A two-color twist on test taking

Test taking is a humiliating experience for many students, with no perceived direct educational benefit. That need not be so. When circumstances allow, I use a two-pen method of collaborative testing.

The method is simple. First, schedule approximately 50% more time for the exam than you think would be required to complete the test, and provide about twice the space you think the students might need to answer each question on the paper. Hand out pens of a particular color and brand that are not commonly used (for example, a particular shade of blue), and have the students commence to work on their exams individually. After the expected time of completion has elapsed, collect the first set of pens, and hand out pens of a different color. (I use red as the second color, then grade the exams in purple. Psychologists suggest that grading in red may carry problematic emotional baggage.)

When the students are armed with their new pens, the exam becomes a free-for-all collaborative event. Students can organize themselves as they prefer while they try to get the right answers to the problems. At last, the smartest student is also the most popular! The written answers reveal which errors they knew they made, and then their attempt to provide the right answer, in their own hand. Students don’t get to leave early or hide their work.

Grading is easy: They get full credit for work in the first color and half credit for correct work in the second. As you can imagine, they find most of their mistakes themselves and correct them, so I generally have much less work trying to figure out what they did wrong and how many points it should be worth. Students have told me that they leave the exam having figured out what they didn’t understand, filled in the gaps, and strengthened their relationships with their peers. An easy win-win for a busy professor.