FIAE: Creating Good Test Questions (Chapter 6)

     The sixth chapter of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, by Rick Wormeli, focused on creating good test questions, these can include: multiple choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, or short essay. Although all of these options are available, as the teacher it is important to know when each is appropriate. Additionally, some other things to be mindful of when creating exams are word-choice and phrasing. The goal when assessing students is to gain insight into their level of mastery, it is not logical to create questions that could trip the students up with awkward wording, rather creating concise and clear questions will yield the most accurate results.

     When creating assessments, I think that it is important to be mindful of the different learning styles and to service as many as possible in each exam. Often teachers will throw a test at you that consists of two things, multiple choice questions and short answers; what about the people that are not linguistic or logical learners? What about the spatial learners? How about any of the other types of learners? Personally, I think that assessments can be misleading as they tend to be confined to sheets of paper; individualized projects are much more revealing. Unfortunately, in modern times assessments are all the rage. As a teacher, I know it will be my duty to service the students in a way that is mindful to both their individual learning styles and to the standardized assessments provided by the state. Hopefully, using the techniques explored in the text will help me develop testing that I consider fair.