In my previous post I forgot to add one other thing...
I'd also spend some class time trying to figure out what happened. Seeing
Pat Cabe's post made me think of this. At one point I was using Sternberg's
In Search of the Human Mind text for intro. Just starting out teaching,
many of the exam questions came from the test bank. Students scored low on
exams. After a few came to see me, I sat and talked with them and
discovered that they simply couldn't understand many of the questions. They
didn't understand words in the questions, which in my opinion were not
difficulty words, but the fact remains that they simply didn't understand
the questions. So, I started asking the same question in simpler terms and
the students would get it correct. Also, with rephrasing the question I
often got "Oh, of course it is __. I just didn't know that was what it was
asking."
So, talk with them about the test to see what happened. This helped me
realize that I hadn't failed as bad as I originally thought.
- Marc
G. Marc Turner, MEd
Lecturer & Head of Computer Operations
Department of Psychology
Southwest Texas State University
San Marcos, TX 78666
phone: (512)245-2526
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
