Service Learning Leadership at Western

This year I had the great fortune to participate as a leader in three service learning experiences. Each was an inspiring and rewarding experience.

To learn a little about service learning, I participated in Western's annual campus-wide program, Western Serves. I led a group of 9 students on a one-day trip to the London Cross Cultural Learner Centre, where we learned about the facilities, stuffed survey envelopes, and painted some of the living space, where new families often stay after relocating to Canada, above the resource centre.

I was selected as a co-leader for the University of Western Ontario's Alternative Spring Break Service learning initiative. Seven groups travel locally and internationally to provide service to, and learn from, their community partners. I traveled to Costa Rica between February 20th and 27th, where my team gave house visits and triage clinics in rural and urban communities.

In preparation for this week-long activity, our team participated in a one-day trip to ReStore (Habitat For Humanity) in London, ON, where we built cupboards and organized and did inventory of safety wear for house-building.

These experiences, particularly the trip to Costa Rica, were transformative learning experiences for me as a teacher. Our ASB group created a collaborative blog, hosted online by Western, that recounts our experiences and our learning. I have also published a short article in Western's twice-yearly teaching Newsletter, Reflections (p.11-12). As I continue to integrate what I have learned from these trips into my future teaching experiences, I will likely write about them at greater length.

                                                          

Electronic Final Exams

This year in my 3^rd year media studies class I allowed students to write the exam either by hand or by computer. I was motivated to do this for a number of reasons. For the past few years I have proctored exams in Western’s Faculty of Law, in which the vast majority of students used their own laptops and the Exam4 program. I was helpful to become familiar with the protocol that Law faculty uses regarding instructions for the exam and troubleshooting if there are problems. Dr. Mary Bunch had given me the idea; she told me that she regularly books computer labs for her exams because students prefer them and they are easier to grade. I am always inspired to improve my courses by making them more accessible. It was my hope that offering a computer exam would reduce students’ test anxiety, improve their test performance, and increase their learning.

I had used the WebCT assessment tool for the midterm; only one student reported a concern that she hadn’t saved her exam correctly (which she had). However, surprised that about half of the students chose to write the final by hand. I think some were hesitant to use the computer because they didn’t want to take the risk of a poor performance by introducing an unknown factor. Some students had complained after the midterm that keyboard typing was a bit distracting, so in the final exam I had the hand-writers and the front, and I encouraged everyone to bring ear plugs.

I have found that students wrote longer answers by computer, but, overall, their answers lacked greater cohesion than the hand-written paragraph and essay answers. There seemed to be a few more spelling and mechanical errors, but it is difficult to tell if they were just typos. Obviously, the exams are easier to save and read, but I’m also now reading and grading much more (I have 62 single-spaced pages worth of text from about 14 students).  We also had the benefit of sitting in comfier chairs for three hours (though the custodial staff may have assumed because it was in the lab I wouldn’t need booklets, so they never showed up with them).

Without quantitative measures it is difficult to tell which group of exam writers performed better overall. Because it is important to me that students select their preferred mode of writing, I wouldn’t be interested in doing a study that forced them to use one or another. Now that I have a better sense of how to conduct electronic exams, I may use this strategy in the future. I plan give students pre- and post-exam surveys to self-report on to what extent they believe the computer writing improves their attitude towards the exam, performance on the exam, interest in the course. 


Some suggestions and caveats for those implementing electronic exams.

• Always prepare a back up supply of printed exams, and bring enough exam booklets for the whole class
• Be clear that write by computer “at their own risk” and that it is their responsibility to “save often"
• Be clear that no other computer programs may be used during the exam, and enforce this rule
• Suggest that students bring earplugs to the exam (whether they are writing by computer or by hand
• Test the exam in advance -  Don’t forget to keep it exam hidden until exam day!
• Ensure that all settings are set to desired configurations (I changed the settings to allow students to enter into the test twice, just in case there were problems the first time)
• Allow students to get settled in the exam room before the exam (so they can sign in, etc.
• Remind students that they can go from computer to hand writing at any time
• Provide instructions for signing in before the exam; practice in class beforehand if necessary
• Make a copy of the electronic exam answers (in a Word document, etc.) so there is a back-up copy