LON-CAPA Survey Question 2: Value of online quizzes on assigned reading

The following answers were from a survey taken by students in MCB 229, "Fundamentals of Microbiology", at the end of the spring semester, 2000. Selected answers have been highlighted that represent the spectrum of student opinion.

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Did you find the required text reading/WebCT quizzing to be of value? Please tell me your reactions, both positive and negative, and suggest any modifications you think might be useful.

I think the quizzes were good because they helped my grade. they tested me on the reading, but they were not too difficult. I think having two quizzes a week is a lot. One might be a better option.
This was definitely helpful because it forced me to study and read up on all the material before every quiz. I also found the quizzes very helpful because I got to see exactly what to focus on the main points of every section.
I thought that the web quizzes were really cool. I learned things at a quicker pace, and because they were so detailed, ideas really stuck in my head. The one thing I really didn't like about them was that I think that they should be worth a lot more. The time it took to prepare for them was worth much more than 25%. A test can simply show my ability to regurgitate material in one sitting, this shows my continued effort and continued reading throughout the course.
I think that the reason that I am doing so well in this class is linked to the WebCT quizzing. It forces me to read the material and be well prepared to listen in class. Overall it reduces the amount of studying needed for exam taking. Without the quiz I believe that I would have a much lower average. The down side to the quiz is that, I believe that is a more influential factor in skipping a class. A good modification would be to decrease the time given on the second quiz. Giving people 10 minutes for the 2nd exam might be an option to consider
I was glad that you required certain text reading because I wasn't all over the place trying to guess what you thought was most important. The WebCT quizzing at first gave me nightmares, but once I got used to it, I was able to see how much it helped me.
I found the assigned reading/WebCT to be helpful in pushing to keep up with the material being presented.
Yes, it is, but at time it became time consuming. That was okay because what I got out of in the end was worth any amount of time. Defiantly, keep the WebCT quizzes and required text reading.
yes, the quizzes were helpful in many ways. One, they forced me to stay caught up on material, making sure that I read the assignments before the lecture. second, they gave a general overview of what material we would be responsible for in the exams. however, I would have liked to receive the correct answers by the second quiz, rather than not knowing the correct answer after the second quiz. maybe a separate page put up after the timed quiz completion would be effective.
I found that the required reading prepared me for the exam and did not leave me in the dark. I always knew exactly what you wanted us to spend most if not all of our time on.
I did find the required text reading/Web CT quizzing to be of value. The study guides clarified the material, and the quizzes helped reinforce the material so that I was a little bit familiar with it coming into lecture. Overall I think it helped me remember the material and reduced study time and stress for the exam. However, when actually preparing right before the exams, I mostly studied the lecture notes.
I found the required reading and quizzes to be valuable because if it was required, I wouldn't have done it. I think that these features made me do a lot better this class and retain the information better. I can still remember little facts from the first exam because of these things. The setback is that the reading and quizzes take up to much time, especially the fact that we have to take these quizzes twice a week. I think that this is a bit much especially with the lab work that is also due every week and those quizzes. It really is a lot of work especially with all of my \ other classes. I find myself neglecting those classes in a rush to get the required work done for this class.
I think that I learned more because of the required text reading. I do think though that sometimes the questions on the study guide seemed to have simple answers, but then when I went to take the quiz, I found that I should have gone into more detail. I think that maybe in some situations, you could have included in the question that we be specific in our answers.
I found that the required reading was essential in understanding the concepts that were on the exam. This helped the student concentrate on info that is more valuable to retain
I found the required quizzes to be very helpful in keeping me up to date with my studying. I have a tendency to let some things slide during the semester, I could not do this with the quizzes. I appreciated the study guides and I tried to answer in writing most of the questions.
I found that I was valuable, but it did take up a lot of time. I think that you should narrow down the questions on the quiz to information you are planning on talking about in lecture. Also, the matching questions you had on the last couple of quizzes took up too much time and I ended up running out of time before I could finish the quiz, I think those should be eliminated
I really did find these quizzes to be useful. When I read the chapter and answered all the study guide questions I normally would get a 100. However, there were a couple times when I did do both and I did not get a 100. I was a little discouraged by this. There were some questions on these quizzes that were tricky. I think that by having to do these quizzes, I did not fall behind in this class. Studying for the exam was a lot easier because I wasn't behind. I have to admit on the last exam, I did not study as long as I had wanted to because I had a 10 page paper due the same morning. However, I did well on the exam. I believe this truly was from doing these quizzes. As much as they are a pain and really tiresome, they do help a great deal.
Honestly, I really didn't like doing the quizzes during the semester. There was a lot of stress to get the chapter questions done between the tuesday and thursday lectures, A LOT of stress with other school work factored in. But in hindsight, I think I did reasonably well, and I'm glad my grade will only be helped by it. One big suggestion is that some sections had a lot of questions and information, perhaps there could be more leniency with the quizzes (time or grade-wise) or perhaps the study Q's given earlier.
Yes they were of great value. They made sure that we kept on top of the reading and when it came time for the test studying was much easier.
I am very pleased overall with the Web CT quizzes although I would have preferred not to have to take them as often. I live off campus and do not have a computer with Internet so I had to come on campus and take it in a computer lab twice a week. It was annoying to have to take the quiz twice a week but I am glad that I did have to.
I found that by having to take the quizzes for each reading, I kept up on my reading better then I ever had in any of my classes. I think that the quizzes were fair but did not stress the same aspects as the exam. I have a very high average on the quizzes but my exam grades are horrible. Going into each exam I studied from the quizzes and from the practice exams and I felt prepared. I think that every once and a while you should give the class a break with the quizzes. Especially when there will be an exam or right after or when there's a formal lab write-up due that week. 2 times a week does get to be too much.
The required reading and quizzing was very beneficial to me. I probably would not have completed all the reading assignments if I did not have to take a quiz on each one. The book is very good, and I learned much more by doing all the reading. The quizzes seemed to stress the important concepts, and demonstrated what may be on the exam. I think that having a study guide while doing the reading was a very good idea. This feature helped me focus on the important topics. The only problem I encountered was that some of the reading assignments and study guides took up a lot of time, especially when you consider that we had a reading assignment and study guide to complete twice a week.
I did not like the quizzes. I didn't like the point that I sometimes felt pressured to take a quiz at a specific time. I might not have read some of the chapters if it wasn't required. I thought that even though I read the chapters I still wasn't getting a good grade on them. The pick the true/false questions were hard because they were too detailed. I think that more quizzes should be dropped to allow for some that weren't taken in time. Sometimes I actually forgot to take them and once remembered the time had expired to take them.
At first, I was overwhelmed by the required reading and quizzes, but when I got used to the ideal, I was able to appreciate the purpose of it all. It was not designed to make me miserable, but to enhance my study and learning skills.
yes, it was good because it helped me to keep up with the work, but often i did not read the chapters front to back, just used it to answer the study guide questions, and for help with quiz questions.
the reading definitely helps but I think that the quizes are too detailed
I found the required text reading/WebCT quizzing very helpful and beneficient for me, because if forced me to stay ontop of the reading and helped to reinforce the important things to know from the reading. The quizes helped me retain a lot more of the reading then I think I would have normally done.
The required text reading and then the quizzes made it impossible not to know the material that we were going to be examined on. The reading and quizzes gave you the first look at the material, the lecture gave you the second, and when you went to study the material wasn't foreign.
I liked the WebCT quizzes and I found them very useful in studying for the tests. However, I found the study guides very long and time consuming. It took me an average of two to three hours to complete one study guide and that was rushing and not reading all the material in the chapter and after all that time spent it always seemed that the quiz would have one or two questions that did not pertain to the study guide. I would like to suggest that you post both of the studying guides for the following weeks lecture on friday. I would have preferred being able to get this work out of the way over the weekend and take the quizzes over the weekend also. I always felt rushed when I got the study guide for Thursday lecture on Tuesday.
II thought the quizzing was valuable--but I feel (maybe you could still change it!!!) that it should have been worth more in terms of the final grade. I put in a lot of time per week between working 30 hours and taking your class and biochemistry and I felt the exams were not as reflective of the material as the quizzes were--I felt the quizzes covered more and therefore should have been counted as more--35%.
They helped in learning the material, but it would be less stressful if they were only once a week instead of twice a week.
they were a bit of a pain. It helped with the understanding of the materials but it was hard to keep track of when what quiz was do since i have other classes to worry about.
I think I already answered this one before...I think the quizzes were very beneficial to our doing well in the class.
I think that they were somewhat valuable but i don't really have an opinion. I can honestly say that the course wasn't very interesting to me so reading was difficult
It prepared me for the exams and kept me up to date for the lectures. I tend to procrastinate in other classes except MCB229 because of the weekly quizzes.
I think that the quizzes were very helpful: taking a quiz on material that you had not yet lectured on was very helpful. It forced me to have a decent understanding of the material and get more out of the lecture.
I found the quizzes to be useful but also found the task of doing the required reading and getting to a computer i time to take the quizzes to be quite time consuming. In the future, you may consider a weekly quiz which covers both reading assignments.
I found that your way of teaching this course was the most helpful and positive way a professor can teach. I feel that with out the quizzes the material for this course be more difficult to learn. This is because not only did they make me read the material on time, but they also gave me an idea of how you ask questions, good example of what you expect us to know for the exams. In a lot of classes I tend to fall behind in my reading and I feel that other professors should make this a way of their teaching. The reading and quizzes also helped me understand the material a lot more and therefore, made lectures a lot easier to follow.
As a general statement, I feel there was too much information presented in the course. This applied directly to the quizzes. The mandatory hour and a half needed to take these quizzes (and read the chapter)proved terribly inconvenient at times. I think you should understand that a major portion of a full semester is the process of prioritizing certain classes or assignments on a weekly basis. The quizzes never allowed to "back burner" the course during a particularly rough week. This is not to say the course wasnt a priority, but sometimes, the other four have to be as well...
I thought it was of value. It forced me to do the study guides which prepared me for the tests. I don't find reading the book is helpful to me because I don't retain the information but the study guides allowed me to zero in on the pertinent information so I didn't necesary have to read but could skim to find the answers I was looking for. The study guides though took alot of time for me, some as little as an hour but others up to 3 hours or more. It varied with each quiz -- there were days that it was difficult to fit into my schedule and I often had to do the week's study guides the weekend before they were due to save me some time. One thing I would change is to try to keep them all the same length and capable of being finished in an hour and a half.
The quizzes were very valuable, they kept me up to date on reading and made me do a lot more work than I would otherwise. It also made the tests easier The only problem was that some questions were sometimes very obscure, but I understand that asking general questions would maybe be too easy.
Okay this was definitely very useful although sometimes study guides tended to be rather long. As a commuter who works part-time I had a tough time occasionally finding time to finish the guide and then take the quiz. However, I learned a lot as I did complete 90% of them and addition to the lecture , the notes I took and the other web resources I don't think I missed a thing. I don't think that the quizzes should count for 25% of the grade, it should be worth about 15% and the 10% remainder can go towards group activities. I think the purpose of the quizzing was to ensure that students do the assigned reading, it is okay to be rewarded for doing the studying but more of the reward should be for demonstrating that you actually learned something under exam conditions when your textbook is no where in sight. A couple of times there were glitches with the quizzes that were frustrating, but generally they were easy to use and very helpful in studying. I liked the textbook a lot and generally found the readings to be well suited to the lectures.
These were very useful. They often felt burdensome on weeks where the laboratory also required allot of extra time. If I had my choice, I would have not had any quizzes during the two weeks of scavenger hunt. It made me feel as if I was only taking mcb229 and no other classes.
Yes, it was very useful. I probably would not have read the textbook until right before the exams if we didn't have to take the quizzes, and I know keeping up with the reading was helpful. Something that might help is that a few times the quiz wasn't available until soon before time to take it was expiring. It would be helpful if they were up sooner. Also, explanations as to why wrong answers to quizzes are wrong would be more helpful than explanations as to why right answers are right.
Yes, the quizzes were god as I mentioned in the last comment. Modifications, possibly make the quizzes worth maybe 30 percent because that portion of the class did take such a significant amount of time.
Well, text reading is basically inescapable, as it helps flesh out parts of the course that the lecturer doesn't have time to discuss. I think that the WebCT feature is good in that it forced me to do the reading on time, and helped me understand the subject matter better. On the other hand, I'm glad that all of my courses don't have quizzes like that, because it does cut in to the flexibility of my schedule somewhat.
the text reading and Web CT quizzes have been very beneficial to my learning the materials for class. They have been helpful in keeping me caught up with the material, especially because of the quiz on the materials before class. However, I feel that sometimes the study guide questions can be very long and take a lot of my studying time away from my other classes. However, other than that, the readings and web quizzes help me stay on top of things and force me to keep up and learn the materials. The quizzes also help me know what your are expecting us to know more about.
I was very impressed with the WebCT portion of this course. I enjoyed the extra hyperlinks that stressed important concepts, although I often had difficulty trying to access them. My server is slow. This became frustrating. The quizzes were very helpful, but I would have liked to have had access to both quizzes for the week at the beginning of the week. I like to stay ahead. Often I found myself rushing to get them done and other classes suffered for it.
It was very time consuming. I spent alot of time on this class and got about the same out of the class as I would have with out them. Students might find it better to go to class if there was one quiz a week, and more of the material covered in the book also being covered in the class
Yes and no. Knowing the material ahead of time is always important. However, the book was awful. There were many times where the book contradicted itself and I didn't think that it was easy to follow overall. Textbooks are designed to be easy to follow. I thought that the quizzes got harder and harder as you learned how to use the quiz making system more. The questions that required multiple answers (like the matching..) took longer to do and I found myself short on time a couple times.
In most classes I always do all the reading just not often before lecture. The quizzes sort of hold you by the hand and guarantee that you keep up with the material. The quantity of material in this class demands a little more discipline so its a good idea and I believe the class as a whole does better because of it. I really cant think of any modifications. Maybe include some lecture material.
The quizzes and reading of the text was very valuable. In some classes it's very easy to fall behind and extremely hard to catch up. With the quizes it pushed you to do the reading and by taking the quizes it pushed you to do some form of studying for the exam. This is one of the few classes I can actually explain to someone what I learned and actually know what I'm talking about. Sometimes the book can be a little unclear when describing certain procedures carried out by the bacteria, and sometimes you would ask a question on the quiz that would put things in the proper perspective. The answers would be nice to view after you've completed both quizes though.
It was very inconvenient taking the computer quizzes twice a week. My schedule this semester has been very full. I missed more than three quizzes this semester because of it. Also, not having internet access from my dorm room didn't help matters. Sometimes I couldn't take the quizzes until late in the day. I was hoping the quizzes would improve my grade, but I think they might have actually brought down my grade.
Yes, i thought the quizes were awesome and really kept me up with my reading and helped me to test if i really knew the information. Also the lecture notes on the web allowed me to really pay attention in class for i could really listen and not have to try to keep up writing down the notes. The only negative parts of the quizes were the fill in the blanks question when the internet wouldn't accept right answers cause of pluralism. Also the time limit sometimes hindered me especially when their were alot of question with multiple parts to them
I thought that that the WebCT quizzes we good. They forced me to finally do the class reading. In all other classes I just happened to skip the reading, but having to take a quiz every other day it forced me to stay on top of the material. The only thing that i didn't like was the amount of work that had to be done. In all other four credit classes I didn't have to spend as much time doing the classes work. It was also a little annoying having to take the quizes all the time, especially after the tuesday lecture.
i thought that the quizes were useful, but the problem was that it forced the reading of the chapters to be done at that exact time. I think this is good and bad, because it forces you to keep ahead on all of the reading, but it also makes you rush through if you have other exams to study for. I didn't like the fill in the blank questions in the quizes because it does not allow for spelling mistakes that could be the correct answer.
Yes - it forced me to do the reading, whereas before it might not have been done on time, or at all for that matter.
I think whenever reading is required it is good. I am very busy and anything I am not required to do goes on the back burner or does not get done. I think if this class was taken by mostly seniors, reading should not be a requirement. Since I think that most of the people in the class are sophomores, reading requirements makes them learn the material better. It also makes them use thier time efficiently.
again, like i said in Q42, the quizzing before every lecture kept me on track in class. if not for that, i probably would have fell behind and been completely stressed by the time the exams came around. it is also nice to have another source of grades. oh, but, back to the web thing from Q41, i just remembered, um, it saves a lot of paper....and i lot of man-hours, i bet! i cant come up with any suggestions. this system worked very well for me
I did like the quizzes because it made me do reading I otherwise might not have. I usually filled out the study guide before I took the quiz which was a bit time consuming but worthwhile. I would avoid putting too many fill in the blank or "choose match" questions on one quiz because those also take up more time than ordinary multiple choice.
I didn't keep up on the reading (too much work having 5 classes and all) however I continually read and re-read the notes.
Text reading/Web CT quizzing was a pain to do but was incredibly useful in helping me learn the material and be prepared for the classes. The quizzes kept me on top of things, kept me updated on the material, I didn't fall behind like I often find myself doing in my other classes. The quizzes are definitely a great idea. I wouldn't have learned so much if it weren't for the quizzes and reading. Please maintain this for future classes!!!!!!
they where a good idea and it definitally got me to read the assignment and i think i actually got a better understanding of the assingment one thing that i would like to see changed is that after you go back to look at your quiz the correct answer should be posted so you can learn from you mistake or at least have a hint to the correct answer
I thought that the quizes were helpful. The online quizes better prepared me for the lecture and were also very useful in studying for the exams.
Although two quizes a week sometimes seemed like a lot of work with the text reading, i think it forced me to get some reading done, and by taking the quiz and applying what i learned helped a great deal.
The webCT quizzes definitely forced me to pay more attention to the readings than i normally would have. In most courses like this i probably would have opened the book less than once a week. However in this class i read in the book at least twice a week. This made studying for exams require much less time. Having the quizzes count for such a large portion of our grade was also a huge incentive to actually do the readings and get good grades on the quizzes.
I think that the required text reading was useful in that people were more prepared for the next class and for exams in general. They were able to follow the profesor in class and actually get something out of class instead of going to class without prior knowledge of what was going to be covered. However, I believe that the quizzes could have been worth a little more in the overall grading. i think they were an extensive part of our studies and it took quite a bit of time to complete, especially for Thurs. quiz. which only gave the students a day to prepare. I think a total of 30 to 35 % would have been sufficient for the quizzes.
The WebCT quizzes were very helpful in knowing the material. I just wish more questions on the exam were taken directly from these questions. The reading was a bit much but the quizzes made it alot easier to cover.
I felt that taking the quiz before class kept me on top of the work that I was required to do. It also prepared me for what we would discuss the next day. This allowed me to listen and better understand the next day during the lecture.
I did find it helpful for my self but it did not help with the exams. I studied lots and it seemed as though the information on the quizes and study guides were of little value. try making the quizes and study guide coinside with the exams. since that is what our grade is mostly based on.
I think the required text reading allowed me to get ahead of the material so that even though while I was reading the material and answering the questions I was not absorbing everything when I went back to study the material it would look familiar to me. I feel that having two quizzes per week was a bit much at times especially when other exams would pop up in the middle of the week. But this technique made sure that I was keeping up with MCB at least twice a week. SO all in all although it was a bit of a challenge it was useful in the end.
Although I often grumbled about having to do yet another reading and online quiz for micro, I would hate to see where I would be if I did not have to do the quizzes and keep up with the reading. I took Biochemistry previously, which goes into as much depth and more as this course, and I found that it was easy to fall behind or simply forget topics previously covered because we were only tested on the material three times a semester--on the exams. As a result, I did horribly in that course and cannot remember much if any of the material. I think that the webCT and required text reading is beneficial to students and I wish it was available in more classes , especially difficult ones.
Sometimes I found them to be too time consuming. Sometimes if I had a lot of work to do in another class, I found that I was stressed to get the quiz done by midnight. However, I thought that they did help me to keep up with the course and helped me learn and remember concepts.
Yes, I think the quizzes helped alot. Yes, they were a pain in the butt sometimes, but they made studying for the exam much easier than it would have been without the quizzes. Perhaps, on the harder quizzes you could throw in an additional bonus question.
These quizzes made me do something I rarely do, and that is read my material on time! I am a serious procrastinator/exam crammer, these quizzes forced me to keep up to date on material and therefore made studying for the exams much less stressful. Thank you for keeping me in line with these quizzes, as much as they were a pain sometimes, people like me need to be pushed into doing their work and you certainly did that with these quizzes.
Yes, it forced me to be more studious and do the reading in a timely manner instead of saving it all until last minute and pulling all-nighters before the exam in an attempt to absorb all the material at once. I really like this addition to the course, and though I wasn't too keen on the idea at the beginning of the semester, I've changed my mind and am grateful to you for including this bi-weekly quizzing. I also like that I have a window of time to take the quiz, that there's no set time to take it (i.e. beginning of every class). It's much more flexible.
I thought the assigned readings and quizzes were very valuble because it helped me be more prepared for the lectures because it made me read and think about what I was reading before lecture so it made it easier to follow along in lecture without being lost
Yes, the required quizzes were very valuable because it made me read all the material and i made sure i understood it very well. The problem was that when it came to the exams it was so much information that I couldn't remember it all because I din't know what to focus
Yes, the required text reading and WebCt quizzes were very useful in preparation for the exams. I only wish that the first few reading assignments included less assigned pages.
Very useful, though at times it was impossible for me to access the web from my location, the quiz are a great way to motivate kids to study the material.
yes it helped me learn the material more effective.
Overall a positive experience. I don't think that it would work for all classes, but it was a good idea here because of the need to keep up with readings to get most out of lecture. No suggestions as to improvements.
It was valuable to find out what you wanted us to concentrate on because there was so much information covered in the book. 2) It was also hard because I spent more time studying for the quizzes then I spent studying for the exams. 3) While it narrowed down the information there was still mountains of info to chug through for the exam. I wasn't able to get a good feeling of what you might ask.
The required reading were definitely valuable since it made me read the material before coming to class, however i feel that the quiz for the thursday class was always done in a rush simply because i had less time to focus on it. I do not have any suggestions on how to fix this because a major part of the problem was my time management.
I felt the quizzes were very useful as I think that they definately helped me to keep on top of the material as we progressed through the semester. I did feel at times I was pressured to get the reading done especially for the Thursday classes.
I found this textbook to be very helpful with the material covered in class. I actually get a lot of use out of this text. I can't say that for many of my other classes. I think that the quizzes are good preparation for tests. They keep me up to speed so that I don't get behind and help me make sure that I have a good understanding of the material. Sometimes I feel that is hard to get the study guide done from Tuesday to Wednesday for the quiz. I think that I would like it better if the quizzes were weekly instead and cover material for two class periods.
some of the quiz questions were a bit difficult, but overall the quizzes served as a good guideline for the reading and the material that should be focused on
I loved the quizes! They kept me on task and caught up with work. Although many times I groaned about always having to take a quiz, I know they will help my grade plenty. I also like them because it allowed for students like myself, who are not the best in lab, to make up for a lower lab grade. I knew what I had to do to get the grades and I did it. If people want to do well, then they read the assignments and take the quiz. It is each students decision. Also, dropping three is very fair.
I think having quizzes online were helpful in studying for exams however it was difficult for me to have them twice a week, but that was mostly due to my schedule. The time limit was two short for some of the quizes, but having them available has definitely made a difference in how well i understand the material.
The quizzing and text reading helped, but not to the point that I was totally comfortable with the material that we covered for class.
I liked the quizzes a lot. Great motivation for readings I might have been otherwise tempted to postpone or skip alltogether.
The required quizes were valuable, however, they seemed to be more of a nuisence than valuable. It was inconvenient to have some of the quizes available only for a couple of days, especially, the Thursday quizes.
For most of my classes, I spend the last week reading all of the material so that it is very fresh. I really did not see a difference in my grade or preparation for an exam. However, many people would not even do the readings without the quiz. I think it is a good idea, in theory.
Yes and No. It certainly forced me to be timely. But imposing those time frames had so deleterious consequences: A. I lost a fair amount of sleep to be on campus to take these quizes; Studying could not be a quiet activity at home (no computer access there)used during my winding down phase of a very long day. Certainly having 4 labs/week plus my own research and having to work leaves my days fairly packed. B. Developing survival techniques to cope with the time constraints, the quizes ceased to be helpful and became a time consuming (2 hrs/week)"busy" work for the class. I learned that downloading the vocab and chapter outlines from Prescott along with their quiz; I could give it a fair shot on the first round, print the quiz, look up wrong answers, and retake the quiz the 2nd time. All without ever reading or giving much if any thought to the material. For the first exam there was time for me to learn in my own style. For the 2nd exam, since I was sick, I missed out on that prep time. I could have desperately used that two hrs/week to actually learn the material at my own pace. C. You may want to consider that technology works two ways. Just as it makes access to materials easier it makes cheating phenominally easier. Perhaps I'm just naive but it's been a shocking revelation. D. Maybe I'd feel different if this more closely adhered to my own learning style. But are we really enhancing learning when we force the masses into a "canned" learning style?
The readings were definitely worthwhile, even if they were a usually a pain. You changing the time limit to 7 am was a good move- often we felt pressured to squeeze in the quiz at 11:45. This doesn't reflect our lifestyle. Often we'll be up until 3 am doing homework and studying. Without the web quizzes, i wouldn't have done the reading until the exam. not only would i have done worse on the exams, i would have been lost in the lectures. Keep this feature- it requires the student to take a more active role in learning!
The required webct quizzes were very important and I learned much of the material between your notes and the quizes as well as class. I found the book to be confusing some times and unclear until it was explained in class.
I found the reading and quizzing a positive experience for the most part. Sometimes it got very tedious trying to get the reading done and take notes and do the quiz between Tuesday and Thursday. I think a soultion to this might be to have a quiz once a week on the two lectures rather than two per week. It could be done on a Wednesday so that Tuesday’s reading and Thursday's reading would be tested together. This would definately force students to read ahead of time because there is way too much to do in one night.
The quizzes, at first, seemed unnecessary and just an added stress factor, but after taking them for about three weeks, I noticed that it forced me to review the material constantly and though I'm not a very good test taker in general, it helped me quite a bit.
It was valuble because it helped to show what to pay close attention to during the readings. Which sometimes just go on forever. The quizes were good because it kept the class together and on the same page. It helped to keep me knowing what was going on. The questions used in the quizes should be used more on the exams. Because I really believe that you should test exactly what you teach and what you quiz people on.
I misread the last question and already answered it, so here I will answer question 41. The use of the web in class was very helpful. The animated diagrams of the carbon and nitrogen cycles helped in understanding and remembering. Some of the pictures of bacteria were very impressive and I think that was the only time I would ever have the opportunity to appreciate them like that because your lecture along with the pictures made me realize how amazing and efficient life is.
I always did better on the quiz when I had read the chapter and did the review. I would say the reading and quizes greatly improved my chances of getting an A in this class.
The quizes were very helpful and help me understand the material in the chapter. But it seemed that the important parts of the chapter were skipped of skimmed over. The quizes should have questions that were more like the questions on the tests.
I found the required reading and quizes extremely useful because it forced me to read the material before each class. The study guides helped a lot with the reading and provided me with a good review for the tests.
The required reading for the biweekly quizzes was extremely helpful. It forced me to read each chapter carefully so that I would score well in the quizzes. Also, by reading the chapters before hand, studying for exams became much easier. One criticism I have of the quizzing, however, is that I believe we should have been quizzed on material that was already taught in the lecture rather than being quizzed on what we will taught. Since I had already read the sections of the book that the lecture would cover, I often felt that attending lecture would be extraneous.
Yes, i found the text reading/WebCT is very value. i think it would be easier for us if we can have a shorter required reading on Thursday than on Tuesday--i have more time to study on weekend for Tuesday lectures. also, i think it would be helpful for us on the exams if we have more questions on the quizes.
Having the study guides was very helpful because it really streamlined the reading for me and saved me time. sometimes it was tough to find the time to get the work done in time to take the quizzes though. i really had to stay right on top of everything.