Giving Exams in an Online Chat Room
I’ve lately become aware that my expectations are often negative when
confronted with something new. I’m not a negative person usually, but this
was certainly the case when I confronted the idea of teaching my International
Business course online. I committed to trying it once, but I admit I didn’t
have high hopes. After all, I confided to friends, one of the rewards of teaching
is being there to actually see the light go on in a student’s eyes.
We are now plunging into our fourth semester. And although online teaching
has some drawbacks, it also has advantages over the classroom. One of these
advantages is that you get to know your students and their educational needs
much better because they communicate far more readily in threaded discussions
than they do in the classroom. My negative expectations that online teaching
lacked a social element failed to account for the social pressure that silences
so many students in class. And I’ve discovered another unexpected reward
in a chat room: I can use a kind of Socratic question-and-answer method that
I achieve all too rarely in a classroom.
The final assessment in my online class takes place one-on-one, in a chat room.
About a week before the first exam, I post times when I’ll be available,
and students sign up on a first come, first served basis for half-hour time
slots. In the same message, I include 10 to 12 potential questions. These are
big, theoretical questions, such as assessing the pros and cons of China’s
entry into the World Trade Organization.
I tell students they have the option of skipping one question, but that they
should prepare to answer all the others. I stress that they should marshal their
main points, because the half-hour will go more quickly than they think, but
not to prepare entire answers word-for-word, because the assessment will be
a dialogue. I also tell them to have a copy of the questions on hand when they
come to the chat room, so I can refer to them by number.
When the big moment arrives, I try to get into the chat room a minute or two
early and type in a greeting: “Hi, Daniel. I’m ready when you are.”
When they get in and say they’re ready, I ask them to start with number
3, please. As they get started typing, I post another message, asking them to
hit “enter” every two or three sentences, so I can ask questions or
redirect.
Then, as they post, I can choose to wait until their meaning is clear, push
for further clarity, or redirect if they’re off track. “In what specific
situations would that be true?” “What do you mean by cultural barriers?”
“Can you give me an example?” After about 27 minutes of this torture,
I post a message to the effect that they’re off the hot seat and do they
have any questions before we log off? Many are amazed that the time has gone
so quickly, and they often write that it wasn’t nearly as bad as they had
anticipated.
An online chat room final exam has its pitfalls, of course. Half an hour isn’t
a very long time to evaluate a student’s understanding of a range of theoretical
material. My experience, however, is that I can cover about three questions
in that amount of time, which is usually the number I grade (“choose three
out of four”) on a written final. We get to the nub of the matter more
quickly in a chat room—no time for fluff.
One problem is that the students are more nervous than they are for a traditional
written final, but test anxiety is present in any evaluation. This type of testing
may favor those who can think on their feet. For the instructor, a problem is
that the fabric of your chair imprints itself on your derrière if you
do a number of these in a row.
Many teachers ask whether the half-hour I spend with each student d'esn’t
become an overwhelming time requirement. My online class has 25 students, maximum,
each semester, so I spend 12-and-a-half hours on the final. This is comparable
to the time I spend giving a traditional exam, when you factor in the time to
proctor and grade it. Even if it d'es take an hour or two more of my time, it
is more than worth it to me because the work is more interesting.
Exams are a bunch of dead documents on my desk; as I grade them I often think
that a student knew more than they wrote, or wish they hadn’t gotten off
track. A chat room final, on the other hand, is an ongoing personal interaction,
during which I can get answers to those kinds of questions. The situation also
keeps my brain from switching into neutral.
Perhaps the most interesting thing I’m learning as I do more of these
is that some students are energized by a “rapid-fire patter” approach.
They post a sentence, or even a phrase, and jump right in with both feet when
I redirect or ask for examples or clarification. But other students need to
express an entire idea first, or they become confused and nervous. This is now
the main thing I watch for when I start the exam and something that becomes
clearer with practice.
The worst problem I’ve run into with this method is technical trouble,
such as when a student gets kicked out of the chat room in the middle of a session
for some mysterious reason. I’ve had to deal with these (about one or two
each term) individually, but the problem is as broad as online education. One
simply has to deal with occasional technical glitches.
In general, I’m quite pleased with my experience of giving online chat
room exams. An educational medium about which I was doubtful has forced me to
do something that is easy to neglect in a traditional setting—use multiple
methods of evaluation.