teaching

January 27, 2025 by Heather Mitchell-Buck Leave a Comment

self-graded final exams!

I think it’s fair to say that the word “exam” is NOT one of our students’ favorite words. Exams are usually high-pressure and high-stakes, they usually happen all piled on top of each other, and there’s rarely any wiggle room if they happen to come around when students aren’t feeling well or just having an off day.

a student standing with his back in a corner who is being covered by post-it notes with reminder messages on them — *photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash*

For all of these reasons and many more, I haven’t given an exam in years. But I tried an experiment last semester – a self-graded final “review activity” – and my students and I were really happy with the results. It’s based on the self-graded homework system I’ve used in my classes the past few years, as well as the general principles of collaborative evaluation (aka “ungrading”) that guide me as a teacher.

So if you’re looking for an alternative to a final exam that helps your students (and you!) see how much they’ve learned in your class, read on!

In my literature courses, I don’t ask my students many questions that have a “right” or “wrong” answer, but in other courses – like Old English or History of the English Language – each week’s material really does build on the knowledge gained in the previous weeks. It’s important for everyone to understand key points as we move along so that no one gets left behind. The same is true in our department’s Literary Theory course, which is where I used this self-graded exam. This course introduces students to a variety of schools of theory, and it’s important for students to feel solid on what one school “does” before moving onto the next so they don’t get all tangled up and discombobulated! And yes, there are lots of checkpoints along the way … but that’s not the point of this post! Let’s talk about that self-graded final exam already!

exam instructions

Here’s all the info for the exam, just as I gave to my students before their exam day:

Logistics:

You may do this on your own or will a small group (no more than 3 people total)
There will be two parts to this project.
- Part 1 should be posted to Bb no later than Monday, 13 May at 2:30pm.
- Part 2 should be posted to Bb on Monday, 13 May, between 3pm and midnight.

Part 1:

I will post a document on Wednesday, 8 May that includes several short (paragraph-length) readings of the same text. Each will represent one of the theoretical approaches we have discussed.
- You DO NOT need to know anything about the plot or characters of the text in order to complete this activity, but you are welcome to look at a summary of the novel (eg Wikipedia, SparkNotes, GoodReads, etc) if you wish.
- You may use your books, notes, and anything posted on our Bb site.
- Please don’t turn to the interwebs because honestly that will make this harder, not easier! 😉
You will choose a selection of the readings and, for each, write a paragraph that identifies the type of theory/criticism and explains the elements of the reading that helped you identify which approach it is (key words/phrases, tone, etc.)
Plan to spend about 1.25 – 1.5 hrs on this part of the activity
Submit your work to Bb by Monday, 13 May at 2:30pm

Part 2:

I will post a document on Monday, 13 May at 3pm that correctly identifies each of the readings
You will use this to review your answers – see what you identified correctly and what you did not. For anything you got wrong, try to puzzle out which words, phrases, etc point you to the correct school of theory
Write a short reflection on the experience – how easy/challenging was it to identify the types of criticism? Which were harder than others, and why? How did this activity help to firm up your understanding of the differences and overlaps among these schools of theory?
Plan to spend about 1 hr on this part of the activity
Submit your work to Bb by Monday, 13 May, EOD (midnight).

a student on a black background smiling with arms upstreched and colorful confetti falling from above — *photo by Ambreen Hasan on Unsplash*

student feedback

What did my students think of this style of final exam? Here are just a few comments from the reflection part of the exam:

This activity made me feel more confident in my abilities … I thought that I would struggle a lot on this activity when it was introduced in class and was pleasantly surprised when I had a relatively easy time with it … I feel a lot better about how much I have learned in this class … Overall, I found the experience to be the least stressful final of the semester and a nice boost in confidence. Thank you!

This assignment was pretty thrilling. It helped reinforce what I knew and exposed what I didn’t know … Overall, this exercise was very enlightening and showed me just how much I still need to learn.

I found this activity really helped me feel confident in my understanding of the different schools of theory. I know we practiced them all in class … but seeing this many different types of readings for one text and identifying key [aspects] of each one solidified my … understandings of each type of theory … I think this activity helped me solidify my understanding of what we learned and be able to say that I know and understand each type of theory.

I genuinely believed throughout the semester that I had no grasp whatsoever of the subject matter. … Coming into this assignment, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get any of these correct, so it shocked me a bit when I read through each paragraph and immediately understood where each was going.

This activity actually increased my confidence in the class material. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, but when I did part one … I felt fairly confident in all my answers. After checking them today, I saw they were all correct … I think this activity was helpful because it shows me how much I learned.

a victory!

I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve certainly never had an exam described as “pretty thrilling” before! The prevailing theme in my students’ reflection comments was that this exercise increased their confidence … and isn’t that what we all hope for at the end of a semester of learning? I’m definitely planning to use this kind of final exam again in the future, and I hope that you’ll give it a try too!

August 9, 2023 by Heather Mitchell-Buck Leave a Comment

in the age of AI, be human

image by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

A new academic year is upon us! As we prepare for the year, many professors and teachers (and students too!) are concerned about the pervasiveness and seeming inevitability of AI tools in our classrooms. Some teachers are trying to come up with “cheat proof” tests; others are drafting assignments that are meant to teach students the limits of ChatGPT and its ilk.

I think the solution is, and should be, simpler. After all, it feels a bit … disingenuous to me to try to find a cheat or a workaround for something that is designed to be a cheat and a workaround. So if you’d like to help your students learn to trust their own voices and minimize the role of AI-generated content in your classes this semester, read on!

I’ve had a few instances of ChatGPT surfacing in my classes – yes, in MY classes, where I famously do not grade papers. As always, I dreaded the task of sitting down with the students who had violated our college’s honor code – but honestly, these cases all ended up being positive conversations and excellent learning experiences, both for the students and for me, and they’ve helped me hone and focus my approach for how I want to help students handle the allure of AI tools as they return to college in just a couple of short weeks.

trusting students

Always my mantra: trust students. Talk to them. We are all human beings. We are all imperfect. We all get stressed and overwhelmed. We all procrastinate (well, if you don’t, then GOOD for you, but honestly I am not sure I can learn your ways!). We all, occasionally, look for an easy way out – whether it’s ordering pizza on a night that you had planned to cook a nice meal, or turning to an AI tool for inspo on your English paper.

My conversations with students who’ve turned to ChatGPT – or, in a similar instance, who’ve relied on SparkNotes, Shmoop, or similar sources and then so overly-Grammarly’d their papers so that they ended up sounding like they’d used ChatGPT – have all ended up positive because my goal was not to “catch” them or get them to “admit” anything. Instead, my goal was to find the root cause:

What’s going on in your life?
How busy are you?
How many projects did you have due this week?
Why are you anxious about trusting in yourself and believe in the power of your own voice?

We were able to talk, human to human. The students have thanked me – as in, “wow, this has really been weighing on me and I’m glad you gave me the opportunity to be honest about what I did.” And the work they have submitted after our conversations have been honest and genuine – papers that I was pleased to read and evaluate and return to the students with positive comments.

image by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

moving forward

So how have these situations helped me with my own “ChatGPT strategy” for the next academic year? I’ve decided to get more proactive about this conversation with ALL of my students, rather than having individual talks once an honor code violation to pop up.

In the age of AI, where too much content sounds vague and bland, students need to be colorful. They need to be sincere, to be genuinely themselves. This is how they are going to stand out on the job market. Employers want teamwork, critical and creative thinking, problem solving, and other skills that AI just can’t handle.

So how are we going to practice that in my classes? I’m a big believer in the advantages of having technology in the classroom, but I also believe that there are times we should aim to work in analog. Brainstorming sessions on chalkboards. Mini quizzes and idea generation on index cards. Skits. Yes, SKITS. (We all roll our eyes at the idea, but we usually end up giggling and being genuinely, humanly silly in a skit!) And yes, all of these ideas can be adapted to meet the needs of ANY student with different learning challenges or physical needs.

I’m also going to require students to cite all online or AI tools they use – including ChatGPT, Grammarly, Zotero, etc – to help them recognize and acknowledge the ways that those tools are a part of their work and education. I will not judge them for turning to these tools – though I will encourage them to try flying without those nets. I want them to learn, to be curious, to engage, not to feel shamed or anxious.

These are just a few things I plan to try, but the most important item on my anti-ChatGPT strategy list is to ask students for THEIR ideas. How can we use our class time to build our human skills, as well as our knowledge base? What kinds of human work can we do, and how can we – should we – evaluate that work? This is the cornerstone of the collaborative evaluation process that I use in my classes. I do of course evaluate their work, but I expect them to do their part too, because in the end, they’re the only ones who truly know how much and how well they are learning.

Hey, what do you know? I’m actually looking forward to this!

August 16, 2021 by Heather Mitchell-Buck 1 Comment

keeping the backchannel going!

How is it time for the Fall 2021 semester already?

Isn’t it still, like, June 2020 or something?

“on your left” meme posted by @Rachael_Conrad on Twitter (8 Aug 2021)

There are many reasons to be excited about being back in the classroom with our students after months of living that Zoom life (and of course some apprehensions too, given the spread of the Delta variant throughout our communities!). But if you’re anything like me and the students I’ve been teaching recently, there is one thing that you’re probably sad to leave behind on Zoom: the CHAT!

In my classes, Zoom chat was a gift: it allowed many students the space to contribute to our large conversations who had previously felt uncomfortable speaking up. It helped us to build community by giving us a way to share little jokes and have side conversations without stopping the flow of our “on task” discussion. It allowed us to support each other by sharing links, resources, quotes, shared docs, and more. It’s a space that I want to try and preserve as we return to our classrooms – especially since we’ll be wearing masks that may make vocal discussions more challenging, if not totally inaccessible to some students.

So here are a few options I’ve found that will allow us to keep the backchannel open and help us include as many voices as possible in our conversations. Hopefully you can find one that will work well for you and your students!

Padlet

Most people who know me know I love to use Padlet. Their “stream” template is great for backchannel convos and allows students to like each other’s questions and comments and reply to each other. Users can be logged in or anonymous as needed and it’s easy to share links and media. The main downside of this platform is that you can only have a limited number of Padlets with a free account, but since you don’t really need to “archive” your chats in most cases, it may still work well for you!

GoSoapBox

With smaller classes (no more than 30 students), this option is free and includes a LOT of cool features like polling, quizzes, and the ability to turn off screen names when you want your students to be free to answer anonymously. Definitely worth exploring if you also used the “poll” feature of Zoom regularly!

Chatzy

This one’s pretty simple and hearkens back to online chat rooms of the early internet days (ahhhh nostalgia, amirite, my fellow GenXers?). You can set up a virtual room and all students need to do to join is click a link. Easy peasy!

Slack

I’m a big fan of Slack, but it (and the next option below) is more than just a chat platform. This means it needs a bit of commitment and setup time to get you and your community rolling. If you’re just looking for a quick and easy way for your students to use their voices, this isn’t the right choice for you! But if you’re looking for a a solution that can be a chat platform, file sharing space, and discussion board all rolled into one, Slack is a workhorse!

Google Classroom

Much like Slack, this is much more than a chat platform, and it may be more of a fancy SUV when all you may be looking for is a 10-speed bicycle. But if the various features in Google Classroom are useful for you, the “stream” in the homepage can be great for a classroom backchannel!

photo by Adam Solomon on Unsplash

so … how will this work in a classroom?

One of the things that made chat SO AWESOME on Zoom is that everyone was already there! We were looking at a screen to engage with each other, so hopping into the chat was easy. But when we’re in a classroom, how can we effectively use chat without sacrificing the meaningful face-to-face (or mask-to-mask) interactions that happen in our classrooms?

As someone who asks and encourages students to have devices with them in every class meeting, I’m less worried about this than some of my colleagues might be, since I’m used to navigating a balance between screen time and people time (and I’m happy to talk about strategies for this if you’d like). But I’m thinking that in general, I’ll keep the backchannel up on the screen at the front of the room. That way, everyone can see it without having to stare at their own devices at all times. It should be easy enough to have that chat window there alongside whatever else we need to look at together (images, quotes, discussion questions, etc). And then students can just check their own device when they want to weigh in on something happening in the chat.

I definitely look forward to trying it out and I hope that some of y’all will be keeping the backchannel flag flying as well! 🙂

Best wishes for a safe, healthy, and productive semester!

March 17, 2021 by Heather Mitchell-Buck Leave a Comment

a dubious anniversary

There are many days that we could claim as a milestone to acknowledge the change that COVID has brought to our lives and to our world. But today, March 17, is the one that’s most meaningful to me. On this day a year ago, I worked my last full day on campus, running workshops for my Hood colleagues as we all worked like mad trying to move our courses online. When we first started planning those workshops a week beforehand, we thought, “oh, we’ll order lunch for everyone – surely most folx will want to meet in-person.” We reconsidered and rethought that decision (and dozens, hundreds more in both the short- and long-term) and in the end, I saw only a small handful of my fellow teachers on campus that day.

When I came home to get dinner before my evening workshop, there was a flyer in our mail slot from the local Irish pub just a couple of blocks from our house, advertising a special takeout menu for St Pat’s in lieu of the usual wall-to-wall celebration that usually happens there every year. We called in an order that was the first of many takeout meals over the past year (and many more to come as we continue to support our favorite local restaurants in downtown Frederick!).

The scale of grief and loss over the past year is hard to process. None of us would have ever, ever wanted this to happen. There’s precious little to celebrate about this pandemic.

But to all of my fellow educators who are still working like mad trying to give your students the best possible education in spite of everything, I see you. I thank you. I celebrate you.

To all of the students out there doing your best to learn and grow and be stronger than this pandemic, I see you. I thank you. I celebrate you.

To everyone out there who’s still struggling to navigate everything that COVID has brought into your life, I see you. I thank you. I celebrate you.

Keep wearing your masks and washing your hands. Find a few minutes today and every day to care for others and for yourself. Get vaccinated when you can. Do all you can do so that we can all gather safely again together SOON: to be in classrooms where we can learn and laugh and move the desks around to do some group work; to have that lunch meeting that has been on hold for the past year; to hug our friends and family both near and far.

Hang in there, friends. We can do this.