Re: Reading quizzes/assignments

["Daniel L. MacIsaac" <Dan.MacIsaac@NAU.EDU>]

> I would be interested in hearing from other members of the list who have used reading quizzes/assignments in their courses, particularly how it was administered and how it worked (results).  Thanks in advance.
>
> Scott Bonham

Scott:

I have assigned reading summaries due first day of class devoted to that
chapter; this requires students to read ahead and credits them for doing so.
I count them all together + homework + seat activities for about 20% of the
course grade.  RS's are worth nothing if late, are graded out of 5 points,
and the average grade is about 4.  Either I or an undergrad grader grade
them at very high speed indeed so I don't think they add much overhead to my
instructional work.

Attached is a sample blurb for RS instructions (I show a transparency of what
I want for the first one ahead of time, and grade that one in detail to
help my students out).  Basically my students polarized on RSs; most students
at first couldn't believe (in both the positive and negative senses) that
I'd grant credit for reading and preparing their own study notes.  About 1/4
resented these as mickey-mouse (I teach a freshman college class) and another
quarter were tremendously happy.  The majority liked an opportunity to spread
out their grades, and I appreciated my feelings of remorselessness facing
unhappy end-of-semester students who didn't choose do them.  I did allow
some students to do online commercial quizzes prepared by the textbook
companies in lieu of these for two semesters, but I discontinued this.
I used the online Giancoli quizzes at
<http://purcell.phy.nau.edu/courses/01/spring/phy111/schedule/quiz.html>
but this became too unwieldly for my taste.

I encourage you to try the RSs.  I'll certainly do them again.

Dan M

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
danmac@nau.edu          http://purcell.phy.nau.edu         PHYS-L list owner

Reading Summary RS2: due 1 Sep02:

Read chapter 18, sections 1-5, omitting 4.  Use a maximum
of 1 sheet of paper (or 2 faces).  For each section write a
point by point summary of the main idea, including a
simple sketch.  For sections where formulas are given,
include the MAIN formula in your summary together with
an explanation of what the formula is for and what the
names and units of the variables are.  Finally for each
section write a question that you have about this material
that is relevant to your own life experience.  This
assignment is due the class before the start of 18.1, and will
be graded on a scale of 5 pts -- 4 for completeness and 1 for
being correct.  It will be returned as study notes before the
appropriate examination.