My friend Rabbi Yaakov Blau, in his familiar iconoclastic fashion, lays out the case against thought questions as opposed to spit back on tests. While he makes some good points, I believe that there are two fundamental flaws in his argument:
1) He creates a straw man by claiming to argue against those who hold that spit back questions are awful education and we should only be giving thought questions to our students. I do not know too many educators who actually take such a position. My sense is that many educators value the more thoughtful and thought-provoking questions, yet realize that there is a certain degree of spit back necessary in order to ensure that students know the basics. And, of course, even spit back questions can be phrased in ways that force the students to think a bit and not simply spit back (without being the lengthy essays that Rabbi Blau posits should be done at home).
2) Rabbi Blau seems to feel that thought questions are too time-consuming (and perhaps deserve that amount of time) to be done in the context of a one period test. That position leads him to say that such questions should therefore not be done in class. However, why does Rabbi Blau not consider that perhaps conventional tests are not the best method of assessment for such classes? There is no shortage of ways in which to assess student understanding of material, and if standard tests do not allow a teacher to assess in the best way possible, then perhaps tests should be replaced by some other form of assessment. Rabbi Blau does allude to this by saying that thought questions should be homeworks - but why stop at homework? Perhaps give a short answer test accompanied by a more thoughtful and lengthy take-home assignment?
Rabbi Blau acknowledges this point in his discussion of rubrics. However, he seems to discount rubrics by writing "However, I dont think its so fair to have a thought question where the students need to guess what your rubrics are." - No problem. If you use an alternative form of assessment, you have to make sure to tell the students the rubric in advance. I am not sure why Rabbi Blau discounts a widely-used method of grading simply because there are those people who do not know how to use them.
Bivracha,
Aaron Ross
