’tis the season… not just for holly, mistletoe, and goodwill but exams. So as we begin reviewing, cramming, and stressing out I thought it would be beneficial to share two examples of relatively stress-free exam review.
The first stop is a AP Environmental Science where Mr. Derrick Willard has been using a class blog to have his students write “scribe posts” all semester. The definition of scribe posting that follows is from Darren Kuropatwa, an amazing educator from Canada.
The original assignment was simply to post a brief summary of what happened in class each day. A different student is responsible for the daily scribe post and they end their post by choosing the next scribe. The first scribe was a volunteer. My daily involvement is limited to updating a post called The Scribe List which is at the top of the links list in the sidebar of each class’s blog. For all three classes this takes less than five minutes of my time each day.
Derrick has effectively applied Darren’s scribe post model in his science classroom.
Here is why this model is a great end of semester review tool. Students have access to student created daily summaries from class. These daily postings have links to additional resources, embed maps, charts, and links to current news articles. There are also comments posted that correct or add additional content to the daily summaries. The pressure of knowing that your peers are relying on your work to help them review combined with the rotating schedule that minimizes your nightly homework allows students produce high quality summaries.
In addition to srcibe posts, students post questions about class content and their peers answer the questions. Mr. Willard only needs to chime in when the conversation strays off point or misses the point. Students have shared that the very act of creating the summaries helps them retain the information and allow them to act as experts on those section of the course. These notes and summaries are always available online.
The next stop is a Middle School English course that has been using a wiki to collect resources to assist with review as they went along. Students decided that they want a page for chapter summaries of Steinbeck’s The Pearl. They create a page for their own examples of literary tools when they felt that their teacher’s examples were out dated and obscure. On the same page are links to definitions of literary terms. They found videos of Poe’s Cask of Amontillado and The Raven which some students are watching to refresh their memories. They collect links to resources for parts of speech including an embedded mad lib game. The wiki is used in class each day for 20 minutes in small groups to focus on the area they feel needs attention. Students work together with teacher to identify new tools and clarify how to use the tools to study. By working in groups, students are able to model good study behaviors for each other and share study tips.
Hope these two examples perhaps create a opportunity to reduce your and your students’ stress this exam season. Don’t forget that these are the types of ideas shared at NCAIS Innovate on March 11 and 12th.
