories. In a single course, students might encounter a thousand equations. Rote memorization is futile because no one can remember that many equations. Instead, the instructor repeatedly emphasizes the fundamentals by showing students how the thousand equations are embedded in a dozen basic ones.

Stress the classic issues, or the most enduring values or truths. Often the most interesting issues and themes for undergraduates turn out to be those that originally attracted you to the discipline.

Cut to the chase. Go for the most critical skills or ideas and drop the rest. For example, in solving mathematical problems, the most important task is setting up the problem -- the rest is the mechanics. Not every problem needs to be worked through to completion. (Source: Svinicki, 1990-1991)

Give students a conceptual framework on which to hang major ideas and factual information. To the uninitiated, your field may look like an unruly mass of facts devoid of logic or unifying principles. To understand the relationship among concepts rather than simply memorize dozens of discrete points, students need a framework -- a basic theory, a theme, a typology, or a controversial issue. Make this framework apparent to the students through repeated references to it.

Prepare a detailed syllabus. Share the conceptual framework, logic, and organization of your course with students by distributing a syllabus. See "The Course Syllabus."


Structuring the Course

Devise a logical arrangement for the course content. Material can be arranged chronologically, by topic or category, from concrete to abstract or vice versa, from theory to application or vice versa, by increasing level of skill or complexity, or by other schemes. Some courses -- in history or literature -- almost demand a chronological sequence. Here are some other strategies for organizing material (Bergquist and Phillips, 1977, pp. 146-149):

Micro/macro: Begin by describing a large complex phenomenon (macro perspective) or offer a detailed analysis of one aspect of the phenomenon (micro perspective). Establish a broad general base of knowledge and information (macro) or focus on a specific event or concern (micro).

Distal/proximal: Begin by presenting an immediate and pressing problem related to the field of study (proximal perspective) or by describing the origins, heritage or context (distal perspective). Begin with the relevance of the subject matter (proximal) or with historical or theoretical perspectives (distal).

Phenomenon/structure: Emphasize description and analysis of unique and significant events, people, or ideas (phenomenon) or emphasize description and analysis of theories, themes, and universal applications (structure). Focus on specific works, events, or people in their unique setting or focus on general patterns and concepts that are commonly shared by or expressed through different works, events, and people.

Stark and others (1990) offer additional sequencing patterns, suggesting that topics may be ordered according to the following:

How relationships occur in the real world

How students will use the information in social, personal, or career settings

How major concepts and relationships are organized in the discipline

How students learn

How knowledge has been created in the field

List all class meetings. On your preliminary schedule mark university holidays, major religious holidays, breaks, and, if appropriate, college events that may preempt classes. Fill in this schedule with tentative topics and dates for exams. Keep in mind the rhythm of the term, including "down" times. Leave open at least part of the class before each exam to allow for catch-up or review. Leave extra time for complex or difficult topics. Schedule time during the middle of the semester for getting feedback from students on how well the course is going (see "Fast Feedback"). Also give special consideration to the first day of class (see "The First Day of Class"), the meetings right before exams, and the last two or three classes, which can be used to integrate and pull together the themes of the course (see "The Last Days of Class").

Select appropriate instructional methods for each class meeting. Instead of asking, What am I going to do in each class session? focus on What are students going to do? (Bligh, 1971). Identify which topics lend themselves to which types of classroom activities, and select one or more activities for each class session: lectures; small group discussions; independent work; simulations, debates, case studies, and role playing; demonstrations; experiential learning activities; instructional technologies; collaborative learning work, and so on. (See other tools for descriptions of these methods.) For each topic, decide how you will prepare the class for instruction (through reviews or previews), present the new concepts (through lectures, demonstrations, discussion), have students apply what they have learned (through discussion, in-class writing activities, collaborative work), and assess whether students can put into practice what they have learned (through testing, discussion, problem solving, and so on).

Design in-class and homework assignments. See "Designing Effective Writing Assignments," "Homework: Problem Sets," "Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams," and "Supplements and Alternatives to Lecturing: Encouraging Student Participation."


Selecting Textbooks and Readings

Choose textbooks and reading assignments that reflect your goals. The textbook exerts a greater influence on what students learn than the teaching method (McKeachie, 1986). Explain to your students how the readings relate to the course goals and classroom activities. Some faculty assign texts that repeat material covered in class-or vice versa -in order to reinforce the content. Some readings may be assigned to elaborate on the lectures by providing applications and examples. Some readings may be intended to convey additional material or to give contrasting points of view. (Source: "Selecting a Textbook," 1987)

Consider a range of criteria in selecting readings. If several textbooks, reports, or articles are appropriate to your course goals, select among them by judging the following (adapted from Lowman, 1984; "Selecting a Textbook," 1987; Wright, 1987):

Accuracy and currency of content

Coherence and clarity of content

Level of difficulty and interest for students (challenging but not inappropriately difficult)
Cost

Choose the less expensive work if it is of comparable quality.

Choose paperbacks rather than hardbacks

Limit the total cost of books for your course by placing some works on reserve in the library

Size (heavy large texts are hard to carry)

Format and layout (ease of reading)

McKeachie (1986) recommends selecting textbooks that match your own point of view because students may be annoyed or confused if you express disagreement with the text. To complement the principal textbook, however, and expose students to a range of perspectives, you could select articles and shorter texts that espouse points of view different from your own.

Assign a mix of texts and articles, including some current pieces. Advanced courses typically include journal articles, essays, research reports, or photocopied course readers. But even in lower-division courses, students should have an opportunity to read at least a few recent publications or journal articles. One faculty member in economics assigns the Tuesday editorial page of the Wall Street Journal each week. She uses these editorials as a basis for discussions and for exam questions that ask students to compare the editorials with textbook presentations on related topics.

Foster a habit of reading throughout college. Encourage students to explore beyond the reading material you assign. Eble (1988) recommends setting up in your office a shelf of books and articles selected for brevity, relevance, and interest. Invite students to browse through the materials and borrow items.

Follow the copyright laws. If you are compiling a photocopied reader, be sure to observe the copyright laws, available from your library or from photocopying vendors. Services have sprung up to handle faculty requests for permission to reproduce copyrighted material. For example, the Anthology Permissions Service in Salem, Massachusetts, authorizes copying of copyrighted material through blanket agreements with publishers. PUBNET Permissions, a project of the trade association Association of American Publishers, processes permissions requests by electronic mail to help faculty members reproduce copyrighted materials quickly and easily. (Source: Blum, 1991)

Take advantage of the new technologies in publishing. At least one national publisher lets professors order customized versions of its publications. The publisher will produce bound copies of chapters in its textbooks and supplementary articles, in any order the instructor requests. In some cases, if a professor orders only selected chapters of a textbook, the price is less than the cost of the entire text. Some publishers have gone a step farther and developed data bases of individual chapters from different texts, journal articles, case studies, and other material from which a faculty member can create a custom textbook. The materials are compiled, indexed, paginated, and bound within forty-eight hours. Other publishers offer low-cost versions of textbooks stripped of such frills as study questions and multicolor art and graphics. It may also be possible to make the content of scholarly print journals available electronically so that students need only have access to a computer and the campus network to complete the assigned reading. (Sources: Miller, 1990; "Stalled Economy Leads to 'No-Frills' Textbooks," 1992; Watkins, 1991)

Be conscious of workload. At most colleges, students are expected to spend two to three hours on outside work for each hour in class. For simple texts, you might estimate that students can read about twenty pages an hour -- though, obviously, the rate will depend on your students' abilities and the nature of the reading material.


Setting Course Policies

"Extra credit" assignments. If you are offering extra credit assignments, announce them in class so that all students will be aware of the option. Some faculty allow only students who are doing satisfactory (C or higher) work on the regular assignments to undertake extra credit tasks. Here are some examples of extra credit options ("Extra Credit -- Taking Sides and Offering Advice," 1991, pp. 5-6):

One or two weeks before an exam, give students worksheets on the topics being studied in that unit. To receive extra credit, a student must complete the worksheet and bring it to the instructor's office for discussion and scoring.

Offer a fixed number of extra credit points for a specified activity: attendance at a professional conference, submission of a book review in the topic area, and so on.

Offer extra credit for completing problems in the textbook that were not assigned as homework.

Offer students extra credit for keeping a journal account of all the relevant newspaper or magazine articles, books, or monographs they read in addition to the assigned readings. journal entries should include the title, author, date, and source as well as some personal commentary. journals are checked weekly on the spot and turned in at the end of the term.

Attendance. Let students know in the syllabus and on the first day of class that you expect them to come to class regularly. Do your best to make class time worthwhile -- a time when real work takes place. Students are also more likely to attend if they know that exams will include items that have been discussed in class only. In most cases, however, attendance should not be mandatory or a factor in your grading Policy. Grades should be based on students' mastery of the course content and not on such nonacademic factors as attendance. See "Grading Practices." If you must require attendance, let students know how you will determine whether they come to class. Give bonus points for perfect or near perfect attendance rather than subtracting points for absences (Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education, 1989). The numerical result is the same but students will feel better having their attendance rewarded rather than their absences penalized. In addition to students' attendance, you should pay attention to your own patterns. Some observers recommend that instructors come early to class (to let students know you are interested and available), start on time (to reward the prompt), end on time (to enable students to leave for their next class), and stay late (to answer questions from students) (Heine and others, 1981).

Makeup exams. For advice on offering makeup tests -- and ways to avoid having to do so -- see "Quizzes, Tests, and Exams."

Late work. Be clear on whether you will accept late work and the penalties for missing deadlines. Some faculty members deduct an increasing number of points for each day an assignment is late. Others give a sufficient number of assignments so that a student is allowed to drop one or two without penalty (due to low grades or missing work). Still other faculty members give students two days of grace that they can apply to missed deadlines: a single assignment can be two days late or two assignments can each be a day late (Marincovich and Rusk, 1987).


Handling Administrative Tasks

Order books early and anticipate foul-ups. Double-check on the progress of your order with the bookstore a month or so before the term begins. Once the books have arrived, check back with the bookstore to see how many copies there are. No matter what precautions you take, there is always a chance that the books won't arrive before classes begin. You can make it easier on yourself and your class by not relying on books being available during the first two weeks of class. Instead, assign readings that you distribute, that are readily available on reserve in the library, or that students purchase from a photocopy vendor.

Place materials on reserve before the term begins or package reserve materials for students to purchase. Consult with campus librarians about the procedures for putting materials on reserve. Let your students know in which library the readings are located, the length of time they are available for use, and the number of copies on reserve. Because as many as 85 percent of the students check out reserve material to make their own photocopies rather than read it in the library ("Two Groups Tackle Reserve Book Problems," 1992), consider offering students the chance to purchase the reserve readings. (Sources: Janes and Hauer, 1988; "Two Groups Tackle Reserve Book Problems, 1992)

Make logistical arrangements in advance. Before the term begins, order audiovisual equipment, videos, or films, contact guest speakers, and arrange for field trips.

Fink's Five Principles of Good Course Design

From: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/finks5.htm

By L. Dee Fink

A "good course" is one which meets the following five criteria:

1. Challenges students to HIGHER LEVEL LEARNING.

All courses require some "lower level" learning, i.e., comprehending and remembering basic information and concepts. But many courses never get beyond this. Examples of "higher level learning" include problem solving, decision making, critical thinking, and creative thinking.

2. Uses ACTIVE FORMS OF LEARNING.

Some learning will be "passive", i.e., reading and listening. But "higher level learning," almost by definition, requires active learning. One learns to solve problems by solving problems; one learns to think critically by thinking critically; etc.

3. Gives FREQUENT and IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK to students on the quality of their learning.

Higher level learning and active learning require frequent and immediate feedback for students to know whether they are "doing it" correctly.
"Frequent" means weekly or daily; feedback consisting of "two mid-terms and a final" is not sufficient.
"Immediate" means during the same class if possible, or at the next class session.

4. Uses a STRUCTURED SEQUENCE OF DIFFERENT LEARNING ACTIVITIES.

Any course needs a variety of forms of learning (e.g., lectures, discussions, small groups, writing, etc.), both to support different kinds of learning goals and different learning styles. But these various learning activities also need to be structured in a sequence such that earlier classes lay the foundation for complex and higher level learning tasks in later classes.

5. Has a FAIR SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING AND GRADING STUDENTS.

Even when students feel they are learning something significant, they are unhappy if their grade does not reflect this. The grading system should be objective, reliable, based on learning, flexible, and communicated in writing.

Designing Multiple Choice Questions -- Do's and Don'ts

From: http://web.uct.ac.za/projects/cbe/mcqman/mcqappb.html

General considerations
The task of designing good MCQs may be simplified by referring to past student work such as tutorials, class tests and examination answers, as these are rich sources of the type of errors and misconceptions which students frequently expose. MCQs designed with this material at hand will be relevant to the subject area and will be taken seriously by the students.

Test for significant learning outcomes.
The questions should be designed to test the learning objectives of the course, and not trivia associated with the subject matter. Questions should be recognized as being relevant to the goals of the course.

Test for the intended intellectual skills.
A question may unintentionally be a "test within a test". Look at the following stem:

"How many permutations are possible in a bridge hand?"

A student who knows how to calculate permutations and combinations (which is assumed to be the skill which is tested for in the context of an elementary Statistics course) will not be able to answer this question if he/she has never played cards, let alone bridge!

Pay special attention to the language used.
The level of the language should be within reach of the students, bearing in mind that there may be many in the class whose home language is not English. Use correct grammar throughout and avoid the use of jargon, unless you are specifically testing terminology. Remember that "second-language" students will take longer to read and understand a question. This, of course, is true for other types of examinations, in particular, those based on essay-type questions, where mis-reading the question by the student may lead to the writing of a good essay totally off the point envisaged by the examiner.

Be sensitive to cultural and gender issues.
Avoid turns of phrase and figures of speech that could reasonably be construed as racist or sexist, or which may have a cultural bias.

Avoid giving clues.
The correct answer may sometimes be deduced by "test-wise" students from unintentional clues linking the stem to the answer:

A group of islands is called an

a. peninsula
b. archipelago
c. moraine
d. polder

Here, there is a grammatical clue linking the stem to the correct answer b) in that the "an" at the end of the stem is the only article acceptable for the word "archipelago". Rather end the stem with "a/an".

Which one of the following publications is considered to be a prime source for research articles on
achievement testing?

a. Journal of Educational psychology
b. Journal of Educational Measurement
c. Journal of Clinical Psychology
d. Review of Educational Research

The correct answer d) is the only alternative to include the word "research", which is also found in the stem. In addition, it differs from the distractors in that it is not a "Journal", but a "Review".

Avoid using interrelated items.Questions should not overlap.


The question stem

State the problem clearly, simply and as concretely as possible. Avoid vague generalizations and do not include irrelevant information. It is essential that the students should know exactly what is expected of them.

The stem should contain most of the wording in order to reduce the reading load.

Avoid using negative stems. If this cannot be done, the negative words should always be highlighted by underlining or capitalisation:"Which one of the following is NOT an inert gas?"

The alternatives

They should be equally plausible and they should be internally consistent. The internal friction due to molecular cohesion in
fluids is called

a. surface tension
c. viscosity
b. fluidity
d. ductility
e. absorbance

Alternative d) has nothing to do with fluids and so can be eliminated by a student who is otherwise uninformed.

Only one of them should be unambiguously correct. Critical examination by a colleague is essential!

Try and ensure that they are approximately the same length.

Avoid "All of the above" (Analysis shows that these questions tend to be the easiest. This response shows that the question designer has run out of ideas!).

Use "None of the above" with care (Analysis shows that these questions are more difficult. On the plus side, they reduce the effect of guessing, but give no diagnostics on misconceptions).

The position of the answer should vary.

Assignment Design: Telling Students What You Want

From: http://www.sacredheart.edu/pages/13510_assignment_design.cfm

By Dr. Margaret Procter, Coordinator, Writing Support, University of Toronto.

Obviously, only a few of the assignment design tips below will be appropriate to a given course. Take what you like and leave the rest.

1. Demonstrate how writing is used for learning and thinking in your discipline: analyze the style and organization of readings; look at examples of good journal articles and book chapters; ask invited speakers about their writing practices; refer to your own writing.

2. Demonstrate your awareness of writing as a process and a part of learning: require "deep" revision and rethinking; difficult but rewarding; necessary for exploration of ideas.

3. Phrase assignment prompts to refer explicitly to the learning objectives of the course: use phrases like "apply what you have learned about theories of deviance," "practice historiographical analysis," "use your skills in critical thinking," "locate the article's position within arguments about X covered in this course."

4. Ask questions that will lead students beyond mere summary or replication of sources: "Critically evaluate which of the two levels of analysis offers the best explanation for war," "Choose a detail or key word and show its function in the novel," or "To what extent is statement X true?"

5. Describe success in realistic terms: state grading criteria, making models available (perhaps past student essays on similar topics), discussing good (and improvable) examples of past student writing in class.

6. Define the reader as someone other than yourself, thus giving the student a role to play: "explain to other students in your class who have not read the work," "advise the foreign ministers of [x country].”

7. Help students avoid pitfalls by anticipating their questions and assumptions: discuss narrowing of the topic, use of sources, citation method, use and placement of thesis statement, first-person references, expectations that they will proofread.

8. Ask students for various modes of writing, not always essays and reports: real-world genres: government briefing paper, environmental impact statement, museum display notes, letter to the author of your textbook, manuals for clients or the public.

9. Try microthemes (concise pieces of 150-200 words): abstract of a required reading, summary of one side of a controversy, interpretation of given set of data, solution of a quandary.

10. Try some non-linear genres: response journals to readings or field work, research journals on the conceptual development of a project or experiment, diagrams, posters, cartoons, videos.

11. Try "metanotes" on any assignment or project: brief summative notes outlining reasoning and presentation strategies, perhaps discussing writing problems and tactics. They may be reports on progress or impromptu in-class writing as the assignment is handed in.

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Presenting Assignments: Reinforcing Students' Motivation

1. Give students an early chance to succeed, to test their skills, and to improve: give small papers in the early weeks of the course, with prompt feedback--not necessarily grades).

2. Use some class time to show ways of understanding and developing assignment topics: focus on broad subjects, using specific ones as "keyholes," look for issues, questions, and conflicts.

3. Let students know what you mean by the logical or cognitive operation you name (discuss, analyze/synthesize, compare/contrast, criticize, evaluate, etc.): draw diagrams on the board, outline a good answer, show published models, comment on the organizational patterns in course readings.

4. Encourage and reward prompt starts: assign preliminary statements and annotated reference lists; ask for five-minute in-class progress reports; set up a question box or discussion thread on BlackBoard, set aside some office time for oral discussion of the topics.

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Coaching through the Process: Getting students to take responsibility

1. Ask students to be readers as well as writers. Have class members, in pairs, read each other's abstracts, outlines, or first paragraphs--then challenge the readers to reproduce what they have read. For longer projects, students can look at each other's drafts in pairs or small groups (in class or on their own time) and answer simple focused questions: "What was the most interesting idea in this piece?" "What points need clarifying?"

2. Ask students to write or talk briefly about their progress and discoveries as they put together longer projects. Be sure they know the purpose of their assignment in terms of their own learning. Expressing anxieties can lead to discussion of possible strategies.

3. Encourage students to write abstracts for themselves periodically. Challenge students to say in three or four sentences why they are discussing this particular point, what they want to say about it, and why that is worth saying. These exercises can help both those who are blocked and those who ramble, and they can reassure the anxious that they have something to say.

Grading Class Participation

From: http://trc.virginia.edu/Publications/Teaching_Concerns/Spring_1996/TC_Spring_1996_Maznevski.htm

Martha L. Maznevski, Assistant Professor, McIntire School of Commerce

In my experience, grading class participation is one of the most difficult aspects of student evaluation. Over the past few years I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I expect students to participate, how I want them to participate, how to communicate those expectations to them, and, finally, how to grade it. What follows is the system that I currently use. The system is in a state of continual improvement, and hence is never static. Nevertheless, it provides me with a set of guidelines for the answers to these tough questions.

Why do I want students to participate in class discussions?

I want students to participate so they can learn from each other. We know that active involvement in learning increases what is remembered, how well it is assimilated, and how the learning is used in new situations. In making statements to peers about their own thoughts on a class topic, students must articulate those thoughts and also submit them to (hopefully constructive) examination by others. In listening to their peers, students hear many different ways of interpreting and applying class material, and thus are able to integrate many examples of how to use the information. Especially in a course that stresses application of material, extensive participation in class discussions is an essential element of students' learning.

What class participation behaviors contribute to others' learning?

In organizational behavior and management classes, we teach that one of the best ways to evaluate performance on the job is to develop a set of behavioral indicators of good performance specific for a given job. Behavioral indicators can be evaluated much more objectively than, say, characteristics or traits (e.g., positive outlook, enthusiasm, commitment). Furthermore, they can be assessed at frequent intervals, unlike final output which can only be assessed irregularly. So, in part to practice what I preach, and in part to demonstrate to the students that I believe what I teach, I developed a set of behavioral indicators of good class participation. A perfect score ("4" on a 4-point scale) is then assigned to the behaviors that are indicators of ideal participation, a score of "3" (equivalent to "B") is assigned to the behaviors I expect on average from most students in order for the class to meet its learning objectives. Scores of "2" and below are assigned to behavioral indicators of less participation. I depend on Bloom's taxonomy of learning objectives to provide guidelines for developing the criteria, since I can link them clearly with the learning objectives for the course. For example, the criteria for "4" always include synthesis and evaluation (Bloom's highest levels of learning objectives). Included below is the list of indicators I use for my current courses (which consist of about one-third cases, one-third involvement exercises, and one-third other types of sessions). It is critical that the expectations for participation, i.e., the list of behavioral indicators of good participation, match the goals and type of course. For example, in an accounting or math class, knowing facts from a case or reading may be irrelevant, and good completion of homework problems may become more important.

How can participation be graded?

Once the behavioral list is created, it provides a fairly simple mechanism for grading participation. First, it should be given to students at the beginning of the semester so they know which behaviors will be rewarded with high participation grades. At this time an additional advantage of the behavioral approach becomes apparent: even students who are wary of the "subjective" nature of grading participation are less anxious when presented with this relatively objective set of criteria. Second, at the end of each class the professor can sit down with a class list and give each person a rating on the 4-point scale (this requires knowing students' names quickly; in the past I've taken photographs on the first day and referred to them frequently). After a couple of classes, this procedure becomes fairly easy. Of course, not every student will receive a rating every day, especially in a larger class. But it quickly becomes obvious if the professor is consistently "missing" a particular student or set of students, and early intervention in improving participation and learning is possible. If I haven't watched a specific student closely enough to rate him or her for three classes in a row, then I make a particular point of watching that student in the next class and "cold calling" him or her (in a supportive way) fairly early if no active contribution is volunteered.

Interim feedback is important to students, and can be provided in various forms. About mid-way through the semester I provide feedback to each student in memo form, re-articulating the criteria and giving each student an interim grade on the 4-point scale. I also conduct conferences with students if they request them. Prior to the interim assessment, and at the beginning of any conference I conduct, I ask students to think about how they would rate themselves on these criteria. Low assessments by either myself or the student provide stimulus for discussion about improvement, and together we develop strategies to help the student overcome shyness or other difficulties. For example, I may agree that a particular student can "start" the next class by addressing a previously agreed-upon set of issues, so s/he has reduced ambiguity concerning when s/he will be participating and what the content will be. It is important that the students take the responsibility for their own behaviors, though. While I may promise to try to "invite" their participation more explicitly over the next few classes, I ensure they understand it is up to them to be prepared, respond to these invitations, and eventually contribute without the need to be explicitly invited.

Continuous Improvement

I have used the basic approach outlined here with undergraduates, graduate, and MBA students (highly competitive and vocal), and in continuing education settings; and it has been refined extensively over the years. I am sure this is not the final version, but it does help with handling the sticky elements of evaluating class participation.

Expectations for Class Participation


(Information Given to the Students)

Participation is graded on a scale from 0 (lowest) through 4 (highest), using the criteria below. The criteria focus on what you demonstrate and do not presume to guess at what you know but do not demonstrate. This is because what you offer to the class is what you and others learn from. I expect the average level of participation to satisfy the criteria for a "3".

Grade/Criteria

0
Absent.

1
Present, not disruptive.

Tries to respond when called on but does not offer much.

Demonstrates very infrequent involvement in discussion.

2
Demonstrates adequate preparation: knows basic case or reading facts, but does not show evidence of trying to interpret or analyze them.

Offers straightforward information (e.g., straight from the case or reading), without elaboration or very infrequently (perhaps once a class).

Does not offer to contribute to discussion, but contributes to a moderate degree when called on.

Demonstrates sporadic involvement.

3
Demonstrates good preparation: knows case or reading facts well, has thought through implications of them.

Offers interpretations and analysis of case material (more than just facts) to class.

Contributes well to discussion in an ongoing way: responds to other students' points, thinks through own points, questions others in a constructive way, offers and supports suggestions that may be counter to the majority opinion.

Demonstrates consistent ongoing involvement.

4
Demonstrates excellent preparation: has analyzed case exceptionally well, relating it to readings and other material (e.g., readings, course material, discussions, experiences, etc.).

Offers analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of case material, e.g., puts together pieces of the discussion to develop new approaches that take the class further.

Contributes in a very significant way to ongoing discussion: keeps analysis focused, responds very thoughtfully to other students' comments, contributes to the cooperative argument-building, suggests alternative ways of approaching material and helps class analyze which approaches are appropriate, etc.

Demonstrates ongoing very active involvement.

Responding to Response Papers

From: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/TFTresponsepapers.html

By Sue Lonoff, Derek Bok Center

One- to two-page response papers assigned throughout the term have many uses. They can help students:

1. keep up with the reading and so come to section prepared to participate

2. think more critically and analytically about the material

3. prepare for longer papers and examinations.

If read before the section meets, they can also help instructors to

1. identify issues that still need to be covered

2. alert the whole class to recurring problems and give everybody tips on preventing them

3. decide which students to call on at various points in the discussion.

Responding to response papers is a necessary though time-consuming task. It is necessary because, if you do not, most students will stop putting effort into them. But how can you respond to every paper without expending vast amounts of time and labor?

1. Briefly say something positive. Positive feedback motivates the student and opens the channels of communication. Possible comments at the end of the paper:

* "I like what you say about -----."

* "You introduce your subject well."

* "You understand what X says about -----."

* "You have gone beyond the requirements by -----."

* "You have correctly summarized X's position on -----."

* "You argue here [You try to argue] that -----."

Note that even the last comment is positive because it tells students that you've heard them. Note too that each of these comments addresses the substance of the paper. Many students need to be told what they've done right, so that they can build on their strengths.

As you read along, add positive comments in the margins: "good point," "well argued," "perceptive," "yes," "interesting," etc.

2. Identify the main problem, if there is one _ or, at most, the two main problems. You may frame your response as a statement or a question. Possibilities for the end of the paper:

* "You do not respond to [this part of] the question [the instructions]"; then specify.

* "You summarize X, but you haven't taken a position of your own on this argument."

* "What is your evidence for -----?"

* "I'm not convinced you understand what X means by [is saying about] -----." You can also be more explicit and tell the student what she or he missed.

* "But you have not covered [addressed the issue of] -----."

* "Your analysis of ----- is not clear to me." You can also tell the student why.

* "How would you explain the inconsistency [contradiction] in -----?"

* "I find this argument [discussion, passage] hard to follow because...."

As you read along, add questions and comments in the margins: "for example?" "evidence?" "What do you mean here?" "Can you make this point clearer"?

3. If the paper has major problems or problems that you cannot easily define, ask the writer to see you after class or in a short conference.

Concentrate on helping the student understand (1) what you expect in a response paper (2) how to read and analyze the material (3) how to present the evidence (4) how to argue effectively.


Copyright © 2002-2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Permission is granted to non-profit educational institutions to print and distribute this document for internal use provided that the Bok Center's authorship and copyright are acknowledged.

Derek Bok Center for
Teaching and Learning
Harvard University

Science Center 318
One Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-2901
Voice: (617) 495-4869 * Fax: (617) 495-3739
http://bokcenter.harvard.edu

Addressing Plagiarism

From: http://www.writing.ku.edu/instructors/docs/plagiarism1.shtml

Plagiarism, the academic community's capital crime, undermines the development and transmission of knowledge--what academia is all about. Many academics may moan about plagiarism, but some, including Edward M. White in "Too Many Campuses Want to Sweep Student Plagiarism Under the Rug," argue that faculty can do more to fight it. To combat plagiarism, White suggests that we need to work on two fronts: "prevention through education, as well as punishment for violations." We can explain the problem, teach tactics to avoid it, design assignments to combat it, and then punish it with consistency when it occurs.

Explain the Seriousness of Plagiarism
Many teachers may confuse listing the consequences of plagiarism with explaining the seriousness of the practice and its ramifications. It is important that students understand the penalty and the consequences to their grade, but they also need to know the potential significance to their careers as students and as professionals, and even to the field of study.

Teach the Role of Research
Well-intentioned students may stumble into plagiarism because they don't understand the need for their own insight and reflection. White explains that students need to learn that "sources should support, not substitute for, their own work." They also need to learn the research process as it operates in a specific discipline.

Review Conventions
The tactics to avoid plagiarism are best taught in the individual disciplines. There, students can learn the relation of research to their writing in the particular discipline in which they are working and can be introduced to the conventions that will allow them to credit the origin of their information. White observes that "even when the composition course does a careful job, that instruction must be reinforced by other courses before students will take the message to heart. Further, different disciplines follow different systems for making citations, reflecting not just differences in format, but also in the ways in which disciplines pose and solve problems and what they accept as 'common knowledge'."

Design Assignments that Discourage Cheating
Teachers can educate themselves to recognize and, thus, avoid assignments that promote plagiarism, White suggests. For example, he advocates that "professors should discuss assignments in detail with students and explain why the retelling of knowledge will be insufficient." Other strategies include:

reviewing with students appropriate citation strategies for the discipline.

segmenting a large assignment: This discourages plagiarism by requiring that students submit evidence of their work as it progresses.

monitoring the assignment subject matter: Assignments lacking clearly stated subject-matter boundaries are sometimes given in the name of encouraging student creativity. However, such open-ended assignments fuel the business of term-paper mills. Instead, consider stating boundaries for the assignment and selecting a topic that is not summarized in popular student analyses. An assignment that demands discussion of a topic in terms of class theory and discussion is difficult to plagiarize.

varying the assignment from year to year.

incorporating in-class writing with the out-of-class assignment.

As Walvoord reminds instructors, not only does in-class writing help prevent plagiarism as such, but if students know that they need to submit in-class work as part of a major project, they are much less likely to be tempted to purchase a paper. In-class writing might include journal entries, brief progress reports, or exam responses on mid-terms and finals.

Punish Plagiarism with Consistency
Certainly, we agree that academia is more than a diploma mill, yet White notes that, although many institutions publish strong policy statements, they are often not enforced by either individual teachers or the institution: "We give too much weight to the passive adoption of others' ideas, to the mindless repetition of slogans as if they were thoughts, to the view that education is merely a means to a degree or a certificate, not something important for its own sake." If we regard plagiarism as an affront to our intellectual values and our students' intellectual development, perhaps we will be more cognizant of the need to combat plagiarism through education and consistent enforcement.

Grading Practices

From: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/grading.htm

By Barbara Gross Davis

There are no hard-and-fast rules about the best ways to grade. In fact, as Erickson and Strommer (1991) point out, how you grade depends a great deal on your values, assumptions, and educational philosophy: if you view introductory courses as "weeder" classes -- to separate out students who lack potential for future success in the field -- you are likely to take a different grading approach than someone who views introductory courses as teaching important skills that all students need to master.

All faculty agree, however, that grades provide information on how well students are learning (Erickson and Strommer, 1991). But grades also serve other purposes. Scriven (1974) has identified at least six functions of grading:

1. To describe unambiguously the worth, merit, or value of the work accomplished

2. To improve the capacity of students to identify good work, that is, to improve their self-evaluation or discrimination skills with respect to work submitted

3. To stimulate and encourage good work by students

4. To communicate the teacher's judgment of the student's progress

5. To inform the teacher about what students have and haven't learned

6. To select people for rewards or continued education

For some students, grades are also a sign of approval or disapproval; they take them very personally. Because of the importance of grades, faculty need to communicate to students a clear rationale and policy on grading.

If you devise clear guidelines from which to assess performance, you will find the grading process more efficient, and the essential function of grades -- communicating the student's level of knowledge -- will be easier. Further, if you grade carefully and consistently, you can reduce the number of students who complain and ask you to defend a grade. The suggestions below are designed to help you develop clear and fair grading policies. For tips on calculating final grades, see "Calculating and Assigning Grades."


General Strategies

Grade on the basis of students' mastery of knowledge and skills. Restrict your evaluations to academic performance. Eliminate other considerations, such as classroom behavior, effort, classroom participation, attendance, punctuality, attitude, personality traits, or student interest in the course material, as the basis of course grades. If you count these non-academic factors, you obscure the primary meaning of the grade, as an indicator of what students have learned. For a discussion on why not to count class participation, see "Encouraging Student Participation in Discussion." (Source: Jacobs and Chase, 1992)

Avoid grading systems that put students in competition with their classmates and limit the number of high grades. These normative systems, such as grading on the curve, work against collaborative learning strategies that have been shown to be effective in promoting student learning. Normative grading produces undesirable consequences for many students, such as reduced motivation to learn, debilitating evaluation anxiety, decreased ability to use feedback to improve learning, and poor social relationships. (Sources: Crooks, 1988; McKeachie, 1986)

Try not to overemphasize grades. Explain to your class the meaning of and basis for grades and the procedures you use in grading. At the beginning of the term, inform students, in writing (see "The Course Syllabus") how much tests, papers, homework, and the final exam will count toward their final grade. Once you have explained your policies, avoid stressing grades or excessive talk about grades, which only increases students' anxieties and decreases their motivation to do something for its own sake rather than to obtain an external reward such as a grade. (Sources: Allen and Rueter, 1990; Fuhrmann and Grasha, 1983)

Keep students informed of their progress throughout the term. For each paper, assignment, midterm, or project that you grade, give students a sense of what their score means. Try to give a point total rather than a letter grade. Letter grades tend to have emotional associations that point totals lack. Do show the range and distribution of point scores, and indicate what level of performance is satisfactory. Such information can motivate students to improve if they are doing poorly or to maintain their performance if they are doing well. By keeping students informed throughout the term, you also prevent unpleasant surprises at the end. (Sources: Lowman, 1984; Shea, 1990)


Minimizing Students' Complaints About Grading

Clearly state grading procedures in your course syllabus, and go over this information in class. Students want to know how their grades will be determined, the weights of various tests and assignments, and the model of grading you will be using to calculate their grades: will the class be graded on a curve or by absolute standards? If you intend to make allowances for extra credit, late assignments, or revision of papers, clearly state your policies.

Set policies on late work. Will you refuse to accept any late work? Deduct points according to how late the work is submitted? Handle late work on a case-by-case basis? Offer a grace period? See "Preparing or Revising a Course."

Avoid modifying your grading policies during the term. Midcourse changes may erode students' confidence in your fairness, consistency, objectivity, and organizational skills. If you must make a change, give your students a complete explanation. (Source: Frisbie, Diamond, and Ory, 1979)

Provide enough opportunities for students to show you what they know. By giving students many opportunities to show you what they know, you will have a more accurate picture of their abilities and will avoid penalizing a student who has an off day at the time of a test. So in addition to a final exam, give one or two midterms and one or two short papers. For lower-division courses, Erickson and Strommer (1991) recommend giving shorter tests or written assignments and scheduling some form of evaluation every two or three weeks.

Consider allowing students to choose among alternative assignments. One instructor presents a list of activities with assigned points for each that take into account the assignments' educational and motivational value, difficulty, and probable amount of effort required. Students are told how many points are needed for an A, a B, or a C, and they choose a combination of assignments that meets the grade they desire for that portion of the course. Here are some possible activities:

1. Writing a case study

2. Engaging in and reporting on a fieldwork experience

3. Leading a discussion panel

4. Serving on a discussion panel

5. Keeping a journal or log of course-related ideas

6. Writing up thoughtful evaluations of several lectures

7. Creating instructional materials for the course (study guides, exam questions, or audiovisual materials) on a particular concept or theme

8. Undertaking an original research project or research paper

9. Reviewing the current research literature on a course-related topic

10. Keeping a reading log that includes brief abstracts of the readings and comments, applications, and critiques

11. Completing problem-solving assignments (such as designing an experiment to test a hypothesis or creating a test to measure something)
(Source: Davis, Wood, and Wilson, 1983)

Stress to students that grades reflect work on a specific task and are not judgments about people. Remind students that a teacher grades only a piece of paper. You might also let students know, if appropriate, that research shows that grades bear little or no relationship to measures of adult accomplishment (Eble, 1988, p. 156).

Give encouragement to students who are performing poorly. If students are having difficulty, do what you can to help them improve on the next assignment or exam. If they do perform well, take this into account when averaging the early low score with the later higher one. (Source: Lowman, 1984)

Deal directly with students who are angry or upset about their grade. Ask an upset student to take a day or more to cool off. It is also helpful to ask the student to prepare in writing the complaint or justification for a grade change. When you meet with the student in your office, have all the relevant materials at hand: the test questions, answer key or criteria, and examples of good answers. Listen to the student's concerns or read the memo with an open mind and respond in a calm manner. Don't allow yourself to become antagonized, and don't antagonize the student. Describe the key elements of a good answer, and point out how the student's response was incomplete or incorrect. Help the student understand your reasons for assigning the grade that you did. Take time to think about the student's request or to reread the exam if you need to, but resist pressures to change a grade because of a student's personal needs (to get into graduate school or maintain status on the dean's list). If appropriate, for final course grades, offer to write a letter to the student's adviser or to others, describing the student's work in detail and indicating any extenuating circumstances that may have hurt the grade. (Sources: Allen and Rueter, 1990; McKeachie, 1986)

Keep accurate records of students' grades. Your department may keep copies of final grade reports, but it is important for you to keep a record of all grades assigned throughout the semester, in case a student wishes to contest a grade, finish an incomplete, or ask for a letter of recommendation.


Making Effective Use of Grading Tactics

Return the first graded assignment or test before the add/drop deadline. Early assignments help students decide whether they are prepared to take the class (Shea, 1990). Some faculty members give students the option of throwing out this first test (Johnson, 1988). Students may receive a low score because they did not know what the instructor required or because they underestimated the level of preparation needed to succeed.

Record results numerically rather than as letter grades, whenever possible. Tests, problem sets, homework, and so on are best recorded by their point value to assure greater accuracy when calculating final grades. (Source: Jacobs and Chase, 1992)

Give students a chance to improve their grades by rewriting their papers. Many faculty encourage rewriting but do not count the grades on rewritten papers as equivalent to those of papers that have not been rewritten. See "Helping Students Write Better in All Courses."

If many students do poorly on an exam, schedule another one on the same material a week or so later. Devote one or more classes to reviewing the troublesome material. Provide in-class exercises, homework problems or questions, practice quizzes, study group opportunities, and extra office hours before you administer the new exam. Though reviewing and retesting may seem burdensome and time-consuming, there is usually little point in proceeding to new topics when many of your students are still struggling. (Source: Erickson and Strommer, 1991)


Evaluating Your Grading Policies

Compare your grade distributions with those for similar courses in your department. Differences between your grade distributions and those of your colleagues do not necessarily mean that your methods are faulty. But glaring discrepancies should prompt you to reexamine your practices. (Source: Frisbie, Diamond, and Ory, 1979)

Ask students about your grading policies on end-of-course questionnaires. Here are some sample questions (adapted from Frisbie, Diamond, and Ory, 1979, p. 22):

To what extent:

1. Were the grading procedures for the course fair?

2. Were the grading procedures for the course clearly explained?

3. Did you receive adequate feedback on your performance?

4. Were requests for regrading or review handled fairly?

5. Did the instructor evaluate your work in a meaningful and conscientious manner?