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Quizzes
Quizzes in this course are designed to promote critical thinking. They are
not like the multiple choice quizzes you took in an introductory course that
required looking up some fact from the required reading. In most cases you
will not be able to answer the quiz questions by finding a phrase in the
reading that is reproduced in the quiz. Research has shown that looking up
facts contributes very little to long-term learning.
Completing Global Change quizzes generally requires some calculation or
interpretation or analysis of reading, graphs or tables for that particular
unit or one of the units preceding the unit for a particular quiz. So the
quiz for Unit 2-3, for instance, may require some information or result from
any unit in Block 1 or Unit 2-1 or 2-2. It will be expected that students
have basic understanding of high school science and are able to think at the
level of a university senior. So, for instance, if I ask a question about
temperature in Australia in summer, you would be expected to use
December-January-February temperatures and not June-July-August temperatures
as a basis for your answer.
At the end of each quiz is a dialog box in which you can enter narrative on
your reasoning if you want (not required). So if you disagree with my
answers or can narrow the choices from 5 to 2 of the possible answers you can
use the dialog box to explain your reasoning. This underscores the true
purpose of the quiz - to encourage you to think deeply about the reading
material and not simply to parrot back facts.
Because quizzes are designed to be challenging, scores typically are lower than
most conscientious students expect to get, and this frequently causes anxiety.
Mean quiz scores typically are about 2.0/3.0 but may be as low as 1.5/3.0.
Some students will get 0.0/3/0. If this happens very often it may signal that
your reasoning skills are not at the level required for the course. Every
year there are students who score nearly 3.0/3.0, so the quizzes are not
impossible or unfair as is sometimes asserted. If you are getting 0.0/0.0,
the dialog box is your way of demonstrating that your reasoning skill is
sufficient to understand, analyze, and diagnose the reading material.
You are not expected to take the quiz blind, i.e., without looking at the
required reading, but you are expected to not discuss answers to the quiz
questions with other students taking the course.
Syllabus |
Class Meetings |
Distance Ed Students |
Grading |
Quizzes |
Electronic Dialog
Dialog Quality |
Netiquette for eLearners |
Discussion Grading |
Building Knowledge
Building Community |
Ethical Questions |
Self Assessment |
504 Research Paper
Academic Integrity |
Reference |
Print Format