Adventures in Teaching: Exam Post-Mortem

I have been crazy busy with my first semester as an assistant professor of psychology in evaluation at University of Wisconsin-Stout, but I wanted to share with you an activity that I found very beneficial after our first exam in Introduction to Psychology.I have heard these called multiple things--post-mortem and wrappers are the two most common it seems--but regardless they are a method for students to reflect on their performance on the exam and the effectiveness of their studying. I combined this also with an opportunity to provide me feedback on the semester thus far. In my case, this was so I could work on improving the class for the remainder of the semester since I wasn't impressed with how I had been doing thus far (this is my first time teaching Intro Psych), but you could also just use it as an opportunity for a mid-semester evaluation.

Post-Mortem in Action

I broke the exam post-mortem into three separate sections: studying habits, exam reflection, and feedback. At the beginning, I asked for their name so I could give them class participation points. I also asked for their email address so their response could be delivered directly to them for thinking through preparing for the next exam. At the end, I also asked their perceptions of the post-mortem itself.

Studying Habits

I first asked students how prepared they felt walking into the exam and why they felt as prepared as they did. I then asked about their study habits, including how frequently they studied, whether thy think they studied as frequently as they should have, and how they studied. From those, I asked which study habits were most and least useful for preparing for the exam. Last, I asked them to reflect on how they might better study for the next exam in class.

Exam Reflection

The next section asked them to provide their exam score and then asked if they got the score they were hoping for or were expecting. The exam was in order of questions so I asked them to select whether they did well or not so well on each of the sections of the exam to guide their studying for next exam since we are doing cumulative exams. Last, I gave them an opportunity to argue any incorrect responses they had; on this, they had to give sufficient evidence that their answer is also correct by documenting where in the textbook it says their answer is correct.

Feedback

Given how I wasn't very impressed with how the class was going in my own view, I wanted to get their feedback on how the class could go better. I first asked what I could do to improve my teaching. Then, I asked them how they liked each type of assignment we're doing in class (i.e., group quizzes, in-class assignments, discussion boards) and how I could improve each one of them. Last, I asked for their bold suggestions of how we could totally switch around the class. I asked them to think outside the box and really be creative here! However, many just reiterated what they put in previous boxes, suggesting I asked for feedback across too many sections that overlapped. In the future, I would probably just drop this or just leave it at "Any other comments or feedback regarding this class that you haven't shared on this post-mortem yet?"

Post-Mortem Reflection

Most students reported this activity was somewhat helpful to them (68%) or very helpful to them (28%) with only 4% of students saying it was not at all helpful to them. Some of the comments I received about this post-mortem:

• "I like this survey. I also really hope you don't take any personal offense to anything I said in here. I want you to know that I understand no one is perfect and that this is your first time teaching this course. I just want to help you help me learn. Thank you for trying and being so open, that really sets you apart from other instructors and I greatly appreciate that you are trying to make class better for us."
• "I don't believe that I have ever had a teacher make me reflect on an exam that I have taken. Most commonly, "it is done and over- let us move to the next topic.""
• "thank you for taking this day to review exams."

Overall, I'm really impressed with this activity. I think most students got something out of it and I think they came away from the experience of their first exam in this class not as negatively as they might have otherwise (especially since the average for the exam was a 39/60, or 65%). I definitely plan on using it again in future classes as both an opportunity for reflection and to receive feedback about the class. Students really value the opportunity to give feedback and have their voices heard in class, so I will continue to give them ample opportunities to do so in classes here on out.