MULTIDISCIPLINRY NATURE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES.pptx
Students as producers, of high quality engaging assessments to support learning
1. Students as producers
of high quality, engaging assessments to support learning
Simon Bates
simon.bates@ubc.ca @simonpbates bit.ly/batestalks
OpenStax creatorfest – April 2018 – Houston TX
8. Selected results & analysis
Engagement - how do students use the system?
Benefits - what is the impact on learning?
Question quality - how good is what students produce?
Relevant publications:
Scaffolding student engagement via online peer learning - European Journal of Physics 35 (4), 045002
(2014)
Student-Generated Content: Enhancing learning through sharing multiple-choice questions. International
Journal of Science Education, 1-15 (2014).
Assessing the quality of a student-generated question repository - Phys Rev ST PER (2014) 10, 020105
Student-generated assessment - Education in Chemistry (2013) 13 1
9. Typical implementation
Minimum participation requirements for each of two
assessment exercises (PW1, PW2)
Write 1 Answer 5 Rate / comment 3
5% course credit
Physics 101, Energy & Waves
Winter Semester: 3 sections, ~800 students
10. Not so typical implementation
Writing original questions is a
demanding activity
Extensive scaffolding exercises
Revisited in subsequent
tutorials
11.
12. Engagement with PeerWise
Number Multiplier Number Multiplier
Questions 1105 [1.7] 998 [1.6]
Answers 11393 [17.2] 11807 [18.7]
Comments 4901 [7.4] 5509 [8.7]
PW 1 PW 2
17. Engagement with PeerWise
Generally, students did
• Participate beyond minimum requirements
• Engage in community learning, correcting errors
• Create problems, not exercises
• Provide positive feedback
Generally, students did not
• Contribute trivial or irrelevant questions
• Obviously plagiarize
• Participate much beyond assessment periods
• Leave it to the last minute (sort of….)
25. 25
Question/Explanation Quality
Score Level Description
0 Missing No explanation provided or explanation
incoherent/irrelevant
1 Inadequate Wrong reasoning and/or answer; trivial or flippant
2 Minimal
Correct answer but with insufficient
explanation/justification/ Some aspects may be
unclear/incorrect/confused.
3 Good Clear and detailed exposition of correct method &
answer.
4 Excellent
Thorough description of relevant physics and solution
strategy. Plausibility of all answers considered. Beyond
normal expectation for a correct solution
27. 27
Results (UoE 2010-11)
2 successive years of the same course (N=150, 350)
‘High quality’ questions: 78%, 79%
Over 90% (most likely) correct, and 3/5 of those wrong were
identified by students.
69% (2010) and 55% (2011) rated 3 or 4 for explanations
Only 2% (2010) and 4% (2011) rated 1/ 6 for taxonomic level.
28. 28
Bottomley & Denny Biochem and Mol Biol Educ. 39(5) 352-
361 (2011)
107 Year 2 biochem students
56 / 35 / 9 % of questions in lowest 3 levels.
Momsen et al CBE-Life Sci Educ 9, 436-440 (2010)
“9,713 assessment items submitted by 50 instructors in the
United States reported that 93% of the questions asked on
examinations in introductory biology courses were at the
lowest two levels of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy”
Comparison with literature