In the classroom after a test or quiz is graded I return the answer sheet and the question bank to the students to review their individual performance. After they have had a few minutes to review their score, mumble expletives, and compare scores with their neighbors this is how I facilitate the discussion:

• My primary goal is always to explain why the correct answer is correct. Secondarily I explain why the incorrect answers are incorrect. I want the students to both understand the materials and learn how they could have figured out the correct answer. There is nothing wrong with becoming a better text taker.
• I ask, “who has questions about numbers 1 through 5.” If there are no questions I then ask, “who has questions about numbers 6 through 10.” If a student or many students have a question in the specific set I stop and explain it. Once questions, if any, are answered in a set I move to the next 5 question set. This controls the flow of the conversation.
• If I did not write the questions and students have comments about the quality of the questions I affirm their concerns by saying something like, “I can understand why you found that question confusing or poorly written, but before we move on I want to make sure you understand why the correct answer is correct.” I want to have a discussion about the content not an argument about the quality of the test.
• I always assure students that I will pass their concerns on to the test question writers. And then I do.
• If I wrote the test I tell students that I appreciate their feedback and where appropriate I will incorporate it in to the next version of the test.

Again focus after test review on why the correct answers are correct. A good way to end the discussion is with a summary sentence like, “Finally, these are the three most important things I want you to remember about this topic - cardiac chest pain is from myocardial ischemia, our treatments focus on ischemia relief and restoration of perfusion, and time is tissue.”

Tags: Classroom, Facilitation, Quiz, Students, Test

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Rapid E-Learning How To. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.