Wednesday, September 11, 2019

EDUCATION: NO-NO for Fill-in-the-Blank or T/F

I know that people love workbooks that have true/false or multiple choice quizzes as well as fill-in-the-blank notes. Why? Because they're easy to do and easy to grade and on some level we think when students get them completed correctly that they've learned something. Not to mention that they're so much easier to teach. You don't have to come up with challenging questions that students don't answer. It's so much easier for kids to look at the verse and or listen to the speaker and pick the missing word. The problem is that those things don't indicate learning. They indicate listening or looking. Look at the example below.

You can see that the first question is a guess at what someone is going to say. Any number of words can go in that blank, so the first thing students are going to do is to listen for the teacher to start the sentence so they can catch the word. Our brains do not multitask. They can think about something or listen, which is why it's never a good idea to talk while students are writing. They will either write or listen, but cannot think about what you're saying while thinking about what they're writing. Let them write and then talk or talk and then let them write. Get comfortable waiting. You can also see that with the other two blanks there are Bible verses listed. Again, students will look for the missing word, but not think about what the verse says. Do you want them to think or come up with the correct words?  Look at the true/false quiz example below. 


There are two problems with true/false quizzes. One you've got a good chance at a correct guess. When looking it over you'll never know if a student understands more than what is there, understands any of what is there, or was just a good guesser. Also, it's not easy to write a good true/false question. These questions were found on an online confirmation curriculum and anyone could guess the correct answers. (The first question should be revised.) 

It's time to start teaching confirmation with the inquiry method. If you want a more meaningful class that's based in discussion and meaningful interaction with the material, take a look at this book on Amazon