6 Questions Your Student Needs to be able to Answer: Can Do?
A common saying most of us have heard before goes something like this: “Those who can do, and those who can’t… …teach.”
I know. The above quote attributed to H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) is cynical. Are teaching and doing mutually exclusive? His point is that there is more to understanding, to comprehending, than simply knowing and being able to answer fact questions like the ones found on achievement tests. I gave examples of these kinds of questions in Six Questions Your Student Needs to Know How To Answer.
Fact questions will appear on your student’s achievement test. But there will be other more demanding questions, questions that require the application of facts. Being able to apply facts in a test setting is the third step in our staircase of questions.
The following story may help illustrate the difference between knowing and applying:
Before leaving for Vietnam to serve as a fighter pilot, a student attended a class in advanced gunship. Part of the course content included knowing emergency procedures in the event that something went wrong on a mission. They were so important that he had committed them to memory. He bragged to his flight instructor that they were so memorized he could literally recite them in his sleep. The lieutenant, a veteran aircraft pilot, simply nodded and said, “Good.”
The lieutenant orally quizzed the student for a half an hour in which the student responded with the correct answer to every question asked. The lieutenant affirmed the student’s complete memorization of all the procedures and suggested they board an aircraft and practice shooting.
Once in the air, the target practice began. Without warning, the lieutenant purposely killed the engine and the aircraft began to descend toward the earth, out of control. The student, shocked by his instructor’s action, panicked. On top of this, he couldn’t recall any of the emergency procedures he had “learned” and so confidently recited earlier that day. About 100 feet from hitting the ground, the lieutenant took back control of the aircraft and the lesson, which really wasn’t about practice shooting, was over.
Application questions reflect the number one question our children are often asking themselves anyway: “When are we going to use this?”
To help prepare and train your student to answer these kinds of questions, keep these two principles in mind:
* Information and skills become useful to the degree they can be applied to new situations.
* Provide your students with experience in applying what they have “learned” to new problems or situations. Their ability to apply what they have learned reveals the depth of learning. They can expect to see questions like these on their achievement test.
Thanks for reading!
Curt Bumcrot, MRE
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