Assessment for Math

Math 0098 Elementary Algebra Common Final - Fall, 2003

In the Fall of 2004, several instructors in the math department decided to give a common final exam in our Elementary Algebra course. The exam was written by Liz Vikse, David Atwood, Mike LaValle, and Maureen Bhaskaran. One or more questions were generated for each of the course objectives. The exam was given over a two day (class) period: questions on the first day were all multiple choice, on the second day they were short answer. Three instructors, Liz Vikse, Maureen Bhaskaran, and Don Baldus elected to use this final exam.

The three users of the exam corrected their own multiple choice parts and sent those results to Liz who tabulated them. Since each multiple choice item had an associated course objective, we were able to look at these results to determine how students fared on each of these objectives. In addition, an instructor could compare their results to the cumulative results. Instructors were not privy to individual class results other than their own. Therefore, it was not possible, nor was it intended, to be able to compare one’s results with those of another instructor. The three instructors met together to grade the short answer part with each instructor selecting certain questions to grade so the scoring would be consistent Results from the short answer part were not tabulated but may be in the future.

Lessons learned:

1. Course objectives need to be rewritten and must be kept current. Course outcomes from one course must match the course pre-requisites in the next sequenced course. We discovered that our Elementary Algebra course outcomes did not match the Intermediate Algebra (the next course in the Algebra sequence) pre-requisites.

2. The short answer grading session provided an excellent forum to discuss teaching methods, points of emphasis, and grading techniques.

3. The process of creating the final provided for an enriching exchange of teaching philosophies and discussion of common areas of concern.