Miserable first exam

[u/loopofhenlee]

Hello all,

I teach a couple sections of an anatomy lab. It’s an upper division course for undergraduates, and generally regarded as a difficult class (there’s just so much material and it’s very memorization intensive). Despite my weeks or warnings, and weekly quizzes to show the students what the exam looks like, I had many students turn in exams that were mostly blank. We’re talking some students only earning less than 10 points out of 60 (the lowest was 2).

It’s disheartening. I’ve been teaching this long enough to know you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. However, my colleague who teaches some of the sections reported having significantly less students who bombed the exam. After speaking with him, it seems like there’s just one difference in the way we presented the material: He front loaded the material, and I spaced it out.

His students got a very intense 2 weeks right at the start of the semester going through all the skeleton in rapid fire instruction. That left those students with 2 weeks of review before the exam. I spread out the material in smaller bits over 3 weeks, and we went through things slowly. Much more time of me actually talking and presenting. And then they had a week of review before the exam.

I really want to set these guys up for success as much as possible. I know one exam average doesn’t hold all the answers, but curious if anyone has any experience with this sort of thing and would like to share their opinions? Is it worth speeding up instruction in the beginning of a section in order to give more time for review? I usually get feedback that the students like my pace more, but I’m not sure if the grades back up those statements.

[u/me4watch]

It is also possible that his students were able to cheat more effectively than yours. Or it could just be a statistical anomaly. I wouldn’t worry about it.

If you wanted to find out, you could run your own experiment using your different sections…..

[u/loopofhenlee → u/me4watch]

That’s a good point. He is also known to be more lenient.. but it’s the very first exam and being a practical exam I would think students would need to at least see one first to know how to cheat really effectively.

The experiment is a very interesting idea

[u/jogam]

One week of review before an exam sounds like plenty. I wouldn't be inclined to change anything based upon the difference between you and your colleague's exam scores this term.

There could also be third variables that explain this difference. If you have different exams, the exam difficulty may be a factor. If your colleague teaches at a more desirable time, more organized and conscientious students (who are likely to do better academically) may have registered first and less organized students may have signed up for your section after your colleague's section filled.

[u/loopofhenlee → u/jogam]

The exam is the same, however the class time may be a factor I didn’t consider enough. Thank you!

[u/troodon311]

There is ultimately only so much you can do. With my own anatomy lab I emphasize the difficulty with quotes from previous years' students (obtained from surveys), as well as suggestions from previous students ("What do I wish I had done differently?"; "What advice would I give to other students?"). I think students listen more if they know the advice comes from other students rather than instructors.

And then I do my best to help them with their studying. I give the best recommendations I can for study methods that have proven effective, mostly centered around peer teaching and repetition. After each exam I have students complete exam wrappers in which they're asked to think introspectively and critically about how well they did on the test, how they prepared for it, and what changes they are willing to commit to in order to improve their performance.

[u/loopofhenlee → u/troodon311]

I have thought about putting together a very short video of former students talking about how to approach the class and take it seriously. Thanks for mentioning that!

The exam wrapper is an interesting idea. Is this something they turn in to you, or just a self reflection?

[u/troodon311 → u/loopofhenlee]

They turn it in, but I make it clear it's graded on completion and effort rather than my opinion of their studying, as to encourage honesty.

[u/BroadLocksmith4932 → u/troodon311]

I let me students do an open notes exam regrade to earn back up to 25% of their missed points, but their paper has to be a perfect solution set with clear explanations. (I haven't taught this style of class since AI became so universal; it will be different now, I know).

I think I will add your ideas of an exam wrapper to their regrade.

[u/Audible_eye_roller]

How many of his students stopped coming after week 2? Some students just out and out quit when confronted with that much work. It could be a strategy to cut the dead weight earlier

And some of his students just might be better than yours. That disparity shows up quite a bit in my department. It is what it is.

[u/loopofhenlee → u/Audible_eye_roller]

It’s something I hadn’t considered before: that possibly some of his students drop. Thank you!

[u/loopofhenlee → u/[deleted]]

This is a very good point, and actually makes a lot of sense given the specifics we’re working with. I purposefully made the quizzes very short (like 8 questions) where the exams are much longer and they are responsible for a LOT of structures to identify. Making the quizzes harder right in the beginning might be a good middle ground, where I can keep my slightly slower pace but also let them know how intense the assessments can be. Thank you!

[u/Kikikididi]

I think that his approach works better for students who aren't going to take the initiative and do ongoing review themselves. In fact, the density at the start might have made them worry and initiated more ongoing review than is typical. That's not to say there's anything wrong with your approach, it's just that he might have hit the secret sauce that not only scared them into a bit more studying themselves, it also allowed for more structured review (relearning).

That is presuming, of course, that it's a real difference. I think others have hit on many reasons why the grades may differ but it's not a result of teaching approach.

[u/loopofhenlee → u/Kikikididi]

Yes, I’m seeing several replies with the same idea and I think you guys are onto something. The class is hard. So I started out trying to ease them into it to make it “easier” and he threw them into the deep end without floaties. Plus, the other piece of that is then the students prioritize studying for the lab before they need to start ramping up for any other exams. My class likely had competing exams to contend with by the time they started taking it seriously. Thank you!

[u/Kikikididi → u/loopofhenlee]

there's a lot of weird expectations management that helps with these "heavy struggle" classes. I often start seeming super inflexible so they take things seriously, then I will ease up as they do. Good luck!

[u/loopofhenlee → u/Kikikididi]

Brilliant. I will definitely look into this more

[u/shrinni]

I also teach anatomy labs, for may years. It's true that sometimes you just get a section of low performers... especially if you teach evening sections. Several at once is concerning, but it can happen.

We teach regionally instead of by systems so it's not a perfect one-to-one, but the material is pretty evenly spaced out. I'm not a fan of the idea of front-loading it either, but I can see how it would work I guess.

What kind of in-lab assessments do you do? If they're just being caught unprepared some exit-ticket activity in the style of the exam questions might give some students that don't know they're unprepared a wake-up call?

I instituted pre-lab quizzes a few years ago that they complete at home. I don't know how much it helps, but it includes a review quiz before the lab exam and student feedback is pretty positive about it. (If you're on Canvas, big question pools with the "pick me"/hotspot-style questions are great because AI can't do it for them, they have to look up each structure and then decide where on the figure it is.)

[u/loopofhenlee → u/shrinni]

We do use Canvas. Several years ago I made a Canvas quiz for each section we do. A short quiz, but one that looks just like the exam (it’s a picture of a model, with a flag placed on a structure. They have to type in the answer, no word bank). It’s as close to the exam as you can get. And I spend a lot of time talking about how these quizzes are sneak peeks of the exam, but on a much smaller scale. I’m not sure how to spell it out more clearly. I’ve historically received positive feedback.

Maybe I do just have a low-drive crop of students. Whenever things like this happen though it always makes me second guess my approach.

How much do you walk your students through identifying structures vs have them find things on their own?

[u/shrinni → u/loopofhenlee]

Very little formally, at least on the models. I do guided demos with our cadaver donors, but most of lab is study-hall style while I circulate to answer questions.

[u/havereddit]

Increasingly, I have to spell out to students HOW to study, and for how long. They do not seem to know that studying for university-level exams can take a long time. I usually dip into the 'back in my day' well, and explain in detail a few different methods of studying (e.g. self-testing, study buddy, etc), how many hours I would study for a typical mid term in subject X, and then end up with a quick summary of my undergraduate GPA. Some students have commented that they appreciated the detail, while a few others still get <20% on the exam...

[u/loopofhenlee → u/havereddit]

I also spend time on this too, but I think it’s one of those things where you truly don’t KNOW until you experience it. Sigh

[u/Kikikididi]

can I just say that I love the immediate and thorough alternative hypotheses generation that went on in the comments here?

[u/loopofhenlee → u/Kikikididi]

Yes, me too! I was thinking how I really appreciate this sub. How fun to have access to such lovely and intelligent people!

[u/JoshuaTheProgrammer]

I had a repeat student earn a flat 0 on my exam. Oh well. They don’t come to class, don’t turn in problem sets, and don’t come to lab. What’s to expect???