Review Session in the evening:
Trudi and I were in charge of the review session in the evening before the exam, so to prepare ourselves we decided to meet two hours before the review session. When I printed the review slides and saved the slides, I assumed the answers were highlighted or on the last page. To my surprise the answers weren’t posted but I didn’t fret because that is why Trudi and I were meeting two hours before the exam, in case something like this would happen. Fortunately for Trudi and I received a call from one of the TAs saying that they had sent an email to us, with the answers to the review slide show… YAY! We were happy to have the totally correct answers and surprised that the questions we had answers for so far were correct. We continued to prepare for us review session and settle some of those pesky nerves.
Show Time: Review Session:
Trudi and I were amazed to have seen 44 students sitting in the review room ready to review (and there were a few late comers)! I was not too nervous at this point because my first fear was having zero to five students show up for the review. I was happy to see so many students and I was excited to get the show started. I had about 10 mardi gras beads (appropriate for the holiday) to pass out to those who answer questions correctly or ask questions during the hour spent for review. I told the group that I would hand out the beads randomly to avoid running out of beads and conditioning the group to an answer = beads treatment. Trudi and I can both say that the beads were a hit and the group was very good about answering and asking questions and also discussion of topics. The hour long session was successful and throughout the time, Trudi and I would ask, “So with a show of hands, who feels like they are more prepared for this exam” or “who feels 5 times smarter than earlier in the session?” We saw hands and felt the confidence. I was worried about smart comments and complaints about the review session, fortunately I did not hear of any and we even had a small group stay after for more, one on one help. Without a doubt, I would continue the review sessions for future exams.
Exam Day:
I can say that I felt some nerves from the students but in the end, “it wasn’t so bad after all.” Before the exam my roommate had told me of some bizarre cheating methods some of her classmates use in her Anatomy class: Girls will write a cheat sheet and slip the sheet between their cleavage and wear a low top during the exam, so they can just look down and feel secure that they would not be confronted for looking down their shirts. Also, for the boys, taping answers to the review sheet, to the underside of the bill on their hats… all they have to do is look up without much movement. I can say that I was keeping an eye out for this behavior during our exam, but I did not catch anything. I am glad and yet saddened, that Katie had caught a cheater and had the attention to find such guilty behavior. Unfortunate to have a cheater on the first exam in an Intro. class but at least we caught the guy early and hopefully discouraged him from making the same mistake.
Going over the exam:
I think it was very important for us to go over the science behind the exam with the class the next day. It was important for us to stress the importance of reading the chapters for there were questions on the exam that solely relied on the material from their reading. Hopefully this message will hit home for the students… READ! On the topic of reading; reading some of the exam comments out loud to the class showed the class that we for one read their comments and care enough about the class concerns.
Post Exam – Student Visits:
I know that I am always one of the few students who takes her exam problems to a Professor or TA and I had three students visit me. The three all came with me with the same concern, testing anxiety and how will this affect my overall grade? Starting out I asked if the student had any questions (any at all) or a place where they wanted to start on the exam, none really didn’t know where to start so I took the lead. I started off by highlighting the tricky questions on the exam, the reading emphasis questions, the throw out questions, and the confusing questions (all based on my judgments and problems students had brought up to me after the exam. I look to see if these students got any of these focus questions wrong, and if so, I would walk through the problem with them. For example, if the question was a reading focus question I would point that out and suggest tips to help the student retain more from their reading. If the question was tricky, I would ask the student to tell me what the question was asking and what their thinking process was for the question; usually the student would get stumped on two potential answers and from there I would have them tell me, why those answers? Which seems to make more sense? If they totally did not know, I would point out the best answer and explain why. Then I would suggest the “chunking method” (take topic info from lecture, notes, and reading and ‘chunk’ the info together and see the connections between each source) to use during studying. Most of the students admitted that they didn’t focus on the reading and that they felt like they were prepared after they attended the review session but come exam time, they were in fact not prepared. Two of these students were really nervous and expressed testing anxiety issues over this exam. For these students, I pin pointed their anxieties with their help and for these two, these students feel overwhelmed with the time and blindly go through the exam. I suggested some relaxing methods I use for exams and breathing tips (tends to work for me, I relax more and increase my attention through focused breathing). Whether it will be used or work for them, I am not sure but that’s all the advice I could give other than the, “Get tested or talk to the professor for accommodations.”
**** SUGGESTIONS****
Very random idea I gained while listening to a conversation my boyfriend and I were having once: Add totally funny, humorous, silly questions in the beginning, middle, and near the end of the exam. This way, students who tense up during an exam can have a chance to laugh and relax when reading these ridiculous questions. It always worked for me; I went back and compared exams that used this method to those that didn’t and I fared better on the exams with comical questions (I compared Middle Childhood and Adolescence to Adulthood and Aging exams… both had similar interest and exam set-up). Even if you add 3 questions to the exam (3 out of 50 questions are comic relief) I think this would be something that can help and see if it does help. LET’S EXPERIMENT!
Another Suggestion: I would like to have at least 5 questions during the review session that mock questions the students would find on the exam (mock meaning completely worded like questions on the exam). The Jeopardy review is entertaining but I think it would help the students (especially during the first review session) to see what type of questions they should expect on the exam. Some students complained that they knew the answers to the review stuff but the exam questions were a different ballgame, so why can’t we give them a preview? I think it may help and give the students a fighting chance when studying for exams.