In-Class Daily Quizzes (each student must purchase at least 20 mini Scantron 518 E "Quizstrips")

For complete details on this assignment, download the entire Course Description & Policies handout as a PDF.

Students are expected to pace their learning throughout the semester, rather than merely “cramming” prior to a few large exams. With a few exceptions, a quiz will occur every Monday and Wednesday. Quizzes definitely will not be given on days when a Lab Exam occurs. A quiz might be given on the days when the class meets to discuss aspects of the term-paper assignment (see schedule) and during the field trips (see schedule). There will be at least 22 daily quizzes and at most 25 daily quizzes during the semester. The first six daily quizzes will all count toward a student’s course grade. Scores on an additional 14 daily quizzes also will count toward a student’s course grade, but those 14 quiz scores will be selected as each student’s 14 highest scores on the remaining 16-19 daily quizzes. In other words, each student will be able to drop his/her lowest 2-5 scores! If more than 22 daily quizzes are given, students will have more opportunities to replace low scores with high scores!

Questions will range from those testing students’ preparation for upcoming topics and activities, to those testing students’ understanding of recent material, to those testing students’ broader application of the key concepts discussed days or weeks earlier. Quizzes will either occur at the beginning of class (i.e., 1:00pm) or at the end of a day’s lab activities. The timing of each day’s quiz will be a surprise! Some quizzes will include multiple-choice questions (Scantron 815 E). Other quizzes will be a short-answer format. Some quizzes will require writing a short paragraph, which will be graded according to the Scoring Rubric for Written Paragraphs (Appendix II). Make-up quizzes will not be offered under any circumstance (At least 2 of the 22+ quizzes will not count toward a student’s course grade).