Date: December 8, 2023
Description: Oral exams as a testing tool date back to ancient times. Its dialogic and adaptive nature allows effective assessment of students’ mastery and upper limit of knowledge. Instructors benefit from a deeper understanding of students’ thought processes, which, in turn, nurtures productive thinking. Students, on the other hand, receive targeted and relevant feedback on their problem-solving approaches, enhancing their metacognition and guiding them towards deep and enduring learning, with the capacity for flexible knowledge retention and application. This is particularly crucial in the ever-evolving landscape of modern education, whether facing the opportunities and challenges presented by the era of artificial intelligence or navigating the complexities of remote teaching during a global pandemic. We need assessment tools to proactively promote academic integrity by fostering excellence, and oral exams are one of those tools.
Despite their over two-millennia existence, oral exams continue to be unfamiliar and daunting for many instructors and students in contemporary education. Instructors often grapple with challenges in designing and implementing oral exams, while students require more guidance on how to prepare effectively for these assessments beyond simply being informed of their format.
In this workshop, Dr. Huihui Qi will delve into the findings of an NSF-funded project focused on using oral exams to enhance students’ learning experiences. She will discuss the multifaceted advantages of oral exams, considering them as both an assessment tool and a feedback mechanism, and exploring their affective benefits. Furthermore, Dr. Qi will share her team’s experiences and resources developed to address the scalability challenges of oral exams. Finally, she will provide insights into the practical aspects of implementing oral exams, covering logistical preparations, strategies for preparing students effectively, and more.
This project received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation under Award #2044472.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Huihui Qi, Associate Teaching Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego
