Can Group Oral Exams and Team Assignments Help Create a Supportive Student Community in a Biochemistry Course for Nonmajors?

Abstract

Oral exams may be as old as academia itself, but they are now rare in STEM undergraduate courses in the U.S. Can they be resurrected to help students develop oral communication skills, foster a sense belonging to a scholarly community, and change how students approach learning? This past spring, as we transitioned to emergency remote learning, my 50 students and I tried group oral exams as a primary assessment method in a survey of biochemistry course. The reasons for changing the assessment method were (1) to create the need for students to talk and connect to each other and (2) to have an assessment that is resistant to cheating. In group oral exams, students have to both talk and listen; they not only demonstrate their learning but also learn from each other. More importantly, preparation for group oral exams creates the need for students to work with their teammates to construct a shared understanding of the concepts and engage in learning together. During oral exams, the instructor can provide immediate feedback and support students in their learning journey by nudging them to reach deeper into their stored knowledge and to connect related ideas. Implementation of group oral exams proved to be challenging for the following reasons: (1) students were anxious about the unfamiliar testing method; (2) it was difficult to assess some of the course learning objectives; and (3) it was difficult to assess the broad range of learning objectives because of time constraints. Despite these concerns, I believe that the alignment of team learning activities with group oral exams helped students engage in deeper learning and build a supportive community in a time of crisis.