E-Letter responses to:

letters: Roald Hoffmann and Saundra Y. McGuire Teaching and Learning Strategies That Work Science 2009; 325: 1203-1204 [Full text] [PDF]

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One More Classroom Strategy for Increasing Learning

Lawrence R. Zeitlin   (3 November 2009)

One More Classroom Strategy for Increasing Learning 3 November 2009
Lawrence R. Zeitlin, Professor Emeritus City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA Respond to this E-Letter: Re: One More Classroom Strategy for Increasing Learning	R. Hoffman and S. Y. McGuire present a useful guide for increasing learning ("Teaching and learning strategies that work," Letters, 4 September 2009, p. 1203). Here is another strategy that I employed with great success at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Most graduate courses, at least those not heavy with specific facts or mathematical equations, can be broken down into a number of key concepts. A month before the final exam, on which the bulk of the grade would depend, I prepared a list of 20 essay-type questions, each covering a main concept and its integration with other concepts. Thus, a question in industrial engineering might be: "Explain how the Black Death and the Napoleonic Wars fostered the development of the factory system of production." The list of questions was distributed to the class well before the final exam. Students were able to prepare answers to all the questions in advance, but by doing so, they mastered the material taught in the lectures and readings. On the day of the final exam 5 of the 20 questions were drawn at random from a paper bag in the classroom. Since there was no way of knowing which questions would be drawn, astute students would prepare answers for all of them. This approach had the dual purpose of ensuring that the students learned the key concepts of the course and relieving students' anxiety before the exam. Lawrence Zeitlin City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA.