A Student Perspective on Assessment and Exams at ITU

Anders Møller NielsenAnders Øland

Anders Hartzen

This Presentation

The Student Exam Debate in April 2010 Suggestions on how to make the exam

period better for your students

The Student Exam Debate

Back in april the student union (stupIT) held a public student debate in the ScrollBar.

The immediate reason for the debate was to gather input for a special theme meeting concerning exams in the Board of Studies.

The debate was a success - around 70 students participated. 

The Exam Debate

What the students said...

About Project Hand-ins

The hand-in deadline is policed too strict› Case: Student forgot printing 3rd copy - ran back to print

3rd copy. But was 1 minute too late and was not allowed to hand in even though the exam office already had the 2 other printouts.

› Suggestion: If you are in the line at 15:00 you should be allowed to hand-in; also if you have handed in 2/3 copies.

More choices for thesis deadline extension› Only possible to extend thesis project for 3 months. A

choice of a shorter extension period would be welcomed. Form of hand-in

› Handing in the project report printed out is fine; but it should always be allowed to hand in source code digitally Its a waste of paper and it puts pressure from printers.

About Exam Forms

Assignments during course don't reflect final written exam› Typical case: Students allowed to make course

assignments on computer (some even requires it), but then the exam is hand-written and doesn't allow the tools/practices used for assignments.

 Hand written exams› Students told of written exams where they were

asked to write code that can compile 100%. stupIT has been the told that the main reason for hand written programming exams is that the focus is not on writing code that can compile, but to write code that shows that the know-how of building programs.

About Exam Forms

PC Exams› Expected that PC's is a normal part of written exams, as

they had been used to from High School and Elementary School. The sentiment among students was that "this is an IT

University - shouldn't this be reflected in the exam forms?“ Exams shouldn't test coding skills per se; this

should be tested with mandatory assignments during the course.

Many students are hindered by their lack of skill in hand-writing, which puts their exam answer at an unnecessary disadvantage, as some teachers even admit.

About Exam Forms

Other Exam Forms› Multiple choice exams are unfair› Doesn't give students a chance to show their thinking as in a

normal written exam. Portfolio exam

› Sounds like a viable alternative, and its good that it commits one to make assignments.

Go-home exam› Positive

Makes it possible to do exams just like a normal assignment› Negative

If go-home period is long (e.g. a week) it can easily collide with other exams.

If period is shorter (e.g. 72 hours) it puts a hard strain on one.

About Exam Forms

Other Exam Forms (cont.)› Guaranteed seat

Cumulative grades sound fair, and its good for those who are not good at oral exams.

› DIKU Form Do hand-ins and get a pass/not pass for the

course Do exam to get a specific grade, not

mandatory

About Exam Planning

Exam Timetables› Exam timetables for a course should be

ready in good time, so students can plan their reading accordingly.

› Consensus was that anything more than 1 week before the first exam day would be "good time"

A worst case scenario

3 courses - all with exam problems in the same exam period› Course 1

Students were promised exercises to help them with difficult aspect of curriculum. But never received them.

 At the time of the written exam no exam room had been prepared Exam was postponed for 40 minutes.

› Course 2 Exam schedule was made ready early, but was

changed 4 days before first exam, due to examiner cancellation.

Exam questions for the oral exam was changed 4 days before as well, since it was discovered they weren't part of the curriculum.

› Course 3 Exam schedule was not published until 3 days before

first exam.

9 Suggestions on how to make make exams/assessment better for your studentsSuggestions come from both stupIT and from the students themselves

Suggestion 1 - Conduct your own mid-term evaluation.

The current official course evaluation is placed late in the course. › Too late for any suggestions to have any affect on

the current batch of students. › Take 15-25 minutes of a lecture to hold your own

evaluation. › Either by letting students fill out a questionnaire,

or by doing an oral Q&A session. Our experience: both work well, and it serves

as a good occasion to correct any misconceptions about the exam or assignments.

Suggestion 2 - Make an agreement with your  students about what help to offer during the exam reading break

 At the very last lecture take some time to discuss with your students what kind of help they would like to have when reading for the exam.

Help could include holding a Q&A session close to the exam; taking questions via the newsgroup/course blog; taking questions via email; making exercises available to help in more difficult areas of the curriculum, etc.

If the reading break is over the Christmas holiday, be forthcoming and agree on maybe 2-3 days during the holidays in which students can send in questions and get them answered on the same day.

Suggestion 3 - Enforce students' understanding of how the exam will take place

Make sure that students have an understanding of what will happen at the exam› Put a description of what will take place in

the exam up on the course site before the last lecture (so students can ask about it) 

Alternatively: make a trial exam during the course.

Suggestion 4 - Make exam information/planning available early

Begin planning the exam schedule as soon as the final list of students attending the exam is available. 

Check exam facts directly with the Exam Office. Is the exam on the day you think it is? Is it where you think it is? Etc..

Put it up on the course site when it is finished - no later than a week before the first exam, as students want to know their timeslot to plan their final reading accordingly. 

This has been a returning problem for students.

Suggestion 5 - Align Course Exercises with the final Exam

Enforce students knowledge of and training for the final exam, 

Make assignments correlate to the final exam in both content and in the way the assignments are solved. 

Make it possible to make a solution in the same manner as in the exam.

Suggestion 6 - Make it possible for students to hand in their code digitally

Reduce the stress on the printers and on the students at project-hand in 

Save time for the students and reduce paper usage by making source code hand-in possible for instance on a CD/DVD or online (SVN etc.). 

Addendum: Digital hand of appendixes is also something worth considering to reduce paper/time usage even more.

Suggestion 7 - Think about using/incorporating a digital exam form for your course

Could a digital exam form bring the exam closer to the learning objectives for your course?

Think about the exam forms that were discussed in the exam debate, and the ones that will be discussed during todays seminar.

Suggestion 8 - Make it possible for students to choose what form of written exam they want, pen/paper or PC

Make it possible to use either pen and paper or a PC to write the solution to the exam. › Unsure if it will work for your course?

Test it in a trial exam! It will still give students a sense of the types of questions in the real exam.

The easy way to hold an exam with PC's:› Do it in the same manner as Danish elementary

schools Every student brings their own computer, printer cables

etc. ITU provides a power supply Internet can be allowed or not. If not, exam guards should be trained to check whether

a students pc is connected.

Suggestion 9 - Check facts with the exam office - regularly

Check facts such as:› Projects › Project hand-in dates› Formal project requirements › Exam dates

Check these facts to ensure that they haven't changed.

Something that has happened before and which can necessitate late changes to project deadlines/exam plans already announced to students.

Thank You!

ByAnders Møller Nielsen (andm@itu.dk)Anders Hartzen (andershh@itu.dk)Anders Øland (anoe@itu.dk)

Change Log

Version 1.0: Version presented at the Seminar.

Version 1.1: Removel of a few errors in the slides.

Version 1.2: Addendum to Suggestion 6 added.