Teaching tips

NACTA Journal, Sep 2003 by Buchanan, David S, Coker, Jeffrey S, Yazedjian, Ani, Patton, Jamie, Lima, Marybeth

The Low Maintenance Pop Quiz

Most of my formal teaching is in large (60-140 students) classes that are required for students with a major in the Department of Animal Science. While some of the students are, mercifully, there because they want to learn, many of the students are there just because it is a required class. An assortment of motivational tools is necessary to keep them in class and paying attention. One such tool is the unannounced or "pop" quiz. Historically, students do not care for such exercises. Part of the objection comes from good students who must be gone periodically and believe that their grade is compromised by missed quizzes. Unannounced quizzes should be a benefit to students who are regular attendees and who pay attention during class. The only penalized students should be those who are chronically absent.

The approach I take is to have frequent, small quizzes at the end of class periods. Almost all of the quizzes address a major point presented during that class. Therefore, they reward students who can discern which items I consider to be important. The other unique aspect is that I set a ceiling of 100 points for the semester in the unannounced quiz category and give them enough quizzes so that they can reach the 100 points even if they miss at two or three quizzes. This way the student who misses class for a field trip or a university sponsored event is not penalized as long as said student is regular in attendance the rest of the semester. The pop quiz category is usually worth only 10% or less of the final grade.

It is always interesting to ask whether they desire a quiz at the end of a class period during the second or third week of the semester. Usually at least half of the class realizes that they should desire a quiz any time that they are in class. Even if they only earn part of the points on that quiz, any points they earn are to their benefit. When they catch on to that fact, the pop quizzes quit feeling like a penalty to them. From then on, many students look around the room at the beginning of a class period and say, if attendance is thin, "looks like a good day for a pop quiz". They also enjoy guessing what the nature of the quiz will be so that they can see if the item they considered to be important is the same one that I considered to be important. It is also important to keep a positive attitude about pop quizzes myself. To that end, I am careful to never give a pop quiz that will require more than 15 minutes for me to grade the entire class.

I review, at the end of each semester, the relationship between number of pop quizzes taken and the final grade in the class. Inevitably, all of the A grades are earned by students who have taken all, or almost all, of the pop quizzes. That is also true for most of the students in the B category. However, there are usually one or two students who have spotty attendance but still earn a B. It is almost always true that the students who miss more than half of the quizzes earn a D or F (or decide to drop by the 12th week drop deadline). I suffer most for those students who attend regularly but still cannot manage a grade higher than a D.

It would be easy to conclude that attending class regularly means high grades and that is, no doubt, true in some cases. However, I remind myself that cause and effect are seldom so neat. It may be that attending class makes one a good student but it might also be true that good students attend class more frequently. In either case, there is an obvious relationship and I report that relationship to the students the next time I teach the course.

David S. Buchanan

Department of Animal Science

Oklahoma State University

Growing Students

My ideas about science education are similar to the way a farmer views his/her seeds. A farmer's jobs include planting seeds and providing them with a nourishing environment to grow. Nevertheless, he/she can only influence the seed's environment; the seed must grow on its own. We may feed students all the information we like, but what really counts is what they will (or won't) be able to do with that information. How do we get students to "grow"? Even the etymology of the word "education" (related to the Latin "educere", meaning "to bring out") supports that true education involves as much thinking (an inside out process) as it does absorbing information (an outside in process). In short, only through critical thought can students grow to be active participants in the processes of science and life.

So how can we get students to think critically in the classroom? First, in presenting any material it helps to describe precisely how we know what we know. What is our evidence? Could the evidence be interpreted differently? Second, students should be challenged to consider alternative theories and methods. This reinforces that science (like life) is a dynamic process and involves disagreements and social interactions. Third, it is important to emphasize how critical thinking and general skepticism are important for everyone in society in making judgments about scientific discoveries, environmental policies, new technologies, etc. Finally, it is important to embrace intellectual freedom by challenging students to think on their own. They don't have to agree with everything we say, nor should we want them to.