Questioning+Scenarios


 * Questioning Scenarios**

Creating good scenarios for testing questioning is crucial. First they need to have a high level of relevance to the pupils and fit within their experience. Secondly they need to be worded very carefully. The idea is to include in the wording of the scenario all the relevant contextual vocab (key words and phrases) that students would need to create questions at each level of the scenario. It could hardly be called a valid test if the students didn’t have phrases that they could draw on to create a stage 5 question. When I am working with schools now we spend quite a bit of time writing, editing and shaping a scenario for assessing questioning. We find a context that would have a high level of relevance for the students. Then we draft the scenario. Once the scenario is drafted we go through it and hilight the relevant key words and key phrases.

When we are satisfied that we have sufficient key words and phrases embedded in the scenario we go to the next development step where we write questions to each of the stages of the rubric from stage 3 to 7. If we have trouble writing questions for any of the stages then we further edit the scenario to ensure that all stages of the rubric can be written to. As an example we may find it difficult to write stage 6 questions that require the use of synonyms. Then we would take one of the major key words and remove it from the scenario and replace it with a another word that is a lesser used synonym. Once we can write questions at each stage of the rubric based on the language used in the scenario then we have a scenario that is structured well enough for use with students as an asssessment tool.