Weekly reports: A two-way feedback tool

This article describes how to use weekly reports written by students as a t wo-way feedback tool in teaching science. Weekly reports are structured jou rnals in which students answer three questions: (a) What did you learn this week? (b) What questions remained unclear? and (c) If you were the profess or, what questions would you ask to find out whether the students understoo d the most important material of this week? The weekly reports help student s to reflect on their knowledge, to learn how to ask questions, and to pred ict what questions their teacher is likely to ask. The reports help teacher s to identify immediately the difficulties their students experience while learning new material, to adjust their teaching to the students' needs, and to match the levels of difficulty of learning and testing. They also give the teacher an opportunity to communicate with individual students on a reg ular basis by providing comments and answers to students' questions. The ex perience described in this study shows the existence of a common mismatch b etween learning and assessment and offers a solution to this problem. (C) 2 000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.