Formalative Evaluations
These are very useful in gauging what your students are understanding,and retaining...
The regular quizzes keep the student on their toes. It also is a good way to regularly assess where they are. If we rely on only midterms and finals we can too late find that we have missaed the mark.
Jeff, I too like using different formalative evaluations such as quizzes, competitions and papers in order to gauge the students progress while making it interesting. I have learned that students learn in small bites so I give constant quizzes on less material, ask questions promote discussion and then move on to the next topic. This seems to help but it did take time for me to learn to do this for them.
After having read through this material and it making perfect sense to me I find myself increasingly disappointed with the evaluation processes we use to evaluate our students.
Other than observing students performance in lab situations as best we can, which is difficult to accomplish reliably with larger class sizes and the students working in groups, we offer no other formative evaluation methods.
I wish we could develope a better measure of individual formative evaluations for each student on an ongoing basis.
I think that is a great idea! We all need to know as we go along just how well we are doing. It helps to keep the student motivated and on the right learning track.
A good idea Jeff! The advantage of doing reviews in teams is that you will be able to quickly identify any areas that seem to be hazy for a number of students.
I often do module reviews in teams, as I ask questions pertaining to the recent lesson I get an idea how well the information was understood. I find the students like the competition, and I know when I need to clarify a concept.
