Weekly Formative Exams and Creative Grading Enhance Student Learning in an Introductory Biology Course

A course format with a creative grading scheme and weekly formative midterms produced large gains in student success with test items requiring higher-order cognitive skills. This format is designed to provide multiple opportunities to attempt demanding problems on exams, immediate feedback, and incentives to improve.

[1]  Mary Lee S. Ledbetter,et al.  Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action Presentation to Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience, July 2011 , 2012, Journal of undergraduate neuroscience education : JUNE : a publication of FUN, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience.

[2]  Richard P. Phelps.  The Effect of Testing on Student Achievement, 1910–2010 , 2012 .

[3]  Mark A. McDaniel,et al.  Learning With Analogy and Elaborative Interrogation , 1996 .

[4]  E. Seymour,et al.  Talking About Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave The Sciences , 1997 .

[5]  Lisa K. Son,et al.  Spacing one's study: evidence for a metacognitive control strategy. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[6]  Shana K. Carpenter,et al.  The effects of tests on learning and forgetting , 2008, Memory & cognition.

[7]  Alison Crowe,et al.  Biology in bloom: implementing Bloom's Taxonomy to enhance student learning in biology. , 2008, CBE life sciences education.

[8]  Shana K. Carpenter,et al.  Impoverished cue support enhances subsequent retention: Support for the elaborative retrieval explanation of the testing effect , 2006, Memory & cognition.

[9]  Angela L. Duckworth,et al.  Grit: perseverance and passion for long-term goals. , 2007, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[10]  Eugene B. Zechmeister,et al.  When you know that you know and when you think that you know but you don't. , 1980 .

[11]  Virginia B. Wickline,et al.  Practice (Rather Than Graded) Quizzes, With Answers, May Increase Introductory Psychology Exam Performance , 2011 .

[12]  V. Scoppa,et al.  Frequency of examinations and student achievement in a randomized experiment , 2011 .

[13]  James A. Kulik,et al.  Effects of Frequent Classroom Testing. , 1991 .

[14]  Doug Rohrer,et al.  Tests enhance the transfer of learning. , 2010, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[15]  Jeffrey D. Karpicke,et al.  Test-Enhanced Learning , 2006, Psychological science.

[16]  Jeffrey D. Karpicke,et al.  The Power of Testing Memory Basic Research and Implications for Educational Practice , 2006 .

[17]  M. McDaniel,et al.  Testing the testing effect in the classroom , 2007 .

[18]  Frank C. Leeming,et al.  The Exam-A-Day Procedure Improves Performance in Psychology Classes , 2002 .

[19]  Steve Olson,et al.  Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with Degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Report to the President. , 2012 .

[20]  Leon Bieber,et al.  Mindset The New Psychology Of Success , 2016 .

[21]  Suzanne Reeve,et al.  Teaching cell biology in the large-enrollment classroom: methods to promote analytical thinking and assessment of their effectiveness. , 2003, Cell biology education.

[22]  Mark A. McDaniel,et al.  Elaborative Interrogation Facilitates Acquisition of Confusing Facts. , 1988 .

[23]  Tyler A. Kummer,et al.  Teaching to the Test…or Testing to Teach: Exams Requiring Higher Order Thinking Skills Encourage Greater Conceptual Understanding , 2014 .

[24]  Uri Zoller,et al.  Are lecture and learning compatible? Maybe for LOCS: Unlikely for HOCS , 1993 .

[25]  Harold Pashler,et al.  Using tests to enhance 8th grade students' retention of U.S. history facts , 2009 .

[26]  Harold Pashler,et al.  Effects of testing on learning of functions , 2011, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[27]  W. Balch,et al.  Practice versus Review Exams and Final Exam Performance , 1998 .

[28]  K. Tanner.  Promoting student metacognition. , 2012 .

[29]  Aaron J. Hochanadel,et al.  Fixed And Growth Mindset In Education And How Grit Helps Students Persist In The Face Of Adversity , 2015 .

[30]  Elizabeth J Marsh,et al.  The memorial consequences of multiple-choice testing , 2007, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[31]  H. Pashler,et al.  The influence of retrieval on retention , 1992, Memory & cognition.

[32]  M. Covington,et al.  Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation: An Approach/Avoidance Reformulation , 2001 .

[33]  Cheryl I. Johnson,et al.  A Testing Effect with Multimedia Learning , 2009 .

[34]  Kathleen B McDermott,et al.  The testing effect in recognition memory: a dual process account. , 2007, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[35]  Harold Pashler,et al.  Testing beyond words: Using tests to enhance visuospatial map learning , 2007, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[36]  Mark A. McDaniel,et al.  Quizzing in Middle-School Science: Successful Transfer Performance on Classroom Exams , 2013 .

[37]  IF You Discover,et al.  THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE. , 1923, Science.

[38]  Larry Ambrose,et al.  The power of feedback. , 2002, Healthcare executive.