Crowdsourcing Study Guide and Exam Question Development Using Google Docs

A short video describing this teaching strategy can be seen here.

In intensive clinical courses, dentistry students frequently request study guides to organize and digest the deluge of content. Margherita Fontana and Carlos González-Cabezas, School of Dentistry, crowdsource this task via Google Docs as a learning activity to prepare students for exams. They assign groups of 10-15 students to each of ten major content areas.

Groups create their own Google Docs and work together to write the best possible exam questions (two per student) aligned with the learning objectives in the syllabus. To earn credit, questions must go beyond regurgitation of facts and require the evidence-based application of key concepts. The instructors provide a few questions as models. Groups share Google Docs with instructors, who provide feedback. After students revise their questions, instructors compile them in a new Google Doc that is shared with the entire class.

To motivate students, if questions meet the desired criteria, Fontana and González-Cabezas promise to create the majority of the exam from this pool (or slightly edited versions of the questions). However, if the learning objectives are not covered by the students’ submissions, they promise to create their own challenging exam questions on those topics. Overall, this approach fosters higher-order learning while also leading to the creation of a pool of potential exam questions for both current and future courses.