More than five options: Driving learning by assessing differently

True or False: My ability to answer multiple-choice questions has significantly enhanced my ecological problem-solving skills. Let’s face it, our exams – not our learning goals – tell students how to study for our classes. If we want students to think scientifically, we must practice and assess it in our classrooms. Our work explores the use of conceptual models for assessing systems-thinking in introductory biology.  Though not perfect, models tell us more about student thinking than multiple-choice, are less onerous to grade than essays, and more closely reflect the way scientists represent and reason about biological systems.