Knowledge Acquisition and Readiness Assurance Testing

Abstract

The responsibility for knowledge acquisition is increasingly being shifted to students though the utilization of experiential learning, teamwork, online, and flipped classroom pedagogies. Students are expected to enter the classroom prepared to engage in thoughtful knowledge application activities; however, many students have not adequately prepared, leading to minimal team contribution and learning. Readiness Assurance Testing is often implemented to help enforce student preclass preparation. These individual and group quizzing techniques can help motivate some students to keep current in the readings, but they do not assist students in learning comprehension. In order to improve learning comprehension and document preclass preparedness, an innovative note-taking method, Connected Notes, is offered as a way to assist students in recording, organizing, and connecting content in personally relevant ways. To improve comprehension and stimulate deeper levels of learning cognitive science supports the effectiveness of creating connections through multiple pathways. Students generate connections between chapter concepts and their consumer experiences, their careers, and company examples in preparation for team-based activities. Results from this study suggest the Connected Notes intervention improved the direct learning outcome (exams) while producing no negative effect on student evaluation of teaching.