Prelude to I(nteractive) Q(uestionnaire)s

Below I have put the path to a published paper from my web site. It is on I(nteractive)Q(uestionnaire)s. This is an ingredient in doing assessment. The basic idea is how there are two modes necessary for someone to have successful learning experiences.

Mode 1: You learn to fill in data, with the help of the book and the teacher, as if it is a crossword puzzle. Writing this up would mean I include a full explanation of this.

Mode 2: You learn about basic expert modes. This, too, I would have to explain.

There are two basic problems for students:

Problem 1: Text books are totally inundating, putting all material -- sometimes nice though it is -- at the same level. The problem is the student can't figure from this what are the basic expert modes and wouldn't have the time or stamina to pick them up in the context of one of the first courses.

Problem 2: You need some version of both Mode 1 and Mode 2 for success in a course. That means you must learn to switch between modes. If you never/rarely use Mode 2 at the time of your courses, when you have an actual expert in front of you (the teacher, or an assistant to the teacher), you will never learn Mode 2 and the standards that go with it at all. On the other hand, courses go by at such a speed, you can only learn a limited amount of material at Mode 2. Further, you must take much time acculturating to the hints that guide you into Mode 1. Again, this needs a much fuller writeup.

There would be three major Learning Points on addressing Problem 1 and Problem 2 in a book.

Learning Point 1: How crosswords work, and how you much effective learning can replicate how to approach crossword clues. The key idea is fixing memory devices that raise the issue of the most likely filler for a clue.

Learning Point 2: Finding paths through material that pick out the use of identified basic expert modes. An expert mode often is not a matter of heavy lifting, but rather in reducing the elements in learning to a few simple statements. It is striking that many of the hardest courses rest on a very small number of basic principles. Still, it takes an expert to see this. So, a student will develop a higher standard just by picking up one or two pervasive basic principles.

Learning Point 3: It can seem very difficult picking up basic expert modes from books. This is partly because books rarely teach such modes: rarely do text book writers give them enough space. Even more rarely do they develop problems from scratch that would allow seeing basic modes get clothed in serious material.

This is because so much of the "factual" material takes up considerable space, and it is often more interesting. Still, the basic material is usually there, but hard to pick out. Also, to use basic material even an expert must combine it with memory devices that replicate the crossword approach. This calls for switching modes. The trick: Tie hard learned basics to the memory devices, when a basic is available. Otherwise, mimic the use of a basic even when there doesn't seem to be one.

The book I have in mind would have this rough outline.

I. The Inundation of Knowledge:

Our motivation to learn comes from thinking about the credit we will get, or about the understanding we will get, or about what we can do with the knowledge. Those, however, are all personal goals. There is a bigger significance to our education, for we don't personally make all that knowledge, and we never get a handle on much of it either. I refer to motivations to learn through four stories.

1. Changes in the world come in fits and starts: Living with our grandparents.
2. An encyclopedia where we each get 500 words of space: Just how to measure our significance.
3. How do we know anything?: How does our knowledge add up.
4. Our lives do not fall on a bell-shaped curve: Looking in the obituary column.

II. How Crosswords and their clues work:

You recognize then, it is much easier for the teacher to make up questions, even without having properly assessed how difficult is the question, than it is for students to answer them. Much of this would get into what is good and what is bad, for deeper learning, from using the crossword metaphor. Indeed, this would actual allow give meaning to the phrase "deeper learning."

III. Applying the Crossword Metaphor, and extracting expert basics:

There are two stages of this. First: Basing it on the vocabularly of a course. Most tests (in courses) use the vocabulary to differentiate students. So, the crossword metaphor goes a long way. Second: Recognize that many objects and symbols in tougher courses, can also be combined like words. Combining them usually involves a basic expertise.

IV. Anticipating questions about material:

Combining basic expert modes and crossword thinking allows a student to understand how to create the fundamental questions that test understanding. This section of the book would also aim at those making tests. That increases the audience for such a book, and it is totally appropriate.

One of the shames of American education is the poor quality of exams. Too often they test just simple vocabulary, giving students who seek mastery no chance to self-assess, while they also encourage students to try -- and it is hopeless -- to master all aspects of the book.

This last part of the planned book is about the nature of IQs. The whole point of IQs is that the style of questions is much different than usual test questions. They involve students in step thinking. "Step Thinking" could be another phrase for analyzing, or for proof, depending on the course. The point here, is that if you leave students to analyzing or proof on tests, the test time is gone, and the students get nowhere (or they bullshit).

IQs, guide students through step thinking, and they make it look strangely simple. Step thinking usually exposes a few basics, given as hints by the IQs. The test taker need not have mastered the basics, but is asked in a 2nd or 3rd step to recognize that it is a basic that is taking him or her from an earlier step to progress on a question. Step thinking is the key element of training that most courses don't do, because they present material as if it is all one piece.

I now give the URL Path to the paper on IQs. Please go through the whole path I give, even though you could go straight to the html and pdf files without doing that. This way you see other things on my web site.

On my home page http://www.math.uci.edu/~mfried/ at section: II. Education Assessment Work and Vita
http://www.math.uci.edu/~mfried/sectII.html
    --> * Education articles: U(nix)O(ffice)S(ystem), E-mail Technology, I(nteractive)Q(uestionnaire)s
http://www.math.uci.edu/~mfried/edlist-tech.html (contains a comment button for each item)
    --> Item #2
Interactive E-Mail Assessment, MAA Vol. on Assessment, B. Gold, S.Z. Keith, and W.A. Marion, eds., Assessment in Undergraduate Mathematics, MAA Notes #49, Wash. DC, 1999, 80-84. Initially, administrators balked at my insistence that they were not seeing the significance of the sophomore courses that impeded progress for so many students. The larger cohort of freshman calculus seemed like more "bang for the buck." Until I brought up the case of Howard Thompson, they didn't realize the course I was talking about was a total bottleneck for minority students ever participating in Mathematics, Science or Engineering. The html file explains that. The pdf file is the published paper on my "I(nteractive) Q(uestionnaire" assessment techology. In real time, that technology increased by an order of magnitude what students were learning in difficult courses. It gave the tools to intercede, without loss of class time, long before final exam failure.

For your convenience the attached html and pdf file URLS goes directly to them:
http://www.math.uci.edu/~mfried/edlist-tech/gold02-08-98.html

http://www.math.uci.edu/~mfried/edlist-tech/gold02-08-98.pdf