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Exam Wrapper

Tags

Social-Emotional Learning ^21st Century Skills MS/HS/College Strategy

Skills

Self-regulation Verbal Reasoning Verbal Memory Abstract Reasoning Visual Memory

Exam Wrapper

If your students focus only on their grade and do not take time to review their mistakes or reflect on your feedback

Teach It!

  1. Objective: Students will use exam wrappers as an effective way to build metacognition and learn from their mistakes rather than focus only on the grade.
  2. Teacher Takeaways: a) Exam wrappers are handouts that accompany a graded exam that have questions or prompts for students to reflect on what they learned, rather than just on the grade. Some teachers even provide an exam wrapper without a grade. b) The exam wrapper provides each student with personalized instruction on how to reflect on their test performance (why they had correct and incorrect answers), how they think they prepared for the test given the results, and plans for improving. c) Ideally, students learn to use tests as an opportunity to improve, understand their strengths, and grow from their mistakes.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

The concept of exam wrappers comes from the Carnegie Mellon's Eberly Center which devised exam wrappers to address the problem of students focusing only on the grade. Exam wrappers promote thoughtful reflection which improves metacognition. If students never reflect on their mistakes they are less likely to learn and improve. They might even embed their incorrect answers in long-term memory.