[Year 12 IT Apps] Questions to test understanding

[O'Grady, Liam A]

Hi Andrew,

Some nice food for thought - and a quiet chuckle or two. The thesis is on its way to you via carrier pigeon ;)

Philosophy of testing is an interesting one and maybe the types of questions I am looking at adding belong in more open tasks rather than exams. I must say I have a bit more fun writing the bigger projects where they have a real context to come to grips with. Maybe that is where the more interesting questions that give them some scope to explore an issue belong rather than in an exam. I want them to be able to display creative thinking - use of their imagination based on a passion and understanding of IT issues - not asking for much really :)

Yet these types of questions can be a trap for those that are weaker in the area and I also want them to "get some runs on the board" for their own confidence so they can then build on from there.

Thanks for all the lovely ideas to think about.

Cheers
Liam
From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Andrew Shortell
Sent: Thursday, 29 November 2012 5:53 PM
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] Questions to test understanding

this is the ultimate test for exam writers!! and that is why there is always so much "debate" about questions in the post exam phase!!

first understand the philosophy

            are you testing for the sake of testing? (Or training to do tests?)

            do you actually want them to display regurgitation techniques, knowledge, understanding, interpretative understanding or wisdom?

            do you have a homogenous test pool/candidates?

            is this for formative feedback, summative feedback, or just to jump through a hoop?


so when you answer the above satisfactorily (minimum 5000 words with a significant literature search and some evidence of action research conducted in a real life scenario and all peer reviewed)
then...

1.  with a homogenous group go straight to interpretation
            with a diverse group give some simple questions so that their confidence is built and they get some runs on the board - makes you look good and they feel better)

2.  a good question is one that they have to think to answer;
            they must display knowledge relevant to the course;
            it must be predictable so that they can have prepared for it;
            it must be novel (new) so that they cannot prepare a set answer;
            it must be different so that merely doing past papers is not enough;
            it must be simple enough to be accessible to all;
            it must be complicated enough to separate out the better students from the less competent;
            it must relate directly to the course;
            it must take what is in the course to be able to answer it;
            it should enable better students to display knowledge beyond the mere course...

3.  when you get the answer to this one please share

4. easy to mark?  multiple choice. have between two and ten choices for each question. vary the number of choices from question to question.
            otherwise see answer to q 3

I like writing exams but find it hard to do it well. marking them afterwards always leads to what ifs and a realisation that there was material i just did not do as well with them as i had thought.
ego...

good luck  * grin*

Andrew

Andrew Shortell
Educator
CRC Melton


shortell at get2me.net<mailto:shortell at get2me.net> (This List)
@acsbear8 (twitter)
VITTA CoM Member



On 29/11/2012, at 5:29 PM, "O'Grady, Liam A" <o'grady.liam.a at edumail.vic.gov.au<mailto:o'grady.liam.a at edumail.vic.gov.au>> wrote:


Hi Everyone,

What makes a good exam/test question for IT? Do you have any that you would be happy to share?

Recently I was writing my yr 11 exams and trying to improve the questions I had that really give kids a chance to show their understanding of IT. The following questions arose in this process:
1.      How much should questions be about factual recall and how much about how to apply the knowledge?
2.      What is a good question?
3.      How could we write questions that are interesting enough that the kids want to answer them?
4.      How can we write a good question and make it easy to mark? For example, the question below whilst having scope for more detailed answers could also be harder to mark fairly.

One question I came up with is below. This is NOT a model question - just my attempt to get the ball rolling.

Question 7
St Mungo's is a large hospital network with hospitals in all Australian capital cities. All computer servers run from a datacentre in the main hospital in Hobart. These servers contain all the electronic information used by the hospital. This includes patient medical records, billing details, medical operations scheduling, staff details and the ordering system for medical supplies. All other branches connect to the datacentre via a VPN connection through the Internet.

They are thinking about moving to Cloud Computing because it is very expensive running their own datacentre in terms of staff and hardware. A couple of times recently there have been power failures in the datacentre which has meant that none of the hospitals could access the information needed to run.

a)      What would you recommend that they do? Justify your recommendation. (4 Marks)


Cheers
Liam O'Grady
Brunswick Secondary College


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