Monday, November 30, 2015

Help your students by proving questions in advance


The aim of giving a set of questions in advance, from which those actually made in the examination will be made, is to help organize their studying: to reduce the infinite possibilities in their mind, and place the students in the analytical perspective required by the teacher. One might object that, in this way, students study less: this is perhaps the reason why it is customary to only give the students the questions during the actual examination and not before. Personally, I don't agree with this, and neither do the students: they manifest being able to study in a different way, but still preparing for a wide range of questions (there are 30 questions, which demand coming and going between different texts!); Some share the task and write the answers as a group. In the real test, they may not use these notes because the exam is still a closed-book test. What they do use is the knowledge they developed while reading, writing and receiving peer reviews.

On its part, the simulation has several objectives. First, it promotes thinking of a central feature in the test, which is the paradox that students eventually face: the need to communicate the subject to a reader (teacher), as if that person didn't know anything about the topic of the class, even if they actually do.