Reflecting after you take an exam is an important step in
the learning process. Many students forget about exams the moment they get
their grade back, but it’s a good idea to talk about both exams and exam
preparation after your students take a test so they can improve for their next one! Here is an example Post Exam
Reflection from a Math 112 professor. It is a great idea of something you should
try with your students!
Post Exam Reflection (Math 112)
Answer the following questions and return your response to
me. Please be honest, especially for question 3 – I’ll give full credit to any
complete response, and it will count the same as one of your written quizzes.
If you take this exercise seriously, the real benefit to you will be in the
form of better scores on future exams.
- How did your score on this exam compare with the score you expected? How do you explain the difference, if any?
- How do you feel about your score? Are you surprised, pleased, relieved, disappointed or what?
- How many hours did you study for this exam? Was this enough time to get the score you wanted, or should you have spent more time preparing?
- How did you spend your time preparing for the exam? How effective were those activities?
- Choose a problem on your exam on which you made a significant mistake. Which problem is it? What did you do incorrectly? Why is that wrong?
- Now do the problem correctly. Check your work, read the text, consult with fellow students, visit lab hours and whatever else you need to do to make sure you’ve done it correctly.
- What can you do to make sure that you don’t make the same mistake on future homeworks, quizzes and exams? What changes in your study strategies will you make for the next exam?
To get the maximum benefit from this exercise, and to raise
your scores as much as possible on the remaining exams, consider doing steps
5,6 and 7 for every problem for which you didn’t get full credit.
I recently did a post-exam reflection with a student, but I approached it in a different way - through a free writing type of exercise. I think that the more guided questions would have been helpful, especially the first few that require the student to sort of grade themselves on their studying habits and their overall performance. I will most likely incorporate some of these questions during our next post-exam reflection in a few weeks. Thanks for the tips!
ReplyDeleteI also approached a post-exam reflection as more of a free write after their first exam. However, I like some of the questions because they are more directed. My students have an exam the week after Spring Break and I will use some of these questions in the post exam reflection. I typically don't collect the answers, but allow them to share any feelings or thoughts about studying for the exam that they have. Then, as I did last time, I will have them write down the most difficult problems on the test (as best as they can remember) and save them for when we are studying for the final (which is cumulative).
ReplyDeleteI did a post-exam review with my student after his first exam. However, it was just a general discussion about how he felt about the exam in general, where he thought he did well, and what parts he struggled with. It was helpful, but I like the idea of having more structured questions, like in this example. Though I think the free write examples of Brittni and Emily are excellent ideas, I think these more probing questions may help the student focus their thinking and really target problem areas they may not have thought of with just a free write. This is definitely something I will use in the future!
ReplyDeleteI started my tutor this semester right after the student finished her first midterm. Thus, we did a post-exam reflection during our first meeting. I first asked her to illustrate the areas that she feel she is strong/ weak at. The student did not feel very confident about the exam format. The exam consists of all multiple choice questions, which is not very obvious for a stat course. Due to such exam format, we decided to incorporate more multiple choice type questions in our future meetings to help the students practice this type of problems.
ReplyDeleteI think the post-exam reflection is a great idea to implement during sessions. I typically do an oral post-exam reflection but think that a written one like this would be even more helpful. I could make a copy and keep one for myself and give one to the student, and we could easily look at the progress throughout the semester. Thank you for the tip!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your tips! I felt that I tutored and emphasized the key points, but the students still can't get the satisfied grade. The survey helps me to know more about their learning habits and review methods which may greatly affect their grades in the exam. Also, by the survey, it is the chance for students to self-reflect their exam instead of just complaining or disappointing about the bad grade. Your tips do remind me of noticing their daily learning. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of writing down post-exam thoughts. After filling out a couple of these reflections, you can look back at them and see how you improved. This type of exercise might help students feel like they control the outcome of their exams and grades because they have control over their own behavior.
ReplyDeleteI did a post-exam reflection with my student after her first exam and I feel like it really helped her become better prepared for her subsequent exams. After she saw what types of mistakes she had made it allowed her to realize what she needed to spend more time on studying for the next exam. For example, the majority of questions she got wrong on her exam were specific numerical values mentioned in the textbook but not in lecture, so for her second exam she made sure to spend more time studying these numerical values and I also tried to emphasize them more during our sessions.
ReplyDeleteKelly Mularkey