Teaching Idea: What Do Students Know About Course Content When
They Begin? (Adapted from "A New Twist on the True-False Test,"
by M. Kathryn Dennick-Brecht [Robert Morris College, PA] in The
Teaching Professor, December, 1992, p. 2.) To engage your
students in thinking critically about your course material, to
discover how much they know already (or think they know), and to
encourage them to discuss with their peers, try a test of
background knowledge on the first day. This classroom assessment
technique is a collaborative learning activity that builds upon
a true-false, ungraded quiz and takes about 30 minutes of class
time. Design a set of 10 to 15 true-false items that represent
the major concepts in your course or unit of study. It is
important that the level of difficulty vary among items so that
all students are challenged and all find some questions
relatively easy. When you distribute the items, emphasize that
the answers will not be graded but that they are rather a way to
begin to explore the essenc