Wiggins, B. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2022

Public exams provide opportunities for deeper thought with less anxiety

Assessment methods across post-secondary STEM education are traditionally constrained by logistics and likely contribute to the widespread inequities in STEM education outcomes. As part of attempts to improve and diversify the methods used in assessment, the authors have developed a flexible and low-tech style known as public exams based in educational best practices. Public exams attempt to authentically involve students into the process of assessment through the use of pre-released portions of the exam. Using mixed-methods research techniques at a closely matched pair of institutions (a research-intensive university and a community college classroom), we observed signals of positive impact from the public exam on student learning experiences. Public exams appear to promote deeper thought, to direct students more efficiently to the core concepts in the discipline, and to decrease student anxiety around exams. The public exam experience does not show evidence for exacerbating gaps in exam outcomes for students from underrepresented backgrounds. This suggests that public exams are worth deeper investigation as an evidence-based and effective assessment style.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2020

Effectiveness of active learning for ecology teaching: the perspective of students vs their grades

We evaluated the effectiveness of active learning for ecology teaching by comparing the perspective of students to their grades in exams. We estimated the perspective of the students through anonymous survey; we used students exam grades to estimate their ecology learning, and their effort and performance in the active learning tasks through their grades and proportion of intermediate steps for each active learning task. Active learning involved teachers stimuli for students active involvement, extra-class group task, individual online writing assessments, redoing exam in pairs, and classroom writing group assessments. We also evaluated the impact, unto the effectiveness of active learning, of several student characteristics, such as sex, age, individual study effort, and previous basic knowledge. We found that self-evaluated learning increased linearly with teachers attempts to stimulate students active involvement (P = 0.0003), extra-class group task (P = 0.0003), and previous basic knowledge (P = 0.02), while students grades increased asymptotically with extra-class group task (P < 2-16), and increased linearly with online writing assessments (P = 9.3-8) and classroom-based writing group assessments (P = 0.03). Our results showed that students perceive most part of the effectiveness of active-learning tasks and of teachers efforts. We showed that active learning tasks are complementary, so we recommend that teachers in both college and high school should implement simultaneous active-learning tasks, that include extra-class work in group, individual and group writing assessments, and should stimulate students engagement through respectful and non-authoritarian behavior of the teacher. Our results also showed that previous basic knowledge also plays a central role in driving effective learning, evidencing the importance of students instruction outside college. The applied teaching methodology is cheap and feasible for large classes. In these times of rising intolerance, prejudice, dismiss of environmental issues and disregard of science itself, we need an effective, pluralistic, respectful, and student-centred education, that fosters critical thinking, tolerance and respect for differing points of view.

ecology↗