ENGAGING STUDENTS AND IMPROVING STUDENT LEARNING IN INTRODUCTORY GEOSCIENCE CLASSES USING CONCEPTEST QUESTIONS

In two introductory geology classes, paired, pre- and post-class Geosciences Concept Testing scores showed greater improvement when Conceptests supplemented lectures. Both 100-student classes were active classrooms employing in-class exercises and taught by the same instructor. In one class, Socratic free-form questions were posed to students (“Tell me your thoughts on….”) to encourage students to discuss concepts and derive answers amongst themselves and then present to the class. In the second class, multiple-choice Conceptest questions, as both formative and summative assessment, were added. Conceptest questions were presented either on the chalkboard or projector, and were higher order questions requiring analysis of a map, photograph or data set using knowledge introduced in lecture or textbook. Students were polled by raising hands and the instructor determined the rough percentages for each possible answer. Based on the initial polling, students were encouraged to discuss the answers among themselves and afterward were polled again and asked to justify their answers to the entire class. Assessment scores for the Socratic class improved from 7.81 to 8.44, while in the Conceptest class scores improved from 5.99 to 8.33. In the Conceptest class, student scores improved on all but two questions. In contrast, student scores decreased on nine different questions in the Socratic classroom; students expressed that the Socratic questioning seemed, at times, rhetorical and not in need of a student response. A greater number of students were willing to participate in Conceptest class discussions, especially after comparing their answers with their peers. Based on the assessment data and classroom atmosphere, my interpretation is that students were more comfortable with questions in a multiple-choice format, even though the answer was not readily apparent. In other words, the type of question appears to be an important factor in fostering student participation.