What  makes a good question? How do you write effective answer distractors? Is feedback really used on exams? What tools can be used  to engage students with questions and answers? These questions and more were addressed in this week's Teach Talk Webinar, presented by Katrina Fogelson and Sarah Prosory .  What Makes a Good Question? We need better questions to go beyond simply assessing a student's understanding. As instructors, we should be checking a student's ability to apply the material in a meaningful way.  Starting with Bloom's Hopefully you’ve learned about objectives by now, but in brief: learning objectives help answer the question, "what do I want students to be able to do upon completion of this lesson/topic/module?" Learning objectives are one of the foundational pieces to designing and developing a learning experience. Everything in the course should tie back to them, especially assessments. So, why do we need to think about objectives when we a...

Despite the best efforts of the instructor or designer of a course, instructional efforts can often fall flat due to poor planning and implementation. Courses are often designed around learning materials rather than around what skills or knowledge students should have at the end of the course. This can potentially lead to disengagement from students, content bloat, burdened student cognitive loads, and ineffectual or sub-premium learning experiences. Backward Design, formalized and outlined by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe , aims to alleviate this issue through planning and consideration designed around student learning outcomes. In this TeachT@lk, Jeremy Hopper and Haily Tyler discuss the benefits of the Backward Design framework. Where to Begin? As the name would suggest, backward design starts at the end and works backward. In this case, the end is the learning objectives or learning goals. In other words, what the students should know or be able to do by the end of the course. ...

By Yawar Baig A key skill for any instructor in student-centered learning, is the ability to ask good questions that lead a student to critical thinking, discovering their own answers, and exploring new ideas. In Friday's workshop we shared some techniques to make this easier, whether using questions for clickers, or having a class discussion. We defined 4 different types of questions, and practiced writing Factual, Convergent, Divergent and Evaluative questions. We talked about the types of questions to use during the four different stages of a classroom discussion. We discussed how to use Bloom's Taxonomy for developing questions, and how important student generated questions were by using the K-W-L activity to get students thinking about their questions before class. (or using it for a "ticket out" at the end of class) Links and resources are listed below: PowerPoint file Handout Additional Resources: The Second Principle: http://thesecondprincip...