What Makes A "Good Question?"

What makes a good question?  That's a great question! 

The primary division at Wexford asked just that question at the start of our pathway.  In order to set up our pre-assessment task we needed to create a question.  Not just any question, but a question that allowed us to not only meet all four levels of the achievement chart, but one that allowed our students to achieve at one of the four levels.

We looked at the above question (please ignore the writing below the purple pattern - it was our scratch pad for our thinking on another task).  We asked ourselves if it was a "good question."  Looking at the achievement chart, we noticed that it did cover knowledge and understanding - It shows us if the student can make a pattern and knows what attributes are.  Our next question became "Can a student achieve a Level 4 on this question?"  After some debate and discussion we concluded that no, they couldn't.  Quite simply because we didn't give them the chance to demonstrate they had thorough knowledge of patterns.

The second problem we looked at was very different.  As we went through the achievement chart, we were able to identify how the solution would allow the students to demonstrate their knowledge in each area, and at different levels.  It also allowed us to anticipate student solutions, and discuss ways that the student could improve in their answer.

For the pre-assessment, the teachers came up with a very open, very appealing question for the students.  It also was able to be used from Grade One to Grade Three.  It was along the lines of:

Our school council wants to design a new school t-shirt.  They want it to have a pattern that has different attributes on it.  What could the shirt look like?  Explain the pattern.