Assessing Your Students with Exams, Quizzes, and Homeworks
Sample LATEXtemplates and classes are provided at
http://www.math.utah.edu/ lam/Training/TATraining.html
Team building
The following team exercise is inspired from Mel Silberman’s Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject, specifically strategy 12.
Our objective is to cooperatively compile information, experiences, or skills
about assessments. It is noted that tips and references of much material is
more useful for some individuals and others are not as useful. In this exercise, we will have the opportunity to draw out what our peers value, share
them, and have the opportunity the inspect them further. Later, please
refer to Blerta Shtylla and Brendan Kelly’s notes on exam writing, found
at the link above, and Stephen G. Krantz’s How To Teach Mathematics.
Instructions: Form a trio with your peers. We should have about 10 groups.
Each member of the team will be given one of the questions below. Interview the other members in the group and record the answers to the
assigned questions.
Next, find the other peers in the room with the same assigned question.
In this subgroup, pool your data and summarize it.
Last, we will report all of our findings together. A discussion will follow.
1. What was the average length of a quiz and / or exam you have taken
in a past math class? What was the average number of quizzes and /or
exams taken over all math classes you’ve taken? Also, give the minimum
and maximum number in your experience.
2. Do you have any experience in participating in a discussion or recitation
session? How much time was devoted to answering homework problems,
review problems, quiz problems, and exam problems? You may rely on
experiences as a student or as a TA. Preferred answers will include any
mathematics class, but may also go beyond if you see it relevant.
3. Do you have any experience grading homework, exams, or quizzes? If
any, please give one piece of advice to give someone grading for the first
time. If none, what would be one question you would like answered about
grading?
4. Name no more than five expectations you would have for a student for
an exam. Some examples are arriving on time, being responsible for some
formulas, showing work. With the expectations you suggest, how can you
aid the success of such expectations?
5. Do you have any experience as the sole author of a math exam or quiz?
If so, please give one piece of advice to give someone writing an exam for
the first time. If none, name two things you would want to include an
exam you would write.