What will happen if a professor asks his students to design their own test?
You would think that they would design a test and have the answers written upside down on the bottom of the page; just like a crossword-puzzle.
Not in this class. Here, we made a test that might be easier then the first one, but definitely not easy. That's integrity for you!
The entire process started out when the professor gave us the chance to design a test and vote on it. All this with only one condition - there has to be an absolute agreement of the class.
All in all, the process went pretty well; it was lead by one person who wrote the ideas that were brought up and then we all voted on it. People were pretty fair, they listened to one another (most of the time) and they were very flexible and gave up when they had to.
I took a pretty active part in the decision making process (maybe a bit too active..). I would argue that most of the students that took part in the process (yeah, those that were yelling), including myself, at some point were in all the different stages of conflict handling. In the beginning we all wanted to get our own agenda to the room, and then some of us just withdrew from the entire thing, and the rest kept on. After a while we started to compromise and collaborate with the rest of the class. Some student (probably those who got an A on the test) accommodated others' ideas because they didn't care much.
I think that the way we handled this as a class was quite remarkable. The entire process was done in a way that at the end, everyone in class (besides the professor), was happy with the decision.
Could we have done this better? Maybe shouting a little stronger.....
Well, we could have divided the class into smaller groups, and then one person from each group would give their decision. With this, we might have been able to get more ideas out. This way we could have filtered the first ideas that were unrealistic or irrelevant, and stick to the better ones. In addition, some students would have found it easier to raise their own ideas in these smaller groups.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun and I think the we rocked with our decision!
Happy testing to all!
I agree with you that the process went well. It is amazing that with the size of that class we were all able to agree on one thing, let alone the 6 or so things we actually agreed on. Although there were many people yelling and shouting out their ideas, in the end, it all worked out. However, I do disagree with you when you say that the class should have been broken up into smaller groups. This would not work, I think, due to the size and number of groups there would have to be and due to the time constraint. If there was not sucha atime constraint, then I think this idea would have worked really well and we may have even ended up with more!
ReplyDeleteindeed, the professor underestimated us; he wasn't expecting us to deliver such demands. i must say, i'm a bit surprised my self of the progress we as a class reached. it seemed hopeless 55.5 percent of the time but at the end, we reformed and executed and we rocked! bravo to all!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that the process went well but I think the idea that splitting into smaller groups would have failed and have been too time consuming. Yes those who used avoidance in the group discussion may have been more vocal and more likely to have contributed to a smaller group but I feel with time constraints we tackled the problem the best way. Thanks to the leaders emerging so early in the lecture which saved us a lot of time and helped us reach a favorable solution.
ReplyDelete