Saturday, February 19, 2005
To:
From: The Administrative Team
Re: Midterms
Thank you for submitting your midterm examination. As you are aware, the Bench mark Assessments provide little opportunity for students to demonstrate higher order thinking skills, therefore it was requested that emphasis be placed on higher order thinking questions, such as: essays, compare and contrast, analytical thinking, interpretations, and word problems with written explanations. Your midterm did not meet this request.
As you consider drafting your final exam, it is requested that all questions require students to use higher order thinking skills. Questions such as: multiple choice, fill in the blanks, true or false, description/definitions will not be accepted. Please feel free to contact the administrator assigned to your contact area.
[NB: The above memo was passed out verbatim a few weeks ago. I received it because my midterm consisted solely of multiple choice questions. This was the open note, open book, group midterm that students still failed. Obviously this was due to the test's overemphasis on lower order thinking skills. I do look forward to designing a more complex final exam that will take twice as long to grade and will likely result in even more failing grades.]
From: The Administrative Team
Re: Midterms
Thank you for submitting your midterm examination. As you are aware, the Bench mark Assessments provide little opportunity for students to demonstrate higher order thinking skills, therefore it was requested that emphasis be placed on higher order thinking questions, such as: essays, compare and contrast, analytical thinking, interpretations, and word problems with written explanations. Your midterm did not meet this request.
As you consider drafting your final exam, it is requested that all questions require students to use higher order thinking skills. Questions such as: multiple choice, fill in the blanks, true or false, description/definitions will not be accepted. Please feel free to contact the administrator assigned to your contact area.
[NB: The above memo was passed out verbatim a few weeks ago. I received it because my midterm consisted solely of multiple choice questions. This was the open note, open book, group midterm that students still failed. Obviously this was due to the test's overemphasis on lower order thinking skills. I do look forward to designing a more complex final exam that will take twice as long to grade and will likely result in even more failing grades.]
