[Year 12 IT Apps] uld like to answerrstanding

[O'Grady, Liam A]

Hi Robert,

Thanks - much appreciated. I've  kept my responses with yours below.

From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Robert Hind
Sent: Thursday, 29 November 2012 5:52 PM
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: [Year 12 IT Apps] uld like to answerrstanding

Hi Liam,

I would like to answer your questions from a general testing viewpoint.


  1.  Bloom's taxonomy was big in the 60s and has now now come back on the scene. So you make your own decisions about questions at each level.
Thanks - I've just revisited that and it's a nice way of thinking about the issues. The first couple of levels fit very nicely with your point about clear correct answers. The later levels are the ones that are most interesting me at the moment and can be harder to judge on a clear correct answer - or maybe just have a much wider variety of possible clear correct answers? These are the types of questions where students are showing the ability to think, make connections, be imaginative, analyse, synthesis. These types of skills are the ones I'ld like to promote more amongst my students as they will be useful throughout their life.
  2.  A good question is one that has clear correct answer - especially if multiple choice.
  3.  Have a problem with this. Interesting enough? Ok so you make the context interesting.
Reading this prompted me to think about not having these questions in exams. Maybe they belong more in projects with bigger contexts - Dilemma then is about how much I am preparing my students to have great IT skills at the expense of being ready to do well at end of year exam.
  4.  Good question & easy to mark? Decide on exactly what you expect in the answer. Then carefully word your question to lead to your expectations. And then marking should be easy :-) Your  suggested question is very vague/general and would be very hard to mark or would need to allow a wide range of answers. What exactly were you after?
For myself I find it relatively easy to word basic recall questions or basic comprehension ones but then is that the only skill we want out students to have? IT to me is not just about recall - it's about the ability to quickly pick up new technologies and be creative with them. Personally I have never felt hampered if I fail to recall something exactly - Mr Google helps me out.
My sample question is not one I am personally very happy with and your point is totally valid. The attempt was to try and work out how to write a question that doesn't box students into one specific answer as much - although those questions have their place. I just feel there's a gap in my own exam writing in how to all the more creative ones. Trying to walk the line between entirely prescriptive and too wishy washy. And still make it possible to mark. Easy huh? ;)
Cheers
Liam

Robert Hind (Retired) OOF, GOM, COF
ex Ashwood and Traralgon
robert at yinnar.com<mailto:robert at yinnar.com>


----- Original Message -----
From: O'Grady, Liam A<mailto:o'grady.liam.a at edumail.vic.gov.au>
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List (itapps at edulists.com.au)<mailto:itapps at edulists.com.au)>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 5:29 PM
Subject: [Year 12 IT Apps] Questions to test understanding

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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