-
About
Our Story
back- Our Mission
- Our Leadership
- Accessibility
- Careers
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
- Learning Science
- Sustainability
Our Solutions
back
-
Community
Community
back- Newsroom
- Discussions
- Webinars on Demand
- Digital Community
- The Institute at Macmillan Learning
- English Community
- Psychology Community
- History Community
- Communication Community
- College Success Community
- Economics Community
- Institutional Solutions Community
- Nutrition Community
- Lab Solutions Community
- STEM Community
- Newsroom
Benchmark Quizzes in Organic, part 2
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Mark as New
- Mark as Read
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Printer Friendly Page
- Report Inappropriate Content
Last fall, I implemented a set of benchmark quizzes in my organic chemistry classes. These quizzes arose from a simple question: “What should every student who passes my class be able to do?” Adapting the approach of Joshua Ring, the quizzes were pass-fail, with no partial credit. Students had more than one attempt to pass the quizzes, but they had to get the quiz completely correct in order to pass. Further, I tethered the quizzes to students’ homework grades: In order to receive credit for homework, students had to pass 5 of the 6 benchmarks by the end of the semester.
Not everything went as planned. My benchmarks were compressed toward the end of the semester, leading me to trim the number of quizzes and removing the restriction on the homework grade. Nonetheless, the results were remarkable: Rather than limping through exams with partial credit and moving on to other topics, the multi-attempt, pass-fail approach drove students to analyze their knowledge gaps and hone their understanding. After two or three failed attempts, students often made their way to my office to figure out what they did wrong. It clearly made them stronger.
Quantitatively, I was able to compare my class to the previous two semesters, using the ACS standardized exam. The only major pedagogical change was the introduction of the benchmarks. Here are the exciting results:
Semester | Students | Average Percentile |
---|---|---|
Fall 2015 | 58 | 56 |
Spring 2016 | 40 | 45 |
Fall 2017 | 46 | 73 |
I don’t think the Benchmark quizzes can be exclusively credited with these outcomes. Our fall classes are usually stronger, and this was an exceptional bunch. However, they definitely contributed. I was especially interested to see the effect on those students at the bottom of the class, who often have the most pronounced knowledge gaps. Here is the change limited to those students who finished in the bottom quartile of the class on the ACS exams:
Semester | Students | Average Percentile |
---|---|---|
Fall 2015 | 15 | 17 |
Spring 2016 | 10 | 11 |
Fall 2017 | 12 | 23 |
This semester, I've moved out of the organic sequence and into Introductory Chemistry. I'm teaching large daytime and evening sections, and using an adapted benchmark scheme for both. More to come about this in an upcoming article.
You must be a registered user to add a comment. If you've already registered, sign in. Otherwise, register and sign in.
-
Biochemistry
3 -
Biology
14 -
Case Studies
15 -
Chemistry
111 -
Environmental Science
4 -
General Chemistry
20 -
Genetics
1 -
Intro & Prep Chemistry
10 -
Math & Stats
15 -
Organic Chemistry
9 -
Physics
6 -
Tech
18 -
Virtual Learning
9