Review Sessions

Now that exam 1 is over and I’ve had time to skim through the classes final exam grades I am really impressed.

After class Tuesday we brought up the discussion of why this class average was so high and if cheating was a possibility to making a class average jump up as much as it had. From my review session experience I feel the class just new the material and were really determined to learn it.

My first review experience went extremely well. I tried to keep the environment warm and inviting by just making casual small talk while we waited to begin. The classroom I was assigned was perfect for the amount of students I had attend. It was very compact and nothing like a normal classroom setting. This I felt was good because it gave a new environment to the students and it didn’t give off the impression that I was planning to sit in front and lecture.

Before the review started I had everyone make small name tags to place on their desk so I could place the names with the faces. I felt doing this gave the impression that I was going to randomly call on students to participate so they knew that being engaged and vocal was important. Also at this time I passed out a bag of goodies with the attendance sheet (surprisingly I had to take way to much candy home to the roommates).

One issue I have seen in the past during my own experience at review sessions is the TA’s sitting in front flipping slide to slide with no discussion or room participation. It was more like a writing-race to copy down as many sample questions as possible. This was what I was dreading and not wanting to happen. To limit this problem I put up the exam  test taking hints right away and explained to them that this review session is for their benefit and I was goin to go at the pace they wanted and cover the material they chose. I continued to explain that although the powerpoint is here for some guidance, it is not here as a set review plan or structure.

I started out with the experimental examples and had them recall and explain to me what they were and the reason Prof. Gurung used them in class. I was pleasantly surprised when they began shouting out answers and helped each other discuss the reasoning. The weight seemed to be lifted off my shoulders. At that moment I told them to continue being vocal and expressed how I liked them not raising their hands. It thankfully continued with the same atmosphere during the entire session.

As we got more into the review I could tell which areas of the exam they were most comfortable with and what areas they were not. This was huge because I was able to go off of their feedback and adjust the pace or topic. They were very good with asking me specific questions that they were confused about and each time I was able to get them to work out the answer together. At one point we even paused the powerpoint and they asked if I could draw both the brain and neurons diagrams on the board. With this, they were able to walk through each specific point and describe its function.

Another thing I really enjoyed was the support and participation I had from the students that attended my previous study tables. During points of the session I would say “could anyone from the study table recall some of the helpful tools we used to get through this” and various students would explain to other students how we used day to day or life/student thinking to understand concepts. Not only did this raise the confidence of students that were explaining and helping others but it also showed how much of an impact study tables can be. It was a great feeling seeing the students working together.

At 12:05 we began more of an open question time where students could look through their notes or review sheet and check if they had any last minute questions to discuss. We spend about 10 minutes with that and then I reinerated how this exam is to be taken as individuals and although you may be tempted to work together or use the book it can be very harmful while test taking. I then explained how one may cut them self short with time and another big thing is if you work together you might spend time arguing or contimplating an answer that you might have known from the beginning and in the end get wrong because you go with someone elses choice. Students then started talkin about how they in the past have done that with quizes and people gave some examples of “group trauma stories” that ended not so good for them. With that I ended up telling them how impressed I was with the amount of knowledge they knew and told them I think they will do great.