Sunday, September 23, 2012

Why Do We Hold Final Review Sessions

It is fairly well established now that the overview lecture before a final exam does absolutely nothing for students who have been keeping up with the class.  In fact it tends to lead them into a false sense of confidence that may make further studying difficult.  Yet every class i've TAed held multiple sessions where a pair of TAs tried to treat the entire 300-500 person class like a very large section.  Nobody ends up doing much physics and many of the questions boil down to "Can you tell us what's on the exam?"  (Since the professor was once a TA himself, he hasn't even discussed the exam with us.)  If i were running the show, things would be done differently.

The Goal: The only way to learn physics is to do physics.  We want to encourage students to form small groups and do problems together.  We want to minimize getting stuck but encourage doing tricky problems.  The experience should be made enjoyable so they can keep doing it for multiple hours without their brains locking up, which tends to happen around Hour 1 of a traditional review session.

The Space: I'm thinking a big open space, maybe a ballroom or open gallery, with lots of little tables seating no more than 6-8.  There's plenty of space to walk between the tables in straight lines and the occasional double-sided whiteboard scattered throughout.  Nearby, we'll need two or three smaller rooms (maybe seating 30-50?) set up for impromptu lectures.  A central microphone might be nice if you want to announce something to a whole class, but it could easily become more annoying than useful.

The People: All intro physics sections will be invited with students coming and going as they please.  We'll put each class in a different section of the room, but all TAs will be wandering around ready to answer any question from any section. The idea is when you do get stuck, we should minimize the time between raising your hand and the arrival of a TA.  Professor attendance might be nice for a few hours, but optional.

The Problems: By this point in the class students have several past exams, practice exams and old homeworks to go over.  They should be encouraged to bring study material but blank copies of these will be available on request.  I've always thought the idea of making students make their own crib sheets was ridiculous, but it might be an effective learning tool if they could get TA guidance at a session like this.

The Tables: Small.  I'm imagining round, but experiments with a group working at each end of a rectangular table might be worthwhile.  All tables will have extra pencils, scratch paper and water bottles.  Since its annoying to get stuck and hold your hand up until a TA arrives, we should have some sort of signal at the table.  Maybe every table has a white flag on the end of a 3 ft dowel rod.  If you get stuck, stick the flag in a little base on the table and move on to the next problem with both hands free until a TA arrives.  (This is especially important for intro electromagnetism where the Right Hand Rule is so often employed.)

The Time: Ideally as long as possible, but you have limited TA availability.  TA shifts shouldn't be more than 2-3 hours; they have exams too.  If there is a true dead period with no classes before exams, then i would go mid-morning to dinner-time one day.  If not, it will have to be a couple long evenings in a row.

The Food: Either lunch or dinner should be provided along with snacks.  Pizza is traditional at study parties, but it makes your hands greasy.  Maybe small burrito-like food that can be eaten with one hand?  The trick is not to make everything wet or greasy while not tasting dry.  On the tables there should be snacks like pretzels and non-greasy chips.  Soda is known to be bad for concentration, but we want to keep students hydrated and not spill cups of water.  I'm thinking water bottles on the tables which can be refilled at coolers of lemonade, kool-aid, iced tea, etc.  If meal food is cost-prohibitive, hold the session near a restaurant/dining hall and focus on hydration.

Breakout Sections: Every class has certain subjects that always confuse a fair fraction of the students.  Traditional review sessions typically focus on these, but many of the students who are stuck elsewhere are then bored.  At my review session there would be an announcement like "Half hour lecture on two-slit diffraction in Breakout Room 1 in 15 minutes."  Then the students who needed that review lecture would have time to wrap up the problem they were working on and their friends would know how long they would be gone.  Of course in the actual lecture with a pared down class size, you'd revert back to section dynamics with a lot of peer interaction.

All this requires a lot more planning and expense than a traditional review session, but you only have to do one for the whole department and the students might actually learn something.  A lot of this depends on certain resources being available at your school.  I suspect this arrangement might work well for chemistry and engineering courses at least and might even be workable in miniature for midterm exam reviews.  Maybe its worth developing some shared resources wherever i end up.

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