2 part in class assignment

Part 1
early-mid semester

Instructions

Students are asked to respond to the following prompts:
A) What is something you have learned in our class?
B) What is something you would like to learn in our class?

In order to get full credit (10 of 10 possible points), answers need to meet the following criteria:

Responses to part A:
– related to something we had either talked about in class or encountered in class materials (readings, videos, etc.)
– a piece of information (not just a topic)

Responses to part B:
– related to what we have done in class so far
– stated as a question

An example of a 10/10 response is:
A) I learned that a positive statement is a statement about the way the world is whereas a normative statement is about how someone wants the world to be.
B) I want to know: What is the relationship between GDP growth and job growth?

Activity Flow

Provide instructions.

Give students 2-3 minutes of quiet time to reflect on their responses individually.

Ask 3-4 students to offer their ideas as examples to the whole class. If examples don’t meet the criteria, provide prompts until it does. If a student gets stuck, move on to another student and come back to them.

Move students into breakout rooms to work in groups of 4-5 with the following instructions:

• share your question building responses with each other
• help each other out if they don’t fit the rubric yet
• then, work on small-group activity (I usually pair this with a GDP worksheet)
• I will pop in to collect your question building responses
• once I’ve met with all breakout rooms, we will go over worksheet answers as a class

Collecting Responses

In breakout rooms, I ask for volunteers to unmute or write their examples in the chat. If they don’t meet the rubric, I help them workshop a little, reminding them of the prompts: “can you say that as a question?” “ok, you learned about positive statements, can you give an example of one?” I usually only dock points if a student wasn’t in attendance or was unable to identify a subject we have actually covered in class.

Part 2
a week or two before the end of the semester

Instructions

Students will work together to write a question for the final exam, including its answer. This assignment includes an individual and a group component.

1. Individually, students will need to provide a piece of information they have learned. To receive full credit for this portion of the Question Building, student responses will need to be:
   • relevant to the class (information came from class readings or discussions)
   • a piece of information (not just a topic)
2. As a group, students will need to write two questions for the final exam with the correct answer. Questions can be true/false, multiple choice, fill in the blank, or short answer.

Activity Flow

Similar to Question Building Part 1.

Breakout rooms are named with different topics. Students self-select into the breakout room topic they want to work on. In breakout rooms, students write two questions with answers. As before, individual student responses are collected in breakout rooms.

After breakout rooms are closed, students provide their questions but not the answers. Students are given a chance to answer the questions individually, then students provide the answers to the questions and we address any confusion about the subject.

Final Exam

Of the provided questions from class, I workshop the questions as little as possible and end the final with a question bank from their questions and let students choose 3 from the bank to answer.