This past week it was all about the different forms of assessment in GRAD602. Due to
No Child Left Behind, many students entering college only think in terms of...
As we discussed in class, there are many college courses which assess students by other means than filling in circles on exams. Lately, I have been sitting in on undergraduate biology classes at various universities surrounding Richmond. What I have found from shadowing and speaking with the instructors are that students hate thinking outside the box. Even true/false scares them away. Which doesn't make sense to me at all. You have a 50/50 shot of getting a true/false correct...which is better odds than a typical multiple choice question. They have been conditioned to think in terms of multiple choice and nothing else. When sitting in on these classes I share the frustration of this teacher...
But how do we, as future higher ed faculty, undo 8 or so years of conditioning kids to think only in terms of 4 choices and become a more "outside the box" thinker? I am not sure that I have the best answer for this question right now. However, I do firmly believe that the classroom atmosphere often gets people excited to think outside the box. Therefore, increasing student engagement, active learning practices, hands-on experiences, relevance, and exuding passion for the subject can hopefully get students to thinking outside of the multiple choice circles and lead to...
Nice post. Factor in that most M/C tests are summative audits. If more formative means were used throughout the instruction, maybe students would start thinking outside the "fill in the circles..."
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