Many of our teachers using Grasple encounter a population of students that have a diverse academic background and a wide variety in prior knowledge. This can result in the challenge to keep your lectures relevant to all students while also sticking to your course objectives. This challenge may have multiple implications:

None of these scenarios are ideal for maintaining student engagement. Preferably you don’t want to drop the level of your course or change the objective. Additionally, you would like your in-class moments to be as valuable as possible for all students without excluding anyone. So, how do you make sure that your course benefits all students and maintains the level you would expect?

There are multiple solutions in Grasple that can be used to overcome this challenge resulting in low (effective) student engagement. This article will discuss two of the solutions that we have seen teachers successfully implement often:

All skills required before the start of the course

Teachers that want to help students by providing additional practice opportunities to improve their pre-required knowledge before the start of a course, can choose to combine an entrance test with ‘brush-up’ modules. An entrance test is a diagnostic assessment that gives students insight into their current skill level by assessing the different subjects within the modules. By doing so, students can easily select the subjects that need extra attention and choose to skip the subjects they already grasp. This allows them to self-sufficiently prepare for the course.

Example: the results of an entrance test

We have seen teachers implement this in courses in which students need a certain level of knowledge to be able to successfully participate in the practical aspect of the course and in courses that build upon material from prior years.

Example 1: An elective in machine learning where students needed to have a basic understanding of linear algebra.

Example 2: A third year course in quantitative methods for students that had their last course regarding statistics in their first year.

Note: If you would like to request a multi-module automatic test, please reach out to support@grasple.com or fill in this form!

Specific skills required before lecture

Teachers that want to provide students an extra chance to familiarise themselves with the concepts before the lecture, can choose to design a module that covers the basic concepts. To prevent unnecessarily overloading the students, multiple teachers have chosen to add self tests to these pre-lecture (or: “basics”) modules.

This test works similarly to the entrance test, but focuses itself only on the subjects within the module (and is easier to create), allowing students a quick overview of the necessary preparations before a lecture. Teachers have indicated that students find their preparations more time-effective with these set-ups as well as seen an increase in participation as it lowers the bar for students to prepare.

Example: the insight in knowledge within the course map after making a self test