In my last post, I mentioned that I did unit exams differently, and that students largely liked them. Not just that they liked taking tests this way, but in the end-of-year evaluation, many in both my Honors and AP Chemistry classes specifically remarked that the Evaluations were fun (!?!)
So, how did I trick my students into liking tests create Evaluations that felt good for students and actually measured some knowledge?
Evaluations were kinda like week-long projects. Because my district was remote for much of the year, I gave students some flexibility with dates, but not with content and standards. I’d give a rough topic or a set of starting conditions, then gave them an outline of ideas to cover, including a rubric for how I’d be looking at things. Also, some of the Evaluations were a little weird or out of the norm, so they didn’t feel like tests.
For example, the first APChem Evaluation covered the first unit, which was largely review from Honors Chem. All of this stuff was easily Google-able, so I needed them to explain how everything worked conceptually. So I asked them to choose two concepts and make analogies to two different texts they’ve recently read. AND, they had to be drawn in cartoon-format (stick figures encouraged!) Since many of the chemical concepts dealt with structure and interactions of atoms/particles, analogies were pretty easy to find with nearly any text. Points were awarded on clarity of connections between chemistry and texts, as well how the analogies didn’t work, and a nice citation at the end.
For a mathy unit like stoichiometry, I took an idea I’d read somewhere (sorry, but I don’t remember where!) and used student ID numbers to generate quasi-random assignment to a list of reactants and amounts of starting materials. Students then produced a video explaining how they calculated the amounts of products, the limiting/excess reactants, what happens when the limiting reactant is doubled, and a particle diagram of their particular reaction.
Basically, I emphasized students’ explanations over calculations. They had to be able to explain, either in writing or verbally, how something worked. This also allowed me to help students with tricky parts, so that we could discuss similar problems and they could still complete the work on their own, and they knew whether they knew it or not.
Did Evaluations take forever to grade? Yes. But they were far more entertaining (and dare I say, fun??) to work through. Could students still cheat? Yes. But especially when I asked for explanations to extend analogies/knowledge, it was pretty obvious who hadn’t really done the work. Could students get a re-do? Yes. They had to fix the broken/missing parts, explain how they got their original answers, and explain how the new-and-improved versions were better.
I kinda want to keep Evaluations next year, but I also know that I’ll have to change them up a bit. However, I think it will be worth it for them and me.
notphlogiston 