15 Part K: Humanizing Assignments, Tests, and Exams
15 Part K: Humanizing Assignments, Tests, and Exams
“Having the choice to pick what format you do your final assignment in is always such a refreshing experience. Sometimes you don’t want to do a 10-page essay and would rather do a video presentation or whatever other option a professor offers. I feel better about what assignment I am doing when I know I picked a format that worked best for me.” – Recent Religion graduate
“In Fall 2020, almost all my instructors added lots of tiny assignments (discussion board posts, lecture quizzes, etc.). They said it was so we could keep engaging with material/keep on track, and they purposefully made everything worth small marks. But it was just overwhelming.” – Third-year Science student
In practice, this can look like:
- Offer exam wrappers, wherein students reflect on their approach and experience writing the exam and can also repeat one of the exam questions.
- Exam wrapper prompts might include the following:
- What went well in terms of how you studied for this test?
- What will you change next time in terms of your approach to studying?
- Would more time to study have helped the study process OR would all the time in the world not have helped the study process?
- Did you study diagrams?
- Did you make a list of terms and their definitions?
- Did you find yourself losing focus while studying?
- Did you find yourself feeling hopeless while studying?
- Do you believe you might have procrastinated studying?
- Experiment with asynchronous study tools. Access to study groups and other forms of enriched study practices might be reduced for some students. An asynchronous tool allows students to work collaboratively on different problems, using a google spreadsheet where they can read what others are contributing, build on it, ask instructors questions about it, and practice applying the concepts.
These study tools can guide students to generate their own example questions, which other students can answer and then write more of them. - Try to create assignments, tests, and exams etc. that allow the learner to demonstrate what they know in a way that is meaningful to them. Humanized assignments allow the learner to bring their histories, knowledge, and experience to bear on the exam. They allow for multiple forms of expressing an answer and for self-reflection on how the information impacts their knowledge. They allow for some discussion/acknowledgement of what clashes with existing knowledge.
- Provide time and flexibility so that students can think about their writing. Time constraints, whenever necessary, should be realistic and reasonable.
- Provide a clear study guide in advance of the exam with information about format, scope, and advice for how to prepare. Include sample questions and answers if possible.
- Host well-planned and helpful review sessions. You might give students a block of 25 questions prior to the exam, with the knowledge that maybe 10-12 of them will be on the exam. This can help the stud