[Year 12 IT Apps] Questions to test understanding

[Mark KELLY]

G'day Liam.

This topic could become an Edulist topic in its own right.  Writing
questions is as much art as science, and usually based on lots of
experience of how students typically think and respond.  Perhaps this is
why some exam questions written by advanced IT academics who don't actually
teach 16-17 year olds occasionally go wrong?

I've just finished writing 2 ITA exams and - thinking back - a lot of my
writing was based on predicting what an average kid of mine would read and
how he/she* would respond. The challenge is to write questions to
differentiate between D, C, B, and A+ students fairly, and give each of
them a chance to show what they know.

I also learn a lot from classic bad questions I've seen in exams: those
that are too easy, removed from the study design, vaguely worded,
ambiguous, confusing, incorrect in fact.  Some questions are fine, but the
suggested answers are the problem: this is a big problem with VCAA exams
since you can't complain about an answer after the exams have been marked.

But your average exam will have a very few low-level Bloom taxonomy
questions: define this word etc.  One or two, to settle students' nerves at
the start of section A and B.   The majority of them, however, should be
getting students to apply their knowledge in a given context, and
justifying their opinions.

And I agree with other posters: you need to abide by exam conventions, but
also sometimes break out and challenge kids with unexpected (but fair and
relevant) means of assessing their understanding.

I keep telling my kids all year: your job is to fill your Bucket O'
Knowledge with ITA facts. Your payday comes when you select relevant facts
from the bucket and apply them to a question in an exam or outcome.  It's
the judgement you get marks for, not the memorization of words and
definitions.

Dammit.  This post has already started to become a thesis.  Time to stop.

Good question, though, Liam. It's one I don't usually think about
consciously, but it lurks, unuttered in my exam-writing reptilian brain
stem.

Mark
-- 

* (dammit- it's "he" - no girls in my ITA classes since 2008!)

--

On 29 November 2012 17:29, O'Grady, Liam A <
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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-- 
Mark Kelly - kel at mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
Manager of ICT, Reporting, IT Learning Area
McKinnon Secondary College, McKinnon Rd, McKinnon 3204, Victoria, Australia
Phone: +613 8520 9085, Fax +613 9578 9253
VCE IT Lecture Notes: http://vceit.com
Moderator: IT Applications Edulist <http://edulists.com.au/itapps/index.htm>
--
My personal best for the 100 metre sprint is 11.9 metres.
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