For the third year (I think), we’ve ended the Abnormal Psych and Therapy unit with a full-class, immersive activity — this year with one minor alteration.
We set the class period up by telling students that they’ve graduated medical school and are in their residency program at the St Ignatius Free Clinic, where they see psych patients from this side of the City[1]. Students get a case book that contains the medical records of five patients, a digital copy of the (now outdated) DSM-IV, and a digital Blue Book[2] in which to record their answers.
In years past, students would circulate around from table to table, each table representing a different patient; “residents” are tasked with diagnosing each patient’s psychological disorder, and then prescribing a targeted treatment — justifying both with evidence from the case as well as the textbook material. I would act as the attending physician, and I would ask questions about not only the case they were working on, but anything related to Abnormal Psych or psych therapy. My questions would be targetted and fast-paced, requiring a quick verbal response from each students — again something with which students were completely unfamiliar with. This is one of my favorite class activities of the year. It’s fun, it’s broadly educational, and it’s as authentic a learning experience as I can provide in high school.
This year, we actually used this activity as the summative assessment for the Units (students had taken online multiple-choice quizzes due before this class as formative assessments).
I did not like the activity as a summative assessment, and much prefer it as a formative assessment, or a class activity. I think there are too many confounding variables for it to be used in lieu of a Unit test: namely, students being unfamiliar with the mechanics of the test. That is to say, they too on-edge from the unfamiliar format to adequately convey what they know and are able to do — and that’s the whole point of any test.