I like your advice there Tim--i.e., giving students as much practice at test taking as possible. Also, for those of us who teach at community colleges, Ann Brown determined that community college students have the metacognitive skills (on average) of 6th graders. I have many students whose reading level is decent BUT don't know much about effective study strategies. It's fascinating to survey my summer classes, mainly transfer students, about how they prepare for MC versus an essay test as they report quite differential strategies depending on the test format. In contrast, my "regular" students don't show nearly the same discrepancy in strategies relative to test format though they do report a significant descrepancy in time studying; i.e. more for essay than multiple-choice.
I provide my students with study guide questions as it greatly enhances their learning and motivation as well as giving me the ability to pick and choose which sections of each chapter to cover. I feel this experience provides the students with practice at understanding the importance of active processing while reading. I worked with Ann Brown at the Center for the Study of Reading for a brief period when working on my PhD in Educational Psychology (turned out to be my ABD) and she promoted a type of reciprocal teaching for poor readers. I have the URL below to access a summary of this technique to improve the reading and metacognitive skills of poor readers. http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/classics1993/A1993LT56600001.pdfis Joan [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > I think it is going toward application in a > multiple choice format that my own in test analysis has shown to be a > problem . . . ."Students also get bad grades because everything they read seems self evident - until it is an exam question." That's why I tell them this will happen (on the syllabus and in class) then I give a quiz and an early test > and I talk about it again. By that point they get it, usually! It doesn't > always work but I've found that the number of evaluations from science > majors who say, "I think psychology is dumb", or "I didn't do well because > you kept changing the answers", have dropped to nearly zero. > Tim > > _______________________________ > Timothy O. Shearon, PhD > Professor and Chair Department of Psychology > The College of Idaho > Caldwell, ID 83605 > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > teaching: intro to neuropsychology; psychopharmacology; general; history > and systems > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
