Why?
It comes as no surprise but grading exams, and giving feedback, can be exhausting.
What?
Therefore, I decided to try to make the exam more fun for both the students and myself while simultaneously encouraging collaborative learning and interactivity. I followed the three requirements for an interactive task (Damnik et al. 2017 from the Play & Learn Digimedia course platform).
Who?
Students in teacher education at a university in Finland.
How?
All you need are the smart-phones most students carry with them all the time anyway. Also, exam questions that encourage reflection, analysis of the course content and collaboration. Already on the first day of class, I wanted to make the students both participative and self-regulated in their own learning process. This includes assessment, because in the end assessment influence what students do. I presented the students with different options for assessing the more practical half of the course. Although I must admit, I strongly talked in favor of having a group exam (as 15 years of experience tells me it enhances learning and metacognition). This is how I usually do it:
- the students work in small groups
- the groups are randomly picked right before the exam
- the groups turn in a joint answer. Everyone in one group receives the same grade for the exam, but due to other course assignments, not necessarily the same course grade.
- If a student for any reason finds working in collaborative learning teams difficult, there is also the option of an individual exam. This is rarely the case in teacher education.
This time I wanted the students to turn in their answers as an audio file. The option of giving traditional written answers still existed but no group chose to do so. During the exam, students were given 80 minutes to discuss and reflect on the questions and to prepare their answers. They then had 15 minutes to audio record their answers using their phones or any other device. I was not present during either of these two exam “sessions”. The students turned in their audio recordings on Moodle.
A group exam highly engages – or actually requires – the students in dialoguing with their learning partners and to motivate their answer and together reach a solution. However, the students in one group need not reach consensus as long as they can motivate their (perhaps) different opinions and everyone in the group gets a say. I wanted to prepare the students for the kind of interaction and collaboration under time pressure required for a successful group exam. Half way through the course, the students did a Kahoot and/or Moodle quiz on the course content. This activity also encouraged digital interactivity in a playful manner. The students enjoyed it and received instant feedback on their knowledge of content covered so far.
Student interactivity during the exam?
Very well. It was inspiring to notice how well the students completed the audio exam. It was in fact a pleasure listening to the audio exam answers. It sounded like they had fun while at the same time being very keen on giving correct and well-thought research and theory based answers. The group dynamics were excellent; all twelve groups had a good rhythm in their answers and they complemented each other in a positive and encouraging tone. If the discussions occasionally went off track they managed to, in collaboration, get back on track. With the exception of one group, all groups had good time-management and answered all exam questions in the allocated 15 minutes.
One group had a playful twist – they made their exam presentation like a radio program. Overall, all groups made it sound like they were interacting both within the group and with me. This added to the interactive touch to an otherwise often routine and rather boring part of assessment in higher education.
Was there any teacher – student interactivity?
They all received group specific feedback from me on Moodle. This time they received in the more traditional written mode. Next time I will consider to also audio record my feedback. Anyway, having audio recordings I could follow their reasoning, and my feedback was quite specific in that I could comment on when, how and exactly where their reasoning perhaps took a wrong turn. This way it felt like I was interacting with them. The students also had the possibility to respond to my feedback. They could do so individually or as a group. And either irl or on-line.
After the exam, the students wrote short individual reflections. Focus was on learning and interactivity. They were all positive and claimed discussing the course content opened up new perspectives, enhanced their metacognition when realizing how much they know and that their self-efficacy increased when they realized how much they could contribute to the group discussion and collaborative learning.
Would I do it again?
Yes. And so would the students.
Starduck1 and Starduck2 built during Rikke Toft Norgard’s workshop on “The Potentials of Playful Teaching and Learning”.
Really great idea to use audioexams! It seems thoughtful to use certain rules to ensure the quality of the result. Thank you for the idea to use audio- or videorecorded groupworks to understand better the group dynamics.
I really got inspired of your idea! I think that audioexams is a very flexible way for both students and teachers.
Especially for students who are insecure about their writing abilities, audioexams
can relieve the paralyzing fear of writing an excellent text under time pressure. I also think that 15 minutes to audio record their answers is a perfect time also for the teacher to listen to. This is something I’m going to try with my next course.
This is really an interesting read. Audio recordings provide great insights into how students approach a task and how they learn. Such recordings keep a sense of directness that the written word cannot capture. I conduct a lot of interviews for my research, and there is also a similar debate. What is actually the better type of data? Transcripts or audio recordings? I often think that audio recordings are much richer in terms of content.
This is a great idea. Here are two good components together: interactivity and group work. I think it requires a “good art” from teacher how to create questions for exams. Many thanks for the new idea.