Hi, I’m writing this from Mexico as I continue my search for quality education. I’ll be back in Arizona, and then in Dubai, Zambia, London, Prague, Berlin, and Scotland by the end of August.
When you really want to teach something, you want the students to focus, concentrate, think about the stimulus question, and demonstrate that they have mastered the correct information. Variations of that process are called great teaching.
So you give a Multiple-Choice test. The students are focused, concentrating, thinking about the information you identified for them. They are ready to select a response that will show their mastery.
There is one correct response on most multiple-choice tests and three incorrect responses. Every time, due to the concentration and focus tests generate, the student selects an incorrect response, you have taught incorrect information and it is linked in the student’s mind. I have attempted to reteach and break these linkages. It is very difficult. These types of tests are actually teaching devices that do a great deal of damage.
To create a test that is a positive and helpful teaching and measuring device, you must design it so that every choice is correct – it teaches and reinforces correct information – and requires the student to pick the one best response and explain, in writing or orally, why. Whatever the response, you have taught correct information, and you know if the student has mastered what was required.
Do you have your download of Vital Lies? I’d like to get your input. We can change our schools.
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