College of the Canyons -- Title III
Classroom Analysis Project Sample Report

The overarching objective of this project was to determine how and if Classroom Assessment Techniques (CAT) would help develop the talents of both instructors and students. My CAP project concentrated around the general question, "Does my use of Classroom Assessment Techniques, specifically the One-Minute Question and Student-generated Test Questions, improve teaching effectiveness and learning quality in my English 251 British Literature II class?”

My CAP took approximately 12 weeks, covering the final two thirds of the course (The Victorians and The Moderns /Twentieth century).  For the first six weeks of the course, (The Romantics) I used no CAT in English 251.  For the second unit, The Victorians, I implemented the One-Minute Paper CAT in most class sessions.  In the final unit, The Moderns, I employed the Student generated Test Question CAT.

My procedure for my use of the One-Minute Paper follows:
During the unit on The Victorians (approximately six weeks), I stopped class two or three minutes early and asked students to respond briefly to some variation on the following two questions: "What was the most important thing you learned during this class?" and "What important question remains unanswered?" Students then wrote their responses on index cards or half-sheets of scrap paper and handed them in, leaving their names off the papers or cards.  During the first five minutes (or so) of the next class session, I responded to some of the comments and/or questions before beginning that day’s lesson.

    My procedure for my use of the Student-generated Test Question follows:
During the unit on The Moderns (approximately six weeks), in most class sessions the students were asked, but not required, to prepare two essay questions following each class. Bonus points (up to 10% of their unit grade) were given for voluntary participation. The questions were required to be based on material that was covered in the previous class, or from the related text. Also, students had to provide answers, in outline form only, for their questions.  At the beginning of each class, I randomly selected a student to present one of his/her questions and answers. The students read the question and answer to the class. I added any missing information, and we usually spent a minute or two discussing the question and answer. I then called on a second student to present another question and answer. The whole process took about 5 to 7 minutes, but on some days the discussion lasted twice that long (see below under "Modifications). Students presented integrative, high-level questions.

As part of my end-of-the-semester course evaluation, I asked my English 251 students to respond to the following question: “In what way(s), if any, did the use of Classroom Assessment Techniques (CAT), specifically the One-Minute Question and Student-generated Test Questions, improve my teaching effectiveness and your learning in English 251 British Literature II class?” I have attached these survey responses to this report.

I discovered the Classroom Assessment takes time, and I learned that I had to make some difficult decisions about my coverage of the course content; in other words, the depth vs. breadth argument. I had to adjust the amount of time I had budgeted for the discussion feedback of the One-Minute Paper or the Student-generated Test Question. On many occasions in the first two or three weeks of each unit these discussions lasted longer than the five minutes I had planned; but as each unit progressed, my skills as a discussion leader and an instructional planner and the student skills in critical reading improved.  As a result, for the second half of each unit, the five minutes (or so) seemed sufficient.

How did my use of the One-Minute Paper and the Student-generated Test Questions (CAT) affect my English 251students? For one thing, through the exposure to CATs, students became more actively involved in their learning.  Knowing that they were going to asked to respond to a One-Minute Paper at the end of each class session, the students appeared to listen more attentively during my lectures and class discussions and also to take more complete and critical notes.  It seemed to me that students attended more classes, probably because they could potentially earn bonus points and obtain questions that might appear on an exam. This use of an extrinsic rather than intrinsic goal is not generally recommended by research: extrinsic goals tend to be short-lived. But asking students to submit questions (through the use of the One-Minute Paper and the use of the Student-generated Test Questions) and prepare outlined answers (through the use of the Student-generated Test Questions) provided the means and incentive.

The students' responses on the course evaluation indicated that they were pleased with the course. They said that the course was hard work, but in a non-punitive way.

Almost all comments about presenting questions and answers were positive (see attached copies of student evaluations).
In the end-of-the-semester survey, when I asked students who had indicated that the use of CATs positively affected their learning and the overall classroom experience, they suggested that using CATs helped them develop key metacognitive skills, such as organizing material and reflecting on their learning. However, some students who had indicated that the use of CATs had little or no positive effect on their learning and the overall classroom experience were not even aware of my intentions to improve those skills. Based on these results, I recommend that faculty who use Classroom Assessment Techniques to enhance their teaching be more explicit with students, explaining the objective of developing students' talents as learners and explaining how Classroom Assessment can be used to achieve that objective.

These Classroom Assessment Techniques did more than make my students review; to me, they served as an indicator for my teaching. I found myself making more and better course-planning decisions and changes as a result of the students' responses to the CATs. If the student questions were dismal, I took it as a sign that they did not understand the material. When their questions were at a higher level, then I assumed they understood the course topics at a higher level. They soon learned it was to their advantage to write higher level questions since those tended to be the ones I would put on the test. The technique benefited student learning and gave me feedback that was useful as well.

This simple procedure of using CATs helped me stay on task and provided me with a more obvious degree of control than the typical "review your notes, study hard, and you'll get a good grade" approach. I know the use of CATs improved the efficiency of the first few minutes and the last few minutes of each class session.  In the past, I might not have provided an adequate "lead-in" or a satisfactory closure for each lesson. Employing the two CATs, however, forced me to not waste that valuable (but often ignored) learning opportunity.

Overall, however, I received positive comments from students and the highest student evaluations of my career. Of course, it is difficult to disentangle how much of the improvement relates to my use of Classroom Assessment and how much improvement can be associated with the other variables not controlled in this research, including the effects of the students' intrinsic or extrinsic goal orientation, their beliefs about learning, and many other factors.  Despite these issues, because of my experiences this semester, I plan to implement CAT in all my classes in the fall 2005 semester.