Socratic lecturing

• It involved frequent use of questions posed to the class, with answers solicited from students who raised their hands. In addition to calling on “high responders,” wider participation was encouraged. The intention was to engage student attention and provide feedback to the instructor.

Ungraded active-learning exercises

• It encouraged active participation in class.
• The exercises used were minute papers, case studies with question sets, writing answers to exam-like questions followed by discussion, and in-class demonstrations with student participation. In most cases, each class session involved at least three such exercises. The intention was to give students practice with the higher-order cognitive skills required to do well on exams.

Clicker questions

• They were multiple-choice questions presented in class. Students responded with a personal response device or “clicker”. Individual students would first answer on their own and then re-answered after discussion with one or more students seated near them. The instructor asked three to five clicker questions per class session; in most cases, a maximum of three clicker points was possible for each class session, assigned for right/wrong responses. The intention was to develop student thinking at the application and analysis level and encourage peer teaching.

Practice exams

• They were online, weekly, peer-graded exercises. Students were given 35 min to respond to five short-answer questions. After answers were submitted, software developed in the department randomly and anonymously gave each student a set of answers to grade, along with sample answers and grading rubrics. At two points per question, there were 10 points possible each week representing ∼8% of the total course grade.
• The intention was to give students practice with answering high-level, exam-style, written questions under time pressure, but in a low-stakes environment.

Class notes summaries

• They were weekly online assignments that required students to state the three most important concepts introduced each day in lecture, along with a question based on the idea that they understood the least well in that class session.
• Students were given a course point per week for participation, with a five-point bonus for completing the exercise every week of the course—for a total of ∼2% of total course points.
• The intentions were to help organize the course material and increase metacognition (the ability to identify the most important information and the most poorly understood concepts)

Reading quizzes

• They opened every afternoon after class and closed the morning of the next class.
• They consisted of 5–10 multiple choice questions, delivered and corrected via an online quizzing system, and tested understanding of basic vocabulary and concepts. Typically, the two-point reading quizzes summed to ∼8% of total course points.
• The intention was to make students responsible for learning basic course content on their own and prepare them to work on higher-order cognitive skills in class.

In-class group exercises

• It includes one to three exam-style questions on the topic currently being discussed in class.
• Graduate and peer teaching assistants (TAs) moved around the lecture hall to monitor the conversations and answer queries from students.
• No course points were awarded during these activities. Participation was encouraged because the instructor closed the small-group discussions and then called on students, from a randomized class list, to solicit student responses in front of the entire class.
• Typically, a single 50-min class session included five or six group exercises, with 12–15 students called on each day
• The intention was to help students develop higher-order cognitive skills, with peer and TA feedback, in a low-stakes environment.