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