My examination philosophy (the brief version)

Hopefully you recognize that my goal in this class is not to torture you --  nor do I want you to fail. I'm not even hell-bent on you giving up and dropping the class.  Unfortunately these are, however, things students have said to me in the past when their frustration got the best of them. I can assure you though, those were misguided comments.

No, on the contrary, my goal is to get you to learn how to learn. Learning is not an easy task, and for most individuals, learning the most efficient and effective way(s) to learn is even harder to do. Nor is it something I can simply tell you to do and it inevitably will get done. You have to WANT to do it. So the question for me is -- how can I motivate my students to maximize their learning?

Most students are at least somewhat motivated by grades, and therefore my carrot (or stick depending on your perspective) for this class  is just that -- your grade. Now you may be asking, so why can't you make it easier on us -- make the exams easier, or take another approach?  Well, my reasoning is as follows.  In spite of all the rhetoric by some educators about the successes of "experiential learning" and the importance of creating a "student-centered learning environment", research has shown time and time again that studying for an exam is a very effective means of getting students to try to learn. More importantly, students learn how they learn best when they study for exams. Note cards, writing practice questions & answers, chapter outlines, rewriting class notes -- whatever it takes -- you are MUCH more likely to learn it (the method and the material) than with other approaches.  And the more challenging you anticipate the exam to be, the harder you will work at learning how to learn.

But you say, I'll just forget all this stuff a few days after the exam!  Yes, you will forget most of the material, but you won't forget HOW you learned it. Whatever approach you took, whatever new method you may have developed, you'll remember that it was effective. In addition, that method will work better for you the next time you're called upon to use it. That is because your brain learned how to do it better than it knew before. Sorry, but that's what the research tells us.

Some of your classmates may be thinking "but I'm working my tail off and I'm still making a C" (or whatever grade they have).  Well, a student in that situation has several options. These include: 1) settling for that grade; 2) working even harder (or more efficiently) the same way she or he has studied up until now; or 3) changing his or her study habits or techniques to try and find a better way.  The truly motivated student will try options 2 or 3, and that my friends means I've achieved my goal -- more learning will occur. Whatever path they choose, the responsibility for success rests on the shoulders of each individual.

Let me also remind you that not everyone will necessarily make an 'A' in this class. Nor is anyone assured of making a grade with which they're satisfied. No, as I learned in my undergraduate career, some disciplines aren't everyone's "cup of tea." In a particular subject, we may simply be a 'C' student and even our best effort is NOT going to change that. As it turns out, that's just the way life is (not to mention a good college education). My own transcripts attest to that.

My concession

With all of this said, I'd still like to offer you the opportunity to do something else to help yourself and help me. To start with, I want to concede that no one can write a perfect exam. That is why I'm seeking your input on how to improve mine. Before you start firing off e-mail's full of "helpful" suggestions, however, let's just set some ground rules, so to speak. Just because you thought a question was too hard, or I didn't cover the material, or it wasn't in the book, doesn't mean that is, in my opinion, a bad question.

So when embarking on the activity I'm about to propose, be sure to keep the following in mind.

1.  I intend some of the questions on each exam to be rather challenging (within the limitations that multiple-choice allows). In fact, my questions are designed to have quite a wide range of difficulty. So I'm very likely to ignore complaints of "too hard."
2. Unless you find something that wasn't in the reading assignments, wasn't discussed in lecture, AND isn't covered in the lecture guide, you shouldn't bother complaining about uncovered material -- because you should have uncovered it yourself. That is one of the ways I vary the difficulty of material on the exam, i.e. "easy question, but unfamiliar topic".  Sometimes I put a question or two on an exam that I didn't "wear out" in class just to see if you are doing the readings and reviewing the lecture guide.
3. I also believe in giving you a few questions where you can find the answer by mentally gathering related facts and coming to a conclusion. In other words, independent thought helps. Rarely is that the only way to answer a question, but every once in a while I may leave it all up to you. If every question could be answered easily by rote memorization alone, that wouldn't be a very good exam,  now would it? Especially when you consider that this is a science class, where both inductive and deductive reasoning are paramount!
4. The "best" answer (in the exam instructions) is the answer that best fits the available information and is among the available answers. In other words, if the "exact" answer you were expecting isn't on the exam, you need to look for the next best thing.
5. Just because you didn't know the meaning of a technical term, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be on the exam. "Viscous" is a fine word, with a very specific meaning -- few others will work in its stead. "Thick" just won't do, and "runny" isn't nearly as exact. Not to mention the fact that a college education is intended to broaden a person's vocabulary, and command of simple geoscience terminology is a major objective in this class.
6. If I were you, I would avoid the pitfall of saying that the instructor didn't explain something well enough, or that a concept is too hard to understand. My response would be "that is what the book, e-mail, and my office hours are for." Any argument concerning the level of difficulty of a concept will reflect poorly on the arguer.  I say this because your reading assignments are from an introductory-level college textbook which the GEOL-1030 staff chose for its easy reading style. Therefore, the average college student should be able to comprehend it without too much trouble. I will admit the text has some weaknesses and so do I, but hopefully they are mutually exclusive (i.e. no overlap).
7. I have had several students in the past who tried to contest test questions that were worded the same as practice questions. It is fruitless to try to contest an exam question that was on the practice (sample) exam, or for example, was a study question that I provided before the exam. If you have a problem with one of these, you should consult me BEFORE the exam. My assumption is that, good or bad, you have already reviewed those questions and that you understand them well enough to choose the correct answer.

Your opportunity

Okay, so what DO I want you to do? I want you to go over the exam and if you think you can defend why you chose the "wrong" answer, send me an e-mail explaining your thinking. Perhaps I'll find out about important contradictions between my lectures and the textbook. Or someone will enlighten me as to how what I am saying bears no relationship to the reading assignments. I am particularly interested in learning what students mean when they say "the wording of your questions makes them hard to understand." So, if you want to explain how my word order or word choice caused you to misinterpret the question, please do.

However, no matter what you have to say, you will have to be very persuasive to receive credit for your arguments. The burden of proof that you have to meet is as follows. You must convince me that based on your reasoning, the answer you chose was at least as good, if not BETTER, than the correct answer.

If I get a bunch of responses from this little exercise (and I hope I do), it will generate a lot of work for me. Just in case, I've devised the following RULES to make my job easier. Failure to comply with any of these rules may result in you losing all credit for this activity.

The Rules:

1. I will begin accepting e-mail concerning this activity immediately after the exam is over.
2. Send your explanation(s) to me via e-mail (address: cdharris@mstu.edu ) on or before the due date posted on the Class News Page. (= "the deadline")
3. Your first and last name and the phrase "Contesting GEOL1030 exam" MUST be in the subject line of your e-mail(s).
4. Your first and last name, class time, the question number(s), the letter(s) of your answer(s), and the exam version MUST ALL be included in the body of your e-mail.
5. If you contest more than one question in an e-mail, you must clearly separate and number your arguments using the appropriate exam question numbers.
6. Each student can contest up to five (5) questions -- no more.
7. You can only contest questions that you answered incorrectly on the exam; you lose any points you earn through this exercise if I discover that you have violated this rule.
8. Once the deadline has passed, no later submissions  are valid.
9. The deadline will NOT be extended simply because you missed class or were unable to participate for some other reason (sorry, otherwise this might drag on for weeks). This includes lack of an available e-mail account -- all MTSU students have a frank account, which you should have activated by this time.
10. Credit will ONLY be given to the person who makes a successful argument (i.e. sends the e-mail) for a particular answer. Even if a question is seriously flawed (which I doubt), each individual must bring it to my attention to earn credit. No "blanket" credit.
11. If I am persuaded by your argument, you and I may still need to sit down and hash things out. However, some arguments may be powerful enough that no further explanation is needed.
12. I do NOT intend to respond to arguments that I don't think have merit. In some cases I may respond, but I reserve the right to only respond to those arguments that I think have some validity.
13. I reserve the right to wait to respond to any and all e-mail's until after the deadline for this activity has passed.
14. You will receive full credit (1 pt.) and e-mail verification of this credit, for each "correct" answer that you successfully contradict.
15. I reserve the right to give especially good arguments two points of credit, but this will be a rare exception.
16. My decision, with respect to the merit of your arguments, is final. There will be no higher power to whom you can appeal, no second chances, no complaints heard -- nothing.

Other comments:

It would be very helpful if you would include the original exam question(s) in your e-mail, although this is not required.

You get to keep the points you received for this activity, even if you drop the exam to which they pertained!

If you don't play, you can't win! The more e-mail's I receive the better idea I'll have about what I might do differently on the next exam. The fewer e-mail's I receive, the more likely I am to award credit to less meritorious arguments. For participants, it's a win-win situation either way.

You may wonder why I am doing this. There are lots of reasons, but as I pondered this question, these are the main ones that immediately came to mind.  Specifically, I want:

• to know why students claim that many questions on my exams are "hard to understand";
• to increase the clarity of my exam questions, if necessary;
• average students to perform better on my exams without making the exams less challenging;
• students to have the opportunity to debate the "right" answer and express their opinions;
• students to practice writing and talking about geoscience;
• students to think about why the "right" answer is better than their answer -- if indeed it is.