When it comes to exams, students are typically filled with uncertainty and anxiety that they are not ready and have not prepared enough. Revision classes are instrumental in helping students retain vital knowledge to feel confident about their exams and ultimately to succeed. Just as with lessons or lectures throughout the term, students need to participate and engage for revision classes to be a success. Typically revision classes can suffer from poor attendance if they are not mandatory so here are three suggestions to help you to run engaging revision sessions.
1. Quiz/Exam Run Through
Running a practice exam that covers exam style questions or questions from past exam papers will help students to understand what to expect and to help diminish any uncertainty that they might have. By testing students in exam conditions, you can help to alleviate fear and remind them of key strategies including everyone’s favourite - read the question fully before answering! Running interactive quizzes via a student response system like Vevox allows students to see in the moment what answers they got wrong or right. This is crucial for them to understand what areas need further revision in their own time, but they also more likely to remember the questions they got wrong if shown and explained in the moment. Perhaps, run these revision sessions across several lectures or seminars so you are 'testing' their knowledge more regularly. Revision sessions should inspire students to do well and give them confidence in the preparation stages when revising, as individuals or even with friends.
2. Give them a revision strategy...
Provide your students with a vital checklist in your revision session that will help them in preparation for their exams. This checklist could include the exam location/room number, timings, exam equipment needed (calculator, planned coursework, case studies) and the structure and marking scheme of the exam paper. When under pressure it can affect some students and cause them to make errors such as forgetting to bring certain equipment with them or forgetting the exam structure (e.g. Please choose one questions from section A, two from section B and three from Section C). Clearly communicating all of this essential information beforehand (and combine this with a practice run) can help avoid any silly mistakes.
3. Run an open forum or Q&A session
Providing a well-managed and interactive Q&A in your revision session will enable students to ask any questions about the exam or to address any concerns that they might have about what and when to revise. This will help to remove any doubts or reservations in the lead up to the exam and give plenty of time for students to prepare. Running an open session with no fixed agenda helps you to tailor the content to students needs but also keeps things interesting and more engaging. Hearing others questions can also remind students that they are not alone in their fears and sharing knowledge is a great way to learn. Use a digital tool to run and manage the Q&A and share the report afterwards as a reminder of the session.
Hopefully these simple ideas will help with your revision classes. Why not take our interactive quiz below to find out how effective your revision classes are?
