RETHINKING QUIZ PRACTICES TO IMPROVE AND PROMOTE LEARNING OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

The main objective of each course, both for high school students and for undergraduate students, is to acquire new knowledge and apply them sooner or later to solve problems, if required. Tests and quizzes are often used to monitor student learning progress and assess their knowledge.

In my experience, tested with Molecular Biology undergraduate students I used open critical review quizzes as a learning experience. In particular, I designed thematic critical review quizzes so that students could retrieve other information during these learning checks and thus improve their learning outcomes.

For two consecutive semesters, undergraduate students chose, but were not required to take online review quizzes consisting of a three-page written text on a specific but broad topic, such as "DNA duplication in prokaryotes" or "Comparison between transcription in prokaryotes and eukaryotes ", "DNA repair" containing several errors of varying severity that had to be identified and corrected online by students using the Microsoft Word's Reviewing Tools and, also they had to improve the text lexically and fill some

This type of training review quiz has been administered online preferably on a particular topic with the aim of understanding if and where there are gaps of knowledge and misunderstandings that require greater attention and study by the students.

Using an e-learning or an online format, I design these quizzes to test memory and recall and to verify also basic reasoning. I set a reading and an educational quiz at the end of the course.

This type of on line verification in wich students must correct a written text online in which a particular topic is explored, have increased their performance on oral final comprehensive examination if compared with when they did not.
A further possibility that I will experience in the future will be to give the test (one or two pages) to be read to the students before they attend the lesson of a new topic.

It is highly likely that using the approach "By correcting we learn" can help with anxiety, improve self-confidence, reflective thinking and retention and discourage cheating.