World of Education

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ World of Education / World of Education.iso / world_n / npbt12.zip / NPEQUAL.EXE / EQMANUAL.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1993-03-18 | 35KB | 831 lines

------------------------------------------------------------ BTS-Equalizer INSTRUCTIONS 0/15 INDEX ------------------------------------------------------------ VIDEO REVIEW Video Review (program description) 1 Lower to Higher Levels of Thinking 2 Higher Levels of Thinking 3 Valuing Scores and Levels of Thinking 4 ------------------------------------------------------------ TEST WRITER Creating and Entering Questions 5 Selecting and Editing Questions 6 Printing Cram Notes and Files 7 Formatting and Printing Tests 8 Selecting by Key Terms 9 Duplicate Checking 10 Directory and DOS 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ CRITICAL READING WITH QUESTION FORMATION Instructions 12 Step I: Label Listing (worksheet) 13 Step II: Questioning (worksheet) 14 Problem Instructions 15 ------------------------------------------------------------ Video Review (at three levels of thinking) 1/15 Video Review presents questions that can be answered at several levels of thinking. It starts at random guessing from answer options. It ends with the student reporting key terms to the computer without first having seen the answer options (the answer options do not have to be memorized, as key terms, or significant parts of key terms need be entered as answers -- a minimum of five characters). The program is designed to engage students at the three levels of thinking identified under Enrollees within the basic concept of Nine-Patch: Tourist, Pupil, and Student: 1. CRAM is a sequential presentation of questions in a rational order. Items answered incorrectly are repeated. They must be answered twice correctly to end the repetition. The goal is to familiarize the tourist, to complete a review of the assignment in a reasonable amount of time. 2. PRACTICE is a random presentation of questions. It is a practice in recognizing questions as a sample of the body of related questions. Items answered incorrectly are repeated. The goal is to practice self-judgment, to pass and get a correct answer rather than to guess randomly, to experiment with different levels of thinking and their relative value. 3. TEST is like practice except items answered incorrectly are not repeated. Now is the time for the student to report what is known or can be reasoned and to do so at the highest level of thinking possible. A progress trend line and a quantitative and qualitative report can be viewed at any time. These are of interest to students and are helpful diagnostics for teachers. The progress trend line and report, developed by one student, is representative of what is accomplished with the TRAINER program on a class of 120 enrollees using paper tests. The video reports can also be printed to a file or to an attached printer. The results can be used for grading. Video review has two goals: 1. To help enrollees survive until they can progress without its help. 2. To help transform enrollees from the concrete follower level of thinking to the formal self-correcting level of thinking needed to understand and do science (and many other things) in high school and college. Video Review: Lower to Higher Levels of Thinking 2/15 After reading the question, press the return key for the multiple choice answers. You can then answer the question in several ways: PASS: press <RETURN> key If you cannot recall or reason an answer, do not randomly guess. Good judgment is to pass. An acceptable answer will then appear. Consider why it is a correct answer before continuing. You may need to review class notes, do more reading, make more observations, or try a different line of reasoning. RIGHT: A - C Marking the correct answer option is the traditional way of taking multiple choice tests when you are forced to answer even when you have no basis for an answer (accepting failure). Here you enter an answer only if you are confident it is right. You report what you know or can reason (developing self-judgment). Copy the answer Many students prefer to copy the answer rather than enter a single letter as above. This provides more reading and writing experience. WRONG: WA - WE Practice educated guessing or using the scientific method. Enter an answer you know or reason to be a false answer. It will be erased. Continue until only one answer remains, the true answer. The above four ways of answering do not include random quessing, the lowest level of thinking. They do range from trying to pick the right answer to using the scientific method to remove the false answers. Falsifying answers is a powerful way to study multiple choice questions. Rather than having one key term related to one question stem, you will have several key terms that can be the correct answers to several questions. In high quality tests, wrong answers to one question can be right answers to other questions. Video Review: Higher Levels of Thinking 3/15 After reading the question, consider how you will answer using the highest levels of thinking. Press <RETURN> for answers A high quality question stem provides many clues to the answer. If this is not the case, press the <RETURN> key for the multiple choice answers. Enter (V)isual This produces startling effects on first time users. The question vanishes as the answers appear. You must now read the question with sufficient understanding to answer without referring back to the question. This is very much like an oral examination. Practice visualizing the question with this answering option. Break the habit of word matching you have acquired from paper tests. Your (O)wn answer Top students prefer to enter their own answers rather than select from multiple choice options. Your own answer needs to be short and unique. Something that is a part of a right answer but not of a wrong answer. The entry must be a minimum of five characters long or the complete right answer if shorter. The answer, biolo, will find biology and biological. The answer, water AND hot, will find hot water but not water alone. The answer, 1 OR one OR first, will find a multiple choice option in three different ways. You do not need to memorize the multiple choice options. You do need to think of the classification into which the answer will fall. Also alternative ways in which the answer can be presented. By selecting Visual or Own answer, you are using your higher levels of thinking. You are also changing the test style from multiple choice to short answer. An * The * sends you to a progress report. The information is presented in graphs and in tables. You can print it to the screen, to a printer, or to a file. A good use is to print your progress three times during a real test. After you have answered all items you: 1. are confident of answering correctly. 2. used educated guessing on. 3. answered by random guessing. Valuing Scores and Levels of Thinking 4/15 The Old Progress Records file keeps general information on all three modes: CRAM, PRACTICE, and TEST. The records are kept in the EQANSWER.DAT file. The level of responsibility for knowing when a correct answer is entered (self-judgment) is set at 50% for CRAM and PRACTICE. Students can elect three levels when taking a test: Academic, 50%; Scholar, 70%; and Professional, 90%. The level of 50% is operational at all levels of thinking. The level of 90% may appear low when related to the professional activities of nurses or pilots, however, few tests contain a set of questions in which 90% perform well. A standard test consists of 50 questions. If more are in a file than 50, only 50 will be randomly selected. The percent right is always correct. The score is valid only with a set of 50 questions. Scoring is +1 for correct, -1 for wrong, and no change for passing. The ratio of pass to answering is given as the ratio of learn to report. Answer Style Level of Thinking Weighting ----------------------------------------------------- Levels of Thinking Answer Style --------------------------- Tourist Pupil Student ----------------------------------------------------- Own m/c bonus 1 Own(+) m/c 1 Visual m/c bonus .5 WgA(+) (1 to 4 times) .5 Own(+) short answer .5 .5 T/F(+) .5 .5 Correct term reduced set or required 1 full set 1 Correct letter reduced set or required 1 full set 1 Cpy(+) 1 WgA(-) from a reduced set 1 All other wrong answers 1 ---------------------------------------------------- Bonus points are needed inducements for traditional Pupils and Tourists to change habits. They are not needed to maintain good learning and reporting habits. On a scale of zero for Tourist to two for Student, any score related to a level of thinking below one (Pupil) is of little value. At 1.7 and above, the student is actively reporting to the computer rather than passively selecting from presented answers. Task #1: Creating and Entering Questions 5/15 The easiest and the most difficult of the six tasks is to create a question file. The easiest way is to copy from old tests or old test banks. The most difficult way is to create new questions. The original Test Writer was created to help rapidily produce high quality questions from current instructional materials. Eventually the method was recorded as a guide for students (see Critical Reading with Question Formation, page 13-16). A QUESTION IS ENTERED IN PARTS. The minimum is the question stem and one answer (short answer) and two answers (multiple choice). There is space for two right and four wrong answers. Each file is limited to 200 questions. QUESTION FILE NAMES are limited to eight characters plus a three character extension (BIOLOGY1.TXT). Some thought should be given to how files are to be named. One method is to use a separate disk for each course, and name the files for text chapters or unit tests. This TASK CAN BE INTERRUPTED at any point. On returning, the old file can be picked up again or the new questions can be appended to the old file. If the old file is picked up, the first screen shows the last question in the file. Questions in the file can be recalled by a FIND FUNCTION. The ERASE FUNCTION only marks a question for erasing. It can be retrieved by the Find function: (F erase) will display all items marked for erasing. This task was specifially designed for COPYING OLD QUESTIONS. It can be assigned to anyone with a minimum of instruction (see Problem Instructions, page 16). When the end of space is near, each additional character produces a beep. When CREATING QUESTIONS, the task allows one to enter questions as they occur, in incomplete fragments, which can be completed later. The next task, Pooling and Editing has even greater flexibility for creating and proofing questions after the initial file is created with this task. Video Review can also be used to view questions as they will appear for study on a computer, or when printed out on paper. Video Review, however, does not permit editing of the questions. Instead, make notes of needed changes, and make them with this task or task #2, Pooling and Editing. In general, the function to be repeated in a task is assigned to the <RETURN> key. This increases productivity once you have become familiar with the task. Task #2: Selecting and Editing Questions 6/15 This is my favorite. Originally it was used to select questions from several question (data) files into a pool. Then several different versions were formated from the pool. Task #2 displays the FULL QUESTION IN THE TOP HALF of the screen and, with the DATA EDIT FUNCTION, the DATA FILE IN THE LOWER HALF. In this way a problem that calculates a different set of answers for each viewing, can be seen as a finished question along with the codes that generate the answers. The DUPLICATE CHECK FUNCTION (between test files) was added so teachers could check their current selections against previous tests. In this way the current test can be drawn from the same data files used for an earlier test, but the current test will not have a question used in the earlier test, unless you agree to use it. Duplicates within the selected set of questions are also detected. DUPLICATE QUESTIONS are any two questions that are more than 5/8 identical. There are times you may want to keep both questions even though they are quite similar. Again the <RETURN> key is assigned to a repetitive function: PASSING. Each tap of the key shows the next question in the file. The SELECT FUNCTION places a question into the new file of pooled questions. The REJECT FUNCTION drops if from being viewed again. FIND, DATA FILE EDIT, and CREATE function as in Task #1, Entering Questions. When working with high quality question files, the automatic feature saves much time. For example, a 50 question test pool can be drawn 10 question each from 5 files at random automatically in a few minutes. This test then becomes a sub-sample of all of what could have been asked, or put in other words, a sub-sample of what the students were expected to know or be able to do (the formal level of thinking). When such a test is administered as a means for students to report what they know or can reason, rather than as a typical multiple guess test (the concrete and random quessing levels of thinking), three levels of thinking can be extracted with an appropriate scoring, item analysis, and grading program (the TRAINER in this series). Also the quality of the questions can be determined statistically if more than 50 (ideally a 100 or more) answer sheets are pooled. Question quality can also be determined by inspection. Are there two good acceptable answers? Do the wrong answers include options commonly associated with the stem or that are closely related? (See Critical Reading with Quesiton Formation, page 13-16.) Task #3: Print Cram Notes and Files 7/15 Most students and many faculty do not have their own computers or even ready access to one. Printed data files can be edited anywhere and at any time by faculty and students. The DATA FILE PRINTOUT can be used at the formal level of thinking as a study aid. For the concrete level of thinking, select the CRAM NOTE function. Save a tree! Both printouts use much less paper than listing the actual data file. Also each question part is labeled to match the prompts when editing. Now that you are printing, you need to be aware of current copyright LAWS and the ETHICS of proper citation. Always cite the source on the Comments line of a question file. This is not only proper, but keeps your records in order. Current COPYRIGHT LAW states that copyright exists as the result of creation. Therefore making more than one copy for personal study purposes requires permission from the original author. If you have created the questions, you are the original author. If you are COPYING from a published test bank (teachers can do this if they are using the text in their classes), say so. If you are copying from an old test, cite the teacher and the test: Mr. Jones, General Biology, Test 3. These questions are for your own personal use, no sharing, no duplicating. Likewise, if you are CREATING your own questions, which does not require permission to copy, again cite the related study material. The related study material can be an old test, a textbook, class notes, or from other reading or observational assignments. These questions can be shared, duplicated and sold, by your permission. For example, the instructions for the Missouri Drivers Test. If you turn this into a series of related questions in a rational order, you have a product for distribution to your classmates. (See Critical Reading with Question Formation, page 13-16.) Task #4: Formatting and Printing Tests 8/15 This task transforms a data file into a text file for printing out on paper. If the questions have been pooled, all that remains to do is to name the file and select automatic, and the number of items. In a few seconds, a new test is created ready for printing. However, many faculty members like to pick and edit each question individually (concretely). This task can be performed by drawing questions from one or more data files. As each question is presented, it can be selected, rejected, edited, or passed. If selected, the formatted question can again be selected, rejected, edited or passed. Editing the DATA base makes a permanent change, editing the formatted item changes the question for the current test only. The accumulating file of questions is automatically checked for duplicates. You do not need to remember if you have already selected a particular question or one very similar. A record is kept of the number of questions selected from each data file. As the program ends, you will be asked to confirm if changes to the data base are to be made permanent. When finished selecting, the formated questions are printed to a file followed by the answer key. This file can be printed out as the test or picked up with a word processor to add a heading and instructions. Each time a question file is formatted into test questions, the answers are randomized. Problem questions generate new answer options. Each formatting produces a different practice or real paper test. One or both of the following should print the formatted file (assuming the file is in drive A, and you replace File.Nam with the name of your test file): 1. A> COPY File.Nam PRN: 2. A> TYPE File.Nam > PRN The same question file can be picked up with Video Review and practiced (or tested). Video Review graphs your progress and indicates the quality and quantity of learning. Task #5: Selecting by Key Terms 9/15 (or Guessing the next Test) Faculty members can pick individual questions that are related to concrete instructional goals or have the program do it for them automatically. Students at the formal level of thinking can second guess what the questions will be. Students at the concrete level of thinking or below need help. Task #5 pools questions by searching assigned files by key terms. The result is a set of questions (excluding duplicates) that contains the key terms. This pooled set can than be: 1. Printed as cram notes. 2. Formatted and printed as a real or a practice test. 3. Studied with Video Review at three levels of thinking. The search can be repeated with several key terms or sets of key terms entered in a search string. Examples: 1. food chain AND plant AND animal will find all questions that contain all three terms as well as plurals, and upper and lower case. 2. food chain OR produce AND consumer) will find all questions that contain either food chain, or, producers and consumers. In summary, a search string is a series of AND and OR terms. If the first example found no questions, a second try might be just (food chain) or as in example two, food chain OR a set of related terms: producer and consumer. Concept or term mapping is now popular. These terms can be entered in related sets to find questions that are good examples of ones having a high probability of being on that next unit test. In fact if you study at the formal, problem-solving, self-correcting, make sense as you go, level of thinking, you will probably find these programs helpful only as an alternate reinforcement for your usual study methods. That is, you can visualize and describe each key term that is used as a label in place of having to have the object or a specific illustration or definition in view. Task #6: Duplicate Checking 10/15 Task #6 is a quality control task. Two files are compared for duplicate questions. Any pair that is more than 56% alike are displayed. You can then choose to erase the upper, the lower, or both, or keep both. Task #6 also checks for duplicates within a file. Quality control is a serious business. Anyone creating a test bank is ethically obligated (responsible) that it is error free. There are several kinds of errors: 1. a typographical error 2. an incorrect answer 3. an acceptable right answer that your teacher considers wrong, or the reverse, an acceptable wrong answer your teacher considers a right answer. The above errors can produce serious problems when only five students, seated side by side, all select the same "wrong" answer on a unit test. This normally sends up the cheating flag. Cheating is any falsification of information. Just how could all five select the same wrong answer? Either they were cheating, copying during the test, or several of the five, before the test, accepted without questioning (the concrete or below level of thinking) the work of the test bank author(s). Had they independently verified the answers (formal level of thinking) the error would probably have been found and corrected. A way to avoid the above problem, is to work with your teacher before a unit test. Your teacher can proofread your data file and make constructive comments. Many teachers even select a portion of the test questions from questions student submit before the unit test. Another way to avoid the above problem is to become a formal, problem-solving, self-correcting, make sense as you go, level of thinking student. This frees you from the need to memorize material (non-sense) in a fixed format. You can apply what you have learned to situations other than those in which you have learned the material or skill. Task #7: Directory and DOS 11/15 "Enter the first 1-3 letters of file name or Enter *.* for full directory listing (1) Enter *.*/w or short 5 column listing (2) Enter DOS to use other DOS Commands), (3) or press <RETURN> key to continue?" This is the lost and found task. Task #7 is set to do several things: 1. Automatically lists your directory or asks you to do so if you enter a file name that cannot be found. 2. Find files in a directory by the first one to three letters when you cannot remember the name. 3. List the entire directory in five columns. 4. Enter DOS where you can use any DOS command. In general, if you want to start over enter BYE. If you are unclear of what to do next, press the <RETURN> key or respond to one of the prompt functions. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To really make progress, we need to have a clear idea of what we are attempting. This is not always easy. In institutionalized education the goal is the production of responsible, productive citizens. These make up the fabric of our society. That fabric is held together by individual responsibility: 1. An administrator is responsible for creating an environment in which students and faculty can work productively. 2. A faculty member is responsible for creating an environment in which students learn: facts, skills and self- judgment. 3. A student is responsible for learning, which now includes the transformation from the concrete follower level of thinking (created in the lower grades) to the formal self-correcting level of thinking needed to understand and do science in high school and college. Fortunately, there are students who survive the lower grades with their native curiosity and rationality intact. They are also functional readers who may find these programs helpful but not necessary for their own learning. They may find the programs a profitable means of sharing their understanding of an assignment with others. NINE-PATCH SOFTWARE 12/15 BTS-Equalizer (A Textbook Supplement) Critical Reading with Question Formation Project contents: Instructions Step I: Label listing Step II: Questioning Problem Instructions -- INSTRUCTIONS -- STEP I: Label Listing (Preparing for a Mental Adventure) A. Look at the reading assignment. List words and phrases you feel are important for you to make sense of the material. You do not need to know the meaning of these words and phrases at this time. B. Make a list of 10 or more words and phrases that are important to you. (It makes Part II easier if you can find 20 or more.) STEP II: Questioning (Meaning Making with Relationships) (and Label Descriptions) C. Now return to the beginning of the assignment. D. Read (aloud?) until you find one of your listed words or phrases. E. Complete a question (on paper blank or computer). 1. Question stem OR statement 2. right answer(s) 3. Wrong answer(s) F. Continue D and E until the assigned number of questions has been completed (or you need to return to B for more words and phrases or you have completed the reading assignment). G. Turn in your report (completed assignment) with 1. This page on top 2. Step I: words and pharases list next 3. Step 2: question sheets in order (or computer disk) 13/15 Student(s)__________________________________________________ Teacher _____________________Class__________________________ Topic, text chapter, or pages ______________________________ Number of Questions ________ Time to be completed __________ Time assigned ______________ Time completed ________________ Step I: Label Listing ------------------------------------------------------------ Page Word or Question Numbers in which the Number Phrase label is used in a Question, (Label) Right or Wrong answer ------------------------------------------------------------ 18 (example) north 1R, 2Q, 5W, 8W ------------------------------------------------------------ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ (Continue on additional blank sheets) Step II: Questioning 14/15 Student(s) ___________________________ Question Number _____ A. Question (stem or statement or problem) Examples: The top of a road map is the direction: ________ The direction ( ) is at the top of road maps. _ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |__________________________________________________________| B. RIGHT answer __ Example: north _______________________________________ | | | | | | |__________________________________________________________| C. RIGHT answer (alternate label or description, or skip) __ Example: north terrestrial pole ______________________ | | | | | | |__________________________________________________________| D. WRONG answer (antonym, classification, description or label related to right answer or label in question stem) __ Example: south _______________________________________ | | | | | | |__________________________________________________________| E. WRONG answer (or skip) __ Example: down ________________________________________ | | | | | | |__________________________________________________________| F. WRONG answer (or skip) __ Example: left ________________________________________ | | | | | | |__________________________________________________________| G. WRONG answer (or skip) __ Example: varies with the map company _________________ | | | | | | |__________________________________________________________| (Use blank sheets for questions following this question.) NINE-PATCH SOFTWARE 15/15 BTS-Equalizer Problem Instructions Questions that require a numerical calculation can have many different answers if question and answer codes are used in the question. All values except one are held constant. The variable value is given as a range. Each time the question appears, the variable value is selected at random and new answer options are presented. Example: Q1 A wave with a frequency of 10 hertz is moving how fast if the wavelength is **2-100 m? R1 **10 m/s R2 W1 */10 m/s W2 /*10 m/s W3 *+10 m/s The question variable range code (**##-##) is **2-100. Values from 2 through 100 will be selected at random and then modified by each answer code. In the example, the constant is 10 from 10 hertz. The constant can be derived from more than one value in the question (as from a formula). Answer codes: ** variable * constant multiply */ variable / constant divide /* constant / variable divide *+ variable + constant add *- variable - constant subtract -* constant - variable subtract (The problem and resulting question can be viewed together with Selecting and Editing, Task #2, of the Test Writer.) None-randomizing Answers To make Test Writer and Video Review compatible with traditional multiple choice questions furnished in test banks, the following limitations have been made: True and False True always prints before false All of the above One or both options print last and None of the above in this order **L as first answer L is the location (A - E) of the right answer in a fixed set of non-randomizing answers