Writing Great Question????????
Step One
Write open-ended questions. These are questions that can’t be answered in one or two words
Example of an open ended question
In what ways does living on campus enhance an undergraduate college experience?
Example of a closed question
Do you think living on campus enhances the college undergraduate experience?
Answer: yes!
Questions must require the student/reader to direct their attention in very specific ways. Otherwise, the skills and processes that we think we are teaching and assessing are often different then what we intended.
Question
Explain why Jane left Tarzan?
The answer–She was unhappy.
But what we really wanted to know was– all the factors that caused Jane to make this difficult decision to leave Tarzan.
A better question is– There were several factors that in combination with the difficulty of jungle life led up to Jane leaving Tarzan. Discuss each of these factors and how they contributed to Jane’s final decision to leave?
Questions need to promote thinking through exploration, discovery, confirming predictions, as well as build background.
Stretching your students’ minds and creating cognitive dissonance is the result of carefully planned activities and questioning is a big part of it.
Step Two
Great Questions include some of the following:
1. Usually open-ended
2. Seeks to elicit a specific response (i.e.) checking comprehension.
3. Promote thinking about information rather than finding information.
4. Seeks to promote skill development as well as background enhancement.
5. Are interesting and motivational.
6. Seek to promote a specific thinking process (i.e.) application, analysis, synthesis or evaluation.
7. Seek to promote metacognitive development.
8. Create some degree of cognitive dissonance.
9. Connected to the content or idea being learned. The relationship should be clear
10. Promote learner creativity.
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