The pedagogy behind the humble question

by Andrew Belegrinos

Teachers have no time to waste. Too often our quest for the right activity means wading through mountains of irrelevant material, only to find items incomplete, poorly formatted or frustratingly not quite right for the courses we teach. Moreover, these materials are often not designed with the learning experience in mind. Before students explore a subject in-depth, it is essential they have a strong foundation of knowledge and skills to build upon. What questions can we ask to best guide their learning experiences?

The student driven learning experienceLike teachers, students need to regularly reflect on their learning to understand the skills and knowledge they have developed. This can be done through identifying key strengths and areas for development. Through measuring their progress, they effectively navigate their own learning trajectory — that is, maintain activity in their zone of proximal development (ZPD). Vygotsky defined the ZPD as the difference between the current level of cognitive development and the potential level of cognitive development. To support students to move through the ZPD, educators can use scaffolding strategies. Diagnostically structured questions are a good starting point for supporting students in this self directed approach.

Diagnostic Multiple Choice questionsDiagnostic Multiple Choice (MC) questions are your typical MC questions designed to include incorrect answers which unambiguously indicate a specific misconception. For example, consider the following MC question:
​
Consider a game where two dice are rolled and their sum calculated. If you roll a 2, 3, or 12 on the first roll you lose. If you roll a 7 or 11 on the first roll you win. Any other number on the first roll becomes the target. Your goal is now to roll your target in order to win. For example, if you roll a 10 on the first roll, your target to win is now 10 — so you keep rolling until you either roll a 10 to win or a 7 to lose.
Select options for the items P, Q & R as indicated in the following flow diagram to complete the game logic sequence

Quality diagnostic questions have distractors that, where possible, map to a single issue. This way, students and teachers are provided with specific direction toward remedial action.

An incorrect option which combines a number of possible issues means that students who select the option may of course be having trouble in a number of different ways and therefore indicating relevant remedial action becomes something of a guessing game. For these students, you can use a variety of scaffolding strategies to review the topic and address any misconceptions. Think-pair-share or group discussion can encourage students to articulate their learning with their peers. Creating links to pre-existing knowledge can strengthen the construction of new knowledge. Visual aids can also help students to grasp concepts.
​
Progressive Extended Response Questions
Extended Response (ER) questions also offer an opportunity for self diagnosis and direction by deliberately progressing questions to offer actionable exit points. As a guide, a 3 part ER question may have the following attributes:

For example, consider the same earlier question in ER form:
Consider a game where two dice are rolled and their sum calculated. If you roll a 2, 3, or 12 on the first roll you lose…

You can find the answer to this question on my website.

Of course there are no hard and fast rules here, however, if you stay mindful of gradually building depth and scope across the ER question, students will be able to work linearly toward their zone of proximal development.

In the Wild
While the examples provided are specific to Computer Science, the principles are certainly transferable to STEM and beyond. For example, material published by Craig Barton clearly articulates analogous principles for Diagnostic (MC) Questions in mathematics — he has some great videos on YouTube worth checking out too.

I encourage teachers and content developers to keep these simple ideas in mind in order that actionable feedback and deeper progressive learning experiences are baked into the building blocks of the tests and activities we rely on — those humble questions.
​
Andrew Belegrinos is the Founder and Director of N7 Education.
N7 Education supports teachers by providing a growing bank of over 250 diagnostic Multiple Choice and progressive Extended Response questions (mapped to your study design) in support of deeper learning experiences in Computer Science. Looking to quickly find similar material or share some of your own gems? … This question and many more (together with all answers) are available at www.n7.education PS: More STEM subjects to come!
Andrew is an experienced IB Mathematics & Computer Science Teacher at Preshil -The Margaret Lyttle Memorial School, Melbourne. Andrew has diverse experience as a software engineer, GIS specialist and content consultant in Mathematics.