Lecture
A quick survey of students (a «brainstorm»).
The time traditionally allotted (10-15 minutes) for the task allows for full coverage of the question along with a review of illustrative examples.
This format is entirely identical to the criterion used for answering pass/fail and exam questions at the end of the course. However, no less important is
simple monitoring of command of terminology. This is all the more true because when conducting
ongoing tests in large lecture-hall classes, it is extremely difficult to prevent students from using crib sheets and notes, or from copying correct answers from one another. It is therefore advisable to increase
the number of test questions to 10 or more, and reduce the time allowed
for each item to 1-2 minutes, during which the student need only correctly
convey the meaning of the term. Grading such a test is considerably
simplified, since a student receives 1 point for a correct answer, and,
for a missing or incorrect definition, 0 points. If desired, the instructor may award 0.5 points for an incomplete or imprecise answer.
The variant in which the instructor reads out the definition and the students
need only write down the name of the term, although it allows for a greater
reduction in completion time (down to 0.5 minutes), nevertheless does not provide
an objective assessment, since it is easier for students to exchange correct answers than in the previous case.
Stepwise resolution of test questions at several levels
of difficulty.
In some cases, lengthy written surveys of students, conducted over an extended period (2 academic hours), are perceived negatively by most students. From roughly the midpoint of the session onward, conversations start up in the classroom, the audience's attention drops, and amid
this noise even students who know the material may answer the questions poorly. The situation can be remedied by adding an element of
dynamism, breaking the test questions down by level of difficulty or by the logic
of the survey. For example, at the first stage knowledge of concepts is checked, at the second
– knowledge of numerical material, and at the third, problems or tests are solved.
Even the simple realization that one or more stages have already been completed
mobilizes the class to finish the testing as quickly as possible. Such
a survey can be conducted in several ways.
Option 1 (several rounds of questioning) is conducted in a specially prepared classroom, where it is necessary to group desks with the assignments for each round laid out on them. For the convenience of the instructor and students, it is advisable to conduct this type of survey using the best students as «checkers» or as those responsible
for monitoring the completion of assignments at each level. The objectivity of their
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grading is verified by the instructor, who then assigns them a grade based on the results
of their work. In addition, the checkers themselves can be tested on their knowledge
by one another.
Option 2 (the game «What? Where? When?»), in which the class is divided into
competing teams that solve a series of difficult questions. In this
case, all members of the team that answers a question correctly receive 1 point each.
There is also a possible variant in which an additional point is given to the player who answers
correctly, or in which, before the correct answer is announced, players of
the other teams give their own version of the answer in writing.
Tasks involving finding errors that have been made.
This is a simpler form of assessment and involves
only analyzing the truthfulness of individual statements, with mandatory correction of erroneous ones. However, finding errors should not become an end in itself, so the overall set of statements should
also include statements that are entirely correct.
Systemic questions on the course and the entire module.
Unfortunately, many students, when preparing for the final assessment, study the material only according to the specific questions they have been given. As a result, the student
ends up with only fragmentary knowledge that is unconnected. Even a task
requiring them to explain how some pattern operates using other
terms ultimately causes genuine panic among students. This is the sad reality of modern education! Nevertheless, in industry, science, or politics, only a worker who freely operates with terms and is capable of establishing logically
grounded connections between events can be called knowledgeable.
Developing this side of students' thinking is therefore objectively advisable and even necessary. Additional exam questions should touch on systemic knowledge and test students' fluency in
using it. This form of knowledge assessment can be used not only on the exam, in the pass/fail test, or in the final test, but also when conducting ongoing surveys.
Examples of systemic assignments.
1. Drawing on the concepts known to you, propose your own
concept of the nature of sound.
2. Justify your understanding of psychic energy and the phenomenon of psychic resonance.
3. How are cognitive processes and the emotional-volitional sphere of the personality connected, from the standpoint of the energetic paradigm?
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4. How do you understand musical aptitudes and abilities from the
standpoint of a person's potential energy?
5. Justify an understanding of creativity as a process of synthesizing and processing subconscious and supraconscious energies within the musician's personality.
6. What is the relationship between the process of artistic creation and the musician's personality?
7. Describe various models of interaction between a musician's personality
and the society around them.
8. What kind of musician can be a musician-Teacher?
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