{"id":250,"date":"2020-07-17T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teaching.statistics-is-awesome.org\/go-big-or-go-home\/?p=250"},"modified":"2020-07-17T22:30:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T10:30:37","slug":"tell-me-something-truthfully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teaching.statistics-is-awesome.org\/go-big-or-go-home\/tell-me-something-truthfully\/","title":{"rendered":"Tell me something truthfully…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We use multiple choice questions (MCQs) for a large proportion of the assessment conducted in our intro stats course. Our approach is to try to frame the questions in terms of “Which statement is false?” rather than which statement is true, so that students are mostly reading about true things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MCQs can also be used in large lectures, via personal response systems (PRS) like Qwizdom, to check student understanding. However, because the options for a MCQ are carefully written to be unambiguous and precise – so there definitely is only one false option – students can end up reading statements that are verbose and intimidating. I feel students often don’t get enough validation that they do actually “know things” when they are selecting options rather than articulating understanding in their own words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m always looking for ways to encourage students to write, and for ways to give immediate feedback on writing when working with a large group of students. To help students tackle reading MCQs and share their understanding in their own words, I tried an activity over summer school where I gave students a list of key words related to a topic, and then asked them to use at least one word on the list to write a statement that was true. I did try to group some words together that could be used to write true statements, and thought that the prompt “one or more” was a nice way to provide a low level entry point (Just one word!) as well as a challenge (How many could you use in one statement?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is an example – see if you can work out what the topic was!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An example of a starter writing activity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I collected statements from students in the lecture via one of my apps, took a random sample of the statements, and displayed them one-by-one on the screen for us to discuss. Even though I can’t give specific feedback on all the statements during the lecture, talking about a few of them is manageable and the students seem to appreciate it (almost as much as seeing their own drawings of cats<\/a>!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the statements submitted by my students for this particular activity are below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n