more testing more learning
安全月活动方案-读后感300字大全
Patrick O’Malley wrote the following
proposal while he was a first-year college
student. He proposes
that college professors
give students frequent brief examinations in
addition to the usual midterm and
final exams.
After discussing with his instructor his unusual
rhetorical situation – a student
advising
professors – he decided to revise the
essay into the form of an open letter to
professors at his college, a
letter that might
appear in the campus newspaper.
O’Malley’s
essay may strike you as unusually authoritative.
This tone of authority is due in large part
to
what O”Malley learned about the possibilities and
problems of frequent exams as he
interviewed
two professors (his writing
instructor and the writing program director) and
talked with several students.
As you read his
essay, notice particularly how he anticipates
professors’ likely objections to his
proposal
and evaluates their preferred
solutions to the problem he identifies.
It’s
late at night. The final’s tomorrow. You got a C
on the
midterm, so this one will make or break
you. Will it be like the midterm?
More
Testing,
Did you study enough? Did you study
the right things? It’s too late to
drop the
course. So what happens if you fail? No time to
worry about
More Learning
that now – you’ve
got a ton of notes to go over.
Although this
last-minute anxiety about midterm and final
exams
is only too familiar to most college
students, many professors may not
Patrick
O’Malley
realize how such major, infrequent
high-stakes exams work against the
best
interests of students both psychologically and
intellectually. They
cause unnecessary amounts
of stress, placing too much importance on
one
or two days in the students’ entire term, judging
ability on a single
or dual performance. They
don’t encourage frequent study, and they
fail
to inspire students’ best performance. If
professors gave additional
brief exams at
frequent intervals, students would be spurred to
study more regularly, learn more, worry
less,
and perform better on midterms, finals,
and other papers and projects.
Ideally, a
professor would give an in-class test or quiz
after each unit, chapter, or focus of
study,
depending on the type of class and
course material. A physics class might require a
test on concepts after every
chapter covered,
while a history class could necessitate quizzes
covering certain time periods or major
events.
These exams should be given weekly or
at least twice monthly. Whenever possible, they
should consist of two
or three essay questions
rather than many multiple-choice or short-answer
questions. To preserve class time
for lecture
and discussion, exams should take no more than 15
or 20 minutes.
The main reason professors
should give frequent exams is that when they do
and when they provide
feedback to students on
how well they are doing, students learn more in
the course and perform better on
major exams,
projects, and papers. It makes sense that in a
challenging course containing a great deal
of
material, students will learn more of it and
put it to better use if they have to apply or
“practice” it frequently on
exams, which also
helps them find out how much they are learning and
what they need to go over again. A
recent
Harvard study notes students’ “strong preference
for frequent evaluation in a course.” Harvard
students
feel they learn least in courses that
have “only a midterm and a final exam, with no
other personal evaluation.”
They believe they
learn most in courses with “many opportunities to
see how they are doing” (Light, 1990, p.
32).
In a review of a number of studies of student
learning, Fredericksen (1984) reports that
students who
take weekly quizzes achieve higher
scores on final exams than students who take only
a midterm exam and that
testing increases
retention of material tested.
Another closely
related argument in favor of multiple exams is
that they encourage students to improve
their
study habits. Greater frequency in test taking
means greater frequency in studying for tests.
Students
prone to cramming will be required –
or at least strongly motivated – to open their
textbooks and notebooks
more often , making
them less likely to resort to long, kamikaze
nights of studying for major exams. Since
there
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is so
much to be learning in the typical course, it
makes sense that frequent, careful study and
review are highly
beneficial. But students
need motivation to study regularly, and nothing
works like an exam. If students had
frequent
exams in all their courses, they would have to
schedule study time each week and gradually
would
develop a habit of frequent study. It
might be argued that students are adults who have
to learn how to manage
their own lives, but
learning history or physics is more complicated
than learning to drive a car or balance
a
checkbook. Students need coaching and
practice in learning. The right way to learn new
material needs to
become a habit, and I believe
that frequent exams are key to developing good
habits of study and learning.
The Harvard study
concludes that “tying regular evaluation to good
course organization enables students to
plan
their work more than a few days in advance. If
quizzes and homework are scheduled on specific
days,
students plan their work to capitalize on
them” (Light, 1990, p. 33).
By encouraging
regular study habits, frequent exams would also
decrease anxiety by reducing
the
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procrastination that produces anxiety.
Students would benefit psychologically if they
were not subjected to the
emotional ups and
downs caused by major exams, when after being
virtually worry-free for weeks they
are
suddenly ready to check into the
psychiatric ward. Researchers at the University
of Vermont found a strong
relationship among
procrastination, anxiety, and achievement.
Students who regularly put off studying
for
exams had continuing high anxiety and lower
grades than students who procrastinated less. The
researchers
found that even “low”
procrastinators did not study regularly and
recommended that professors give
frequent
assignments and exams to reduce
procrastination and increase achievement
(Rothblum, Solomon, & Murakami,
1986, pp.
393-394).
Research supports my proposed
solution to the problems I have described. Common
sense as well as
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my experience and that of
many of my friends support it. Why then, do so
few professors give frequent brief
exams? Some
believe that such exams take up too much of the
limited class time available to cover the
material
in the course. Most courses meet 150
minutes a week – three times a week for 50 minutes
each time. A 20-
minute weekly exam might take
30 minutes to administer, and that is one-fifth of
each week’s class time. From
the student’s
perspective, however, this time is well spent.
Better learning and greater confidence about
the
course seem a good trade-off for another 30
minutes of lecture. Moreover, time lost to
lecturing or discussion
could easily be made up
in students’ learning on their own through careful
regular study for the weekly exams.
If weekly
exams still seem too time-consuming to some
professors, their frequency could be reduced to
every
other week or their length to 5-10
minutes. In courses where multiple-choice exams
are appropriate, several
questions could be
designed to take only a few minutes to
answer.
Another objection professors have to
frequent exams is that they take too much time to
read and
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grade. In a 20-minutes essay
exam, a well-prepared student can easily write two
pages. A relatively small
class of 30 students
might then produce 60 pages, no small amount of
material to read each week. A large
class of
100 or more students would produce an
insurmountable pile of material. There are a
number of
responses to this objection. Again,
professors could give exams every other week or
make them very short.
Instead of reading them
closely they could skim them quickly to see
whether students understand an idea or
can
apply it to an unfamiliar problem; and instead of
numerical or letter grades they could give a plus,
check or
minus. Exams could be collected and
responded to only every third or fourth week.
Professors who have
readers or teaching
assistants could rely on them to grade or check
exams. And the Scantron machine could
be given
in place of a midterm exam or out-of-class essay
assignment.
Since frequent exams seem to some
professors to create too many problems, however,
it is reasonable
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to consider alternative
ways to achieve the same goals. One alternative
solution is to implement a program that
would
improve study skills. While such a program might
teach students how to study for exams, it
cannot
prevent procrastination or reduce “large
test anxiety” by a substantial amount. One
research team studying
anxiety and test
performance found that study skills training was
not effective in reducing anxiety or
improving
performance (Dendato & Diener, 1986,
p. 134). This team, which also reviewed other
research that reached
the same conclusion, did
find that a combination of “cognitiverelaxation
therapy” and study skills training
was
effective. This possible solution
seems complicated, however, not to mention time-
consuming and expensive.
It seems much easier
and more effective to change the cause of the bad
habit rather than treat the habit itself.
That
is, it would make more sense to solve the problem
at its root: the method of learning and
evaluation.
Still another solution might be to
provide frequent study questions for students to
answer. These would
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no doubt be helpful
in focusing students’ time studying, but students
would probably not actually write out
the
answers unless they were required to. To
get students to complete the questions in a timely
way, professors
would have to collect and check
the answers. In that case, however, they might as
well devote the time to
grading an exam. Even
if it asks the same questions, a scheduled exam is
preferable to a set of study questions
because
it takes far less time to write in class, compared
to the time students would devote to responding
to
questions at home. In-class exams also
ensure that each student produces his or her own
work.
Another possible solution would be to
help students prepare for midterm and final exams
by providing
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sets of questions from which
the exam questions will be selected or announcing
possible exam topics at the
beginning of the
course. This solution would have the advantage of
reducing students’ anxiety about learning
every
fact in the textbook, and it would clarify the
course goals, but it would not motivate students
to study
carefully each new unit, concept, or
text chapter in the course. I see this as a way
of complementing frequent
exams, not as
substituting for them.
From the evidence and
from my talks with professors and students, I see
frequent, brief in-class exams
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as the
only way to improve students’ study habits and
learning, reduce their anxiety and
procrastination, and
increase their
satisfaction with college. These exams are not a
panacea, but only more parking spaces and
a
winning football team would do as much to
improve college life. Professors can’t do much
about parking or
football, but they can give
more frequent exams. Campus administrators should
get behind the effort, and
professors should
get together to consider giving exams more
frequently. It would make a
difference.
References
Dendato, K.M., &
Diener, D. (1986). Effectiveness of
cognitiverelaxation therapy and study-skills
training in
reducing self-reported anxiety and
improving the academic performance of test-anxious
students.
Journal of Counseling Psychology, 33,
131-135.
Fredericksen, N. (1984). The real
test bias: Influences of testing on teaching and
learning. American
Psychologist, 39,
193-202.
Light, R.J. (1990). Explorations with
students and faculty about teaching, learning, and
student life.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School
of
Government.
Rothblum, E.D., Solomon, L.,
& Murakami, J. (1986). Affective, cognitive, and
behavioral differences between
high and low
procrastinators. Journal of Counseling
Psychology, 33, 387-394.