Phil Race wrote: "... I think there is still a tendency, more prevalent in
some disciplines =than others, for some of the questions to be written in a
'clever' way, = so that the clever students will read between the lines and
know how to = go about answering them, while the less clever students will
miss the = ball (to mix a few metaphors)"
I'd argue that there is also a more well-intentioned version of this.
From my own experience and that of colleagues, I've noticed that we often
set deceptively simple questions because we know we could do something
really interesting with them, and assume that they will therefore elicit
interesting and creative responses from our students.
Trouble is that these simple questions are often chosen by the students
least able to deal with them, who then get bogged down in generalities and
unsupported assertions. They would do better to go for the more prescriptive
and tightly structured questions in which the shape of the answer is
implicit.
I'm not sure that the answer is to always set 'tight' questions - but I do
think we need to build up students ability to run with the more open-ended
questions.
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Pauline Ridley
Centre for Learning and Teaching
Room 113, Mayfield House, Falmer
University of Brighton
Brighton BN1 9PH
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Visit the CLT website at
http://staffcentral.brighton.ac.uk/clt
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