FIAE+B2+Chapter+6

[[image:Picture_1.png width="800" height="508"]]Chapter 6 Synthesis by Jenn Baum
Abstract: One huge part of assessing students fairly is to create good test questions. Chapter 6 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal by Rick Wormeli talked about different strategies to consider and use when creating tests as a way to assess students. Using a variety of [|questions] and types of test questions such as matching, true/false, short answer, multiple choice, etc… is really important when making tests in order to make tests less monotonous and to assess students in a way that reflects understanding versus simply memorization. Creating tests that are efficient for both the student and teacher is also critical when designing a good test. By having students record their answers onto an answer sheet and/or answering questions on two sides of a separate sheet so that the teacher can grade the answers more quickly and so that the students can have a copy of their answers for immediate feedback. Another way to make tests more efficient for students is to set up true/false questions so that students can simply circle a ‘T’ or ‘F.’ For matching questions, they recommend that teachers have the longer definitions on the left so that when the student goes to look for the appropriate word, they do not have to read through lots of long definitions, but rather smaller vocabulary words or terminology. In order to [|fairly assess] through tests and quizzes, teachers need to make sure that the questions are clear and not confusing so that students have less to guess. They also should be as short as necessary, be fun and authentic when possible, and sometimes include common misconceptions in order to ensure that students fully understand difficult concepts. Sometimes tiering questions by having different levels of difficulty is necessary and should be taken into consideration. By promptly grading tests and designing them according to their readiness level and as efficient, relaxed, and clear as possible, a teacher can assess their students in a fair and equal manner by reflecting their full understanding and mastery of the material.

Synthesis: After reading everyone’s reaction to this chapter, it seemed as if everyone enjoyed this chapter a lot because it was relatable to what many of us picture as a role we will have when we become teachers: creating tests. Most everyone talked about how tests should be both efficient and effective for both student and teacher. They also agree that in order to be effective assessors, the tests should have clear and consistent expectations and should reflect the student’s readiness and mastery of the subject. Teachers should also provide prompt feedback. Several people discussed the use of double recording answers, then giving immediate feedback to students as a tool they may use in their classes. It was reassuring to see how anxious everyone is to start being teachers and designing good exams.

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Kassaundra
Chapter 6: Creating Good Test Questions There are three important factors of test design: question formats shouldn’t keep students from showing their mastery, tests should be created based on students’ readiness, and feedback should be given soon after the test. This chapter also discusses ways to make actual test questions effective. One way to make good test questions is to make them efficient. I have never really thought about efficiency when thinking of test questions but it makes sense. If I were one of my future students I would want me to take this advice because knowledge really can be overshadowed by misunderstandings of prompts. Also, as an English teacher it is easy to write very opened ended prompts but I will need to work on making my prompts clear and specific so my students understand my expectations. I definitely think I will be the type of teacher who likes to put some fun puns into my tests. I remember when a teacher would do this on a test it made me more comfortable and lightened my mood. Hopefully, it will do the same thing for my future students. Most of all, I like the suggestion of adding some “special” questions to the test such as asking students what they thought would have been on the test and then asking them to answer it. As a student there were always concepts that I was ready to explain going into a test that I never ended up being tested on. By asking students I will get to see more of their mastery and also see which concept they were really dedicated to.

Bri Douglass
I really learned a lot in this chapter about creating good test questions but one idea that was mentioned that I really liked was the double recording of test questions. The students write down their answers to multiple choice, matching, true or false questions in addition to writing them down on the original paper. The teacher collects the original while the students keep their answer sheet. Then the teacher goes over each question this is so the students get immediate feedback on how they are doing. During my high school days I would have loved this. I always hated waiting to get my test or quiz back. In the future I could use this technique so students can self-assess how they are doing with the material quickly. I could also ask students to keep their scratch work to the problems so that as I was going over each problem they could figure out their mistakes. The only problem with this is that they have the answers so I would have to change the questions and or order of them to eliminate cheating.

Charli Sayward
As the title suggests, I read a lot of ideas about creating good tests. Some of these ideas included avoiding too many of the same types of questions, making sure the test is similar to what was done in class, and not confusing the questions with too many negatives. Another important concept was to use more small tests as opposed to one big test at the end of a unit. This will help students show how well they understand a few important concepts instead of showing how poorly they understand a lot of concepts. There are too many things that can go wrong on test days, and if a student’s grade is dependent on just one test, they are not given a fair opportunity to succeed. Also, they are not able to learn from their mistakes or receive any feedback if they are only tested at the end of a unit. As a student, having a lot of quizzes helped me stay on track and I was able to learn from correcting my answers. I will make sure to provide plenty of quizzes for my students and give them more opportunities to succeed in my class.

Matt Towle
This chapter talked about ways in which to create fair and informative test questions. As someone who is still a student I can still fully sympathize with the reasoning of the authors. There are many ways in which questions can be worded to help students complete the quiz efficiently and to the best of their ability. Questions that use negatives, are ambiguous or are times can be especially confusing or difficult for students. It is also important to arrange easy and difficult questions in a way that will not tire students out before they finish the test. Keeping this in mind in my classroom will benefit both myself and my students. It will benefit me because I will be able to better process and gauge my students' learning as well as complete the tests in a timely manner to return feedback. It will also benefit my students because if my test questions are clear they will be able to show their knowledge without feeling as though they need to guess what I'm expecting from them.

Darcie Simmons
I enjoyed this chapter because, while reading it, I finally felt like a teacher. Or at least like a teacher that I had while I was in school. Considering things to put on tests seems very official and teacher like. I enjoyed how it talked about how teachers usually get stuck with the traditional ways in asking questions, with the same type of vocabulary. Instead it provided us with other words to use to make the question seem more intriguing to those being tested. Another thing that I liked was the idea to make it efficient for the students. I can’t even begin to count the number of times got an answer wrong on the true/false questions, because my handwriting was sloppy. As a teacher I will be sure to have the T and F on the paper to be circled, rather have them write it. As a young teacher, I would like to think I will be able to keep up with the times, and be able to joke around with my students. So the idea of making tests fun is cool, because it’s almost the last thing the students will be expecting when they’re taking the test, and will be a nice surprise when they get to that part of the test.

Ryan Pelletier
I found many examples of how to make your tests as effective as possible. There are some great layouts and tips on creating a test for your students. I learned how to make a test that tests them on the material, without having many obstacles in the test. I have never been a good test taker. Knowing how it feels to not understand a question because of the way it is presented is something I have always encountered. I really want to make my test efficient for my students. I want them to be able to focus on what they studied for. I do not want the test to have any surprises, and I want to have a test that meets all the different intelligences of my students. This will give all my students a better chance to have success.

Lyzz Stevenson
**Chapter 6**: Creating good testing questions is key as a teacher. The questions should reflect a student’s readiness and mastery of the subject. The questions should be effective and efficient. The chapter also mentions that part of making a good test is the timing of feedback. There was a suggestion to have students’ record answers in two different places when taking the test. Once finished, the teacher collects the test and one copy while the students have another copy to read from as the teacher goes over the correct answers. I really liked this idea and I hope to use it in my classroom to give my students feedback as soon as possible.

Taylor Kemp
This chapter talks about many variables in tests. There were a lot of examples of what not to do, but also what should be done. the chapter also talked about how if you teach something in one way, you should make sure to test the students in the same way. To me this only makes sense, its only fair. Also making sure to use many different ways to ask questions. A format that I liked as a student and will probably like as a teacher is the double recording sheet. I always liked having instant feedback that I could provide myself with right after the test. Nothing was worse then waiting a week for a grade. My favorite part in this chapter was when it talked about using smaller tests. Not only that but not assessing everything taught in one big test. The book used the quote "don't put all of your eggs in one basket" and it makes so much sense. Why do you need to test everything at once, and not space them out. I know all of the things that I have mentioned will impact me as a teacher and show up one way or another in my classroom.

Alyssa Wadsworth
From previous chapters I have learned that varied assessment is better than one-size-fits-all, and in this chapter I learned how to create good test questions, as indicated by the chapter title. One of the things that affected me the most as a student //and// a teacher was that, as teachers, we should try not to tire the students as much as possible on assessments. This affected me more than quite a few other ideas in this book because teachers have always given their students tests that were the easiest to grade, not the easiest to take. This affects my students because when I give them assessments, they do not have to experience that awful dread in their guts about taking it; they can look forward to the results.

Kelly Steinhagen
This chapter gave good ideas about how to vary tests so that they are not tedious, ineffective, and unfair to the students. Specifically, I liked the non-traditional examples of test questions that involved more creative thinking on the part of the student. These type of examples included using analogies and real-life applications. I think that these would help students think about the test questions as more than just a class test but as information that can be outside the classroom. I also want to include humorous test questions to lighten the air during a test, a tip that the book suggested would let the students feel more relaxed during test-time. I hope to integrate all these suggestions in order to allow students to feel more comfortable with my tests.

Megan Wallace
I learned how to make fair tests for my future students. The tests need to allow the students to truly show what they have learned, cover what they are ready to be tested on, and be given back with feedback in a timely manner. All of these are important to help the students find out what they already know and to help them discover what they need to improve upon. As a teacher I know the easiest thing for me will be to give feedback in a timely manner. If I give the test on a Friday then I will have the weekend to correct them and give them back on Monday. By using different testing methods I will allow my students to be able to show what they have learned in a manner best suiting them. As long as I pay attention and make sure the students understand my lesson they should be ready for my tests. = =

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Justin Stewart
This section was one of the best sections so far because I really enjoyed looking through all of the examples and seeing the different ways that I can improve my tests for my students. Some of those were giving lots of small quizzes in between tests, changing the vocabulary of questions so they aren’t stuck in the same format and giving feedback as soon as possible. One of the formats that really stuck out at me was the use of many quizzes in between the big tests. This has always been a very important way for me to focus on whether I have truly mastered the required information or if I needed to go back and fix my misconceptions. Quizzes do not have to be long nor do they have to be difficult. Giving the students feedback will allow them to adjust the focus of their studying. Using quizzes will also give me feedback on how the students are doing and what needs to be worked on for a little bit longer on what the students have mastered.

Linda McLaughlin
//Chapter Six: Creating Good Test Questions// I really enjoyed this chapter because this information really felt like it was something I could relate to and really truly use in the classroom. It talked about all the different ways that test questions are created and used, and which questions work well for certain types of exams. It taught me to make sure the questions are straightforward and match with the way I taught the material. This impacted me because I’ve had a lot of teachers who were either really good at creating questions or they were really bad. It made it very difficult for me, as a learner, to show the level of my comprehension of the material. This will impact my classroom because as a teacher, I’m going to be able to grade efficiently and return feedback in a timely manner so that students can learn and grow for the next exam. Also, I’m going to give several quizzes before big over-arching exams so that I can monitor the students’ progress and be sure I’m really helping them learn the material.

Jenn Baum
Chapter 6: Creating Good Test Questions I could relate to this chapter the easiest out of all the chapters thus far because it provided me with lots of really good tips to consider when making test questions. As a science teacher, there is quite a bit of information that is best assessed through tests. Making tests fair and clear, yet challenging can be a difficult task. I am a Supplemental Instructor for general chemistry this semester, so I am now realizing how hard it can be to come up with worksheets with test-like questions that are at the appropriate level. One tip that I learned from this chapter was to mix up the types of questions used, such as multiple-choice, prompts, true/false, or fill in the blanks. Another strategy that I actually used when making a matching list on my last worksheet for SI was to have definitions on the left, with students having to match the appropriate word, rather than trying to search for the appropriate definition for each word (a much more time consuming process). Other tips when making exams to consider is to make sure to include authentic situations, be straightforward with questions, include some questions with a few common misconceptions, and set up the test in a way that will allow grading more efficient. I want to be able to assess my students in a fair and effective way with as little stress as possible so this chapter was really helpful in that aspect.

Kaitlyn Haase
Chapter 6: Creating Good Test Questions While reading chapter 6, I kept thinking to myself how much I wished my teachers over the years had incorporated that information into their tests that I had to take. Three major points that jumped off the page were: make it efficient for students, avoid confusing negatives, and make prompts clears. All of those listed are important for me specifically as a test-taker because if the directions are confusing or the expectations are unclear, I feel like taking the test is a struggle regardless of if I know the material. One point that I had never heard of or seen before is doubling recording of test responses. I have had experiences where I finished a test and a teacher went over the answers after; but never have I had a copy of my answers while we are going over them.

Olivia
In chapter six of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, I learned about creating tests and test questions. There are ways to make sure that the test questions are fair, like rewording questions so that the students can read them easily and then answer the question to the best of their abilities. When I took science tests in high school, I always felt like each question I read was tricky to understand, and most of the questions were always difficult on the exam. Because I usually did well on other assignments in science, I never felt good about the grades I would get on my tests. After reading chapter six, I began to realize that it was not entirely my fault that I did not do as well as I wanted in science. My science teachers would test us with difficult questions that only some of the students had mastered, and the rest of us would feel stressed out and inadequate. In my classroom, I will make sure to use fair questions on my exams, and the questions will be both simple and difficult to help keep the students engaged in the test.

Erin
Chapter 6: Creating Good Test Questions, taught me how to vary questions on a test when I make them up. I learned many great examples of the types of questions I could ask on a test so that I know that my students actually learned. What really impacted me was the section right at the beginning about not forming questions where the student has to guess what the teacher was thinking. I have had to think that exact thing during a test throughout my schooling career too many times; it just makes the students taking the test frustrated. I was really interested in how to make my test less boring when I was reading this chapter. In my classroom, I'll try to make the tests fun by having one or two of the questions kind of funny. I also liked the idea of putting the names of the students taking the test in the questions. This would probably mean that I would have to make up different tests for different classes, but it would be so much fun. I also liked the idea of having the students write down the answers on a separate piece of paper and quickly go over the test at the end of the period so they know how well or bad they did. There are so many options!