I got asked a great question this morning around best practices for open book final exams...
I got asked a great question this morning around best practices for open book final exams delivered online (as many of you are probably starting to think about how to deliver your final exams online). As an Instructional Designer and former teacher, here are my suggestions.
- Prior to the exam, be clear to your students that they have access to their resources (clarify what resources those will be – textbook, study notes, ppts, etc.)
- With open book, students often think they don’t need to study, but that’s not the case. Consider giving a practice exam with a few questions (5-10) to demonstrate that students do need to study and also to help set expectations of how time consuming it can be to look for answers when you don’t know where to look. Draw emphasis on students needing to understand the context of the material to be able to answer questions.
- Along with the previous, give enough questions that completing the exam in the 2 hours will be tight, so that students don’t have ample time to randomly search their books for the answers. In Brightspace, enforce the time limit (Restrictions tab in Quiz set up)
- Write tough questions that use application and analysis so students have to show they understand the concepts, rather than basic information and memorization, which can be easily Googled.
- Because of the large class size, make questions all auto-gradable (no Long Answer) so there is no grading required – let Brightspace take care of that. Rather, spend the extra effort upfront to write good, tough questions with strong distractors.
- Consider randomizing your questions and/or using question pools to help vary the questions each student gets, to limit opportunities for sharing questions and answers, especially if students will not all be taking the exam at the exact same time.
- Provide clear instructions at the beginning of the exam (on the starting page) to reiterate what resources they can use, how long they have, how many questions will be asked, and what type of questions. This helps students manage their own time.
Here’s a really good resource, Exam Prep: Strategies for open book exams, to pass along to students, to help them be more successful when taking open book exams.
Does anyone else have additional considerations and recommendations? Share them in the comments!
التعليقات
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@Lynsey Duncan May we use this on our university website?
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I really like this! My school has mostly taken the Lockdown Browser route but I think these kinds of exams are not only a better way to prevent cheating, but also do a better job reflecting actual course knowledge than simple memorization questions.
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I really like this! My school has mostly taken the Lockdown Browser route but I think these kinds of exams are not only a better way to prevent cheating, but also do a better job reflecting actual course knowledge than simple memorization questions.
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for anyone who liked Lynsey's excellent suggestions here, you might find this article on Alternative End-of-Year Assessment Strategies helpful as well: [Archived Content] https://community.brightspace.com/s/article/Alternative-End-of-Year-Assessment-Strategies
