Fostering Motivation Through Assessment
Background
Dr. Roman Shor is an assistant professor in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in the Schulich School of Engineering. He taught the course ENPE 533: Petroleum Production Engineering in the winter 2017 term, which applies the engineering science and mathematics that students already learned to new complex situations. This course is unique, since both the lectures and tutorials have the entire class together, instead of dividing the 120 students into smaller sections. Prior to teaching this course, Roman focused tutorials on demonstrating how to solve problems, typically through whiteboard exercises, but was worried that this would not be effective for such a large group of students. He wanted to find a way to ensure that students were engaging with problems and thinking about applications of the content. He also did not want students to get lost and not grasp the material. A colleague in the Faculty of Science, Isabelle Barrette-Ng, introduced Roman to the idea of two-stage quizzes during a teaching and learning seminar at the Taylor Institute. He implemented it into his tutorials and it has worked well in helping students learn.
Strategy
At the beginning of the semester, Roman forms groups of 3-4 students that will work together in tutorials for the entire semester. He uses an online team-forming software to create groups with students of different years and strengths so that the individual teams remained balanced.
At the start of each weekly tutorial session, students individually complete a quiz based on a homework assignment. The questions are quantitative and focus on ensuring that they understand the core concepts. Then, they break into their groups and repeat the same quiz together. The group quiz also contains additional application questions that connect real-world scenarios to the mathematical concepts in the course. Students consistently do better on the group quizzes than on the individual ones. Group quizzes have scores of 90% or better, unless the application questions are especially difficult. Collaborating on the same questions as they previously answered means students have to deliberate the answers with their peers. If they are confident with the material, they have an opportunity to solidify their knowledge through teaching and demonstrating to their peers. If they are struggling with certain questions or concepts, they are able to learn from how others approach the questions.
Up to half of the questions on the midterm and final exam for the course are based directly on the quiz questions. The quizzes become a study-guide for students when they are preparing for their exams, and they tend to do quite well. Many students feel confident going in to these large exams because they have had multiple opportunities to approach and understand the questions.
There is some initial apprehension from students about the method, particularly about not having the ability to choose their own groups. However, after completing the first team quiz, which included forming a team contract, students understand the importance of working collaboratively on questions and see how their scores improve. They get comfortable working together and the atmosphere of the tutorials becomes active and engaged. As with all large classes, a few groups faced a few challenges over the semester, but the ones that did come up were easy to manage.
Outcomes
This tends to be a popular method for students. They like the application questions and seeing how the math and concepts they are learning are used in industry. They also like getting to work as groups and collaborate with one another. There was a lot of positive feedback from students at the end of the course. Roman has introduced a similar method into a graduate-level course because he was so happy with how it worked. He intends to continue using it in this course and in other large classes he teaches.
Roman encourages his colleagues to try using two-stage testing for large classes. It is easy to implement and really helps students learn. He highlights the importance of building balanced teams. This method is less effective if all the strongest students are in one group, or if friends are in the same group and are distracted during the group quiz. He also notes that there will be some initial awkwardness between students, but it will diminish after the first few weeks. This method helps make the large classroom feel small and collaborative.
-Ashley Weleschuk
