The main purpose of this form of work is to encourage students to think more deeply about the subject matter. They are challenged to create questions that are neither too easy nor too difficult. This requires a detailed understanding of the material and an assessment of their peers' level of knowledge.
- Activity goal
- Exchange knowledge | Recap / Summarize
- When
- In class | Pre class
- Where
- Hybrid | Offline | Online
- Duration
- < 30 minutes
- Group size
- Small | Medium | Large
Step-by-step
Step 1
Explain to students that they must design a question to be answered correctly by exactly 40% of their peers.
Step 2
Students work individually or in small groups to formulate a question. In doing so, they must balance between complexity and accessibility. To make the review process easier, multiple-choice questions are easier to use. Open-ended questions are more difficult to analyze for 40% correctness.
Step 3
Students submit the question. See tools and materials for multiple suggestions.
Step 4
For smaller groups: submit all questions to the group For larger groups: select a few questions to submit to the group. Analyze the results. See tools and materials for multiple suggestions.
Step 5
Discuss with the results with the group. You can do this the same session or the next session, based on how you present the questions to students.
Step 6
Have students reflect on what they learned, both about the material and about creating balanced questions.
You can use online tools to get the questions from students, but also to give the questions back to students and analyze the answers. You can use a tool such as mentimeter for this purpose. For obtaining, use the option “open ended questions,” and for giving back, use MC-questions. If you want to obtain and give the questions outside of class time, you could also use Canvas quizzes. You could also actually distribute it as an exam, but this takes more work.
Consider the tools and materials mentioned here as suggestions. In many cases it’s possible to use alternative tools. Please turn to the Learning & Innovation team of your faculty first to see which online and offline tools are available and how to apply them.
Martijn C. Koops www.gamedidactiek.nl
