Course Design: Micro Quizzes & Exams
In this episode we discuss the benefits of micro-quizzes compared to cumulative finals, and considerations when reassigning assessments that work best for students.
Show Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: Hello, and welcome to this episode
of The T in Teaching.
This episode is focused on micro quizzes versus exams.
In this episode, our host, Brendan Goggin,
interviewed Legal Studies Professor Jeffrey Boles.
Jeff Boles joined Temple University as an Assistant
Professor of Risk Actuarial Science and Legal
Studies in 2011, and became an associate professor in 2017.
He earned a PhD in psychology from the University
of California Berkeley in 2006, and earned various research
fellowships through his time at Temple.
Thank you for listening, and please enjoy.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: Welcome back to The T in Teaching.
I'm Brendan Goggin, and our guest today is Jeff Boles.
Jeff, welcome.
Thanks for being here today.
JEFFREY BOLES: Thanks for having me.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: So in this episode,
we are going to discuss the benefits of micro quizzes
compared to cumulative finals, and considerations
when designing assessments that work best for students.
Well, let's get right into it.
I guess the first question I have for you, Jeff, is
what are the different ways you assess students in your course?
Mostly exams, quizzes, or both?
JEFFREY BOLES: Well, I teach undergraduate and graduate
courses in the disciplines of business law and ethics.
And for graduate courses and upper level undergraduate
seminars, I assess student learning primarily
through their written work product, which
may be case analyses, executive reports, discussion board
responses, as well as in-class presentations
and experiential learning projects.
These may be individual or group-based assignments.
For any course I teach, I focus my assessments primarily
on writing assignments, as well as class participation.
I'm a strong proponent of the "writing to learn" approach.
As research shows, this approach promotes active learning.
The writing assignments help students
think through key concepts or ideas presented in my courses.
So I don't use exams or quizzes in the graduate courses
or upper level undergraduate seminar courses I teach.
In terms of assurance of learning,
exams and quizzes are not necessarily
the most effective assessment tools to ensure
that the learning goals are being met,
primarily if the exams are structured
through multiple choice and true-false.
That stated, I'll use exams and quizzes
to a limited extent in introductory undergraduate
courses, though.
And in those courses, exams and quizzes
will never constitute more than about 30%
of the student's final grade for the course.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: Sure.
And in that light, how is it helpful for students to vary
the assessments they complete?
JEFFREY BOLES: It's extremely helpful and important.
I believe instructors should always
use more than one assessment type,
to provide students with different opportunities
to demonstrate their knowledge.
Research shows that variability in students' cultural,
linguistic, and disciplinary backgrounds affect
their performance on, and motivation for, different
assessment types.
So for instance, what may be an easy task for a native
English speaker could contain barriers
for a non-native English speaker.
That's why it's so important to provide
varied forms of assessment, as it helps level the playing
field for all students.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: That's a great answer.
And what kind of feedback have students
given you about this approach?
JEFFREY BOLES: Well, I've taught thousands of students
over the years, from large lecture hall to tiny seminar
engagement.
Students have always been pretty open,
and will gladly share their views
about what helps them learn.
My students have been particularly
vocal to stress that they do not prefer
what I call the traditional testing approach, two
midterms and a final exam.
A midterm may test on three or more chapters or units
worth of material, and students have
reported that the amount of material
they have to prepare for a single exam
is excessive and doesn't help their learning.
And students tend not to retain the content, surely,
after the exam.
So if exams are to be used, from a student perspective,
as I've learned, students prefer an incremental approach,
where they're tested after each chapter or unit of material.
Years ago, I was staffed to teach a traditional lecture
style course that followed the two midterms and a final exam
approach, with about 12 textbook chapters covered in the course.
After about a semester, I revised the course assessments
by breaking down the two midterms
and final into 12 quizzes, one for each chapter,
and added other assessment types in the mix.
The student feedback was extremely positive,
and it was a more effective way to employ
the exams and quizzes approach.
I want to point out, Brendan, that research
shows that for many courses, a varying format and size
across disciplines, reasonable alternatives
to traditional testing exist.
And in fact, oftentimes, the alternatives
may be even more effective in promoting student learning,
and be more authentic means of students demonstrating
what they've learned at higher levels of Bloom's
taxonomy, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation.
Here is what I would relay to all instructors listening.
Unless there is a solid pedagogical reason
for a comprehensive, high stakes test like a midterm,
you might consider a series of shorter tests
throughout the semester.
You can always add one or two questions
relating to previous units in the course,
to make it more cumulative.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: Well, that's very salient.
As far as your prep time is concerned,
what does the workload look like for you?
JEFFREY BOLES: I find the workload to be very manageable.
I'm the Chair of the Department of Risk Actuarial
Science and Legal Studies, and I lead the Department by example,
including through spending an appropriate amount of time
updating and revising my courses.
The Fox School has a rule of thumb
that faculty should be devoting about 10 hours a week
to each three-credit course they teach,
cumulative of classroom hours and prep time.
We are very fortunate to be entrusted
to educate our students, and they
deserve our full commitment to ensure that their education is
top notch.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: That's a great answer.
And as far as the benefits you've
seen from using micro quizzes, compared to the large stake
exams that so many people are used to,
what are you seeing in that regard?
JEFFREY BOLES: Well, notwithstanding my earlier
critiques of traditional testing,
I'm a fan of micro quizzes.
A micro quiz might be five or so questions
in a low stakes, low stress context,
that can be used effectively in a number of ways.
I now follow, in my classes, a flipped classroom approach
for the courses I teach, where students
learn by doing, specifically engaging
in group projects in class.
In order to be successful at these group activities,
the students need to have read the assigned
material for that week.
I'll assign a micro quiz at the start
of the week that tests on the assigned material,
in order to motivate students to complete
the reading before class, as they need to understand
these concepts before they roll up their sleeves
and work on the group activities.
If an instructor is unsure whether students are grasping
a particularly thorny concept, a micro quiz
can be an effective tool in that situation, as well.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: That makes total sense.
And you touched upon it, but when
is the right time for micro quizzing?
What is the best approach or method
of presenting microlearning?
JEFFREY BOLES: Yes.
I feel like it certainly is the right time.
And from a student's perspective,
I think it's key that they are notified
at the start of the semester that the faculty member will
be engaging in quizzes.
They always want to know.
And a common classroom motto of mine,
for the students and myself, is "forewarned is forearmed."
So if they know there are going to be quizzes in the class,
that helps set their expectations.
And even with pop quizzes, I have a colleague
at another university who tells her students
that, for any class period, there's
going to be a 45% chance that the students will
get a quiz on the material that was
to be covered in that class.
She does not determine that chance herself.
She goes on a computer application.
She types in 45%, and the program
will determine whether or not there will be a quiz, based
on the percentage.
And she reports that the students
are quite active in staying on top
of the material, given the fact that there might be a quiz.
So that's one way to go about it.
I think, at the end of the day, though, quizzes
are a tool that is in the toolbox for any faculty member,
to help with assessment, and ultimately determine,
are students learning what you're setting out in terms
of the course learning goals.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: Yeah.
And to touch upon that, as an instructional designer
here, as a faculty that's teaching online,
it's fortunate, sometimes, I like
to think, to have an instructional designer,
to work with them.
And coming from our department at ODL, we're seeing,
and I'm having faculty ask me a lot,
to help them design more micro quizzing
and get away from the big cumulative effects
of large midterms, maybe two midterms and a final.
So this is very resonant.
I think it'll resonate with the faculty at large.
What are the benefits of an end-term, cumulative final?
What helps determine when to assign larger cumulative exams,
compared to multiple shorter quizzes?
JEFFREY BOLES: Well, I think a cumulative final exam could
be beneficial, if it's designed in a way where students can
synthesize the different concepts they've learned
throughout the term and make connections
across the material.
So in my experience, I've seen little benefit
of assigning large cumulative exams over multiple shorter
quizzes if, again, the this final cumulative exam is simply
multiple choice and true-false questions.
There's very little sophisticated
analytical thinking that can be demonstrated
through such testing.
But if the cumulative final allows
for more writing, let's say, essay,
I think that is a far better platform for students
to demonstrate what they've learned in a cumulative way.
Because again, I think the point of the cumulative approach
is to allow students to be able to draw connections
across the different weeks, across the different units,
to show more higher level thinking.
And if you wanted to do an exam to do that,
you have to vary your exam type questions
to allow for more synthesis, analysis, and the like.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: Jeff, what piece of advice
would you give to faculty and professors
that are thinking from migrating from larger cumulative exams
to micro quizzes?
JEFFREY BOLES: I would relay to the faculty
to take your time with it, because it's
going to be a big shift in terms of the assessment model,
and it's not something that you would want to rush out.
So I would give, certainly, a set number of weeks
before the start of the semester,
so that you can take the time to thoughtfully draft
the micro quiz questions.
Certainly, set it up in Canvas, and sort
through the technicalities.
Make sure that everything is structured appropriately
and it's ready to go.
And then, update your syllabus accordingly, so--
because once the semester starts,
you're pretty much locked in, of course,
to what you have laid out in the syllabus,
and the students are going to set their expectations
accordingly.
I think-- so I would say, be kind to yourself
in the sense of, give yourself plenty of time,
let's say about six to eight weeks over the summer,
in order to make that transition,
because it's not something that I think can be rushed.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: Very good point.
JEFFREY BOLES: The second piece of advice
that I would give to faculty is to be mindful
that there are plenty of resources and teaching experts
here at Temple to help.
First, we are very fortunate at the Fox School
to have a number of talented course designers.
Brendan, you and your team, I found
it to be a joy to work with instructional designers
in connection with setting up my courses and implementing them.
You are the experts in terms of educational technology,
and I learn so much from the designers
in terms of new features of Canvas,
how our online learning platform can be used as a tool
to help me do my job, and to help students understand what's
expected of them.
And so if we're thinking about modifying assessment types,
if we're thinking about converting from large exams
to quizzes, don't be afraid to reach out
to online digital learning group and the course designers,
because you have a wealth of knowledge.
And it's always such a joy to work with your team personally.
And I would say, second, there are, at Temple, a number
of other resources available.
We are also very fortunate at Temple
to have the Center for Advancement of Teaching, CAT.
That is a wonderful group of scholars
who put forth a number of workshops, seminars, programs,
activities for all faculty throughout the university.
Some phenomenal experts in that group, and I--
and it's a joy to work with them, as well.
I try to go to at least two or three workshops from CAT
a semester, because they keep me on my toes.
And it's important for me, in terms
of my professional development, to make sure
that I continue to learn how to do better
at my job as a teacher.
Because ultimately, at the end of the day,
it's a big responsibility.
And the students, again, deserve nothing
but the best in terms of their education here.
So I'm going to do everything that I can,
but I'm also going to lean into the resources here.
And I encourage all faculty to do so as well.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: I'd like to thank you
so much for taking the time, for joining us here at our studio.
And we appreciate it.
JEFFREY BOLES: My pleasure, my pleasure.
Great talking with you, Brendan.
BRENDAN GOGGIN: Likewise, Jeff.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
