The Design, Implementation and Assessment of an On-Line, Open-Book Quizzing Environment for an Introductory Materials Sc
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The Design, Implementation and Assessment of an On-Line, Open-Book Quizzing Environment for an Introductory Materials Science Course. R. H. Locklin1 and P. R. Howell2 1 Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence. The Pennsylvania State University. University Park, PA 16802. 2 The Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The Pennsylvania State University. University Park, PA 16802. ABSTRACT The authors have developed, implemented and assessed an on-line, open-book quizzing environment for the introductory materials science course, “Materials In Today’s World”. The course is offered as an E-Education (on-line) course and students may complete the course from anywhere that permits access to our course management system, ANGEL [1]. For reasons that were both pragmatic and philosophical, we decided that the exams/quizzes would not be proctored, they would be delivered wholly on-line, and would be open-book. In the current paper, we will present and justify our philosophy of on-line, open-book quizzes. The rich feedback, which is a feature or our quizzing system, QuestionMark Perception [2], is used both as a teaching tool, and as a means to refine the quiz database. We have replaced the original “high-stakes” midterm and final exams, with a series of lower-stakes, weekly quizzes, which are generated from a large question database. Student response to the quizzing environment is generally very positive. INTRODUCTION In the Fall of 2003, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University launched an on-line, introductory course in materials science and engineering: “Materials in Today’s World” (MATSE 81). The course is targeted at non-science majors, yet its design and content are well suited for a freshman course for materials science majors. The online course was not developed in-vacuo, but was transformed from a pre-existing, conventional lecture room class. One of the major decisions facing the design team related to the nature of the quizzes/exams that would accompany the on-line course. Prior to its transformation to an EEducation course, the exams in MATSE 81 consisted of four closed-book quizzes (30% of the final grade), a closed book mid-term exam (20%) and a closed book final exam (20-25%). The remaining 25% of the grade was apportioned to four, typically unrelated homeworks. In summary, the assessment procedure was rather staid and lacked innovation. In designing the on-line assessment protocols, a more creative approach was adopted. Perhaps the two most important decisions were: i.
the change in exam format from a closed-book, proctored environment to an open-book, non-proctored format. In the following sections, we shall justify our decision(s), both on practical, and on philosophical grounds, and present our results from the first two years of operation;
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ii.
the development of a semester-long writing project.
A note on our course management system and our quizzing tool. Materials in Today’s World is carried on-line by Penn Stat
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