Introduction to Java Programming 2010–2011 — PeerWise

We're asking you to use PeerWise for IJP this year; in case you missed one of the introductory tutorials, there is documentation about PeerWise on its own site (including a number of tutorial webcasts).

Over the course of the term, we're asking you to do the following:

• Publish at least three relevant questions on IJP's PeerWise site. Questions should be related to the course content — something about Java, or Objects First with Java, or even perhaps the assignments!
• Answer at least twenty questions.
• Provide feedback on at least twenty questions (you should write at least twenty comments, as well as grading questions for quality and difficulty).

A genuine effort here will get full marks, irrespective of how your submissions are rated by others.

The two deadlines, set just before the IJP multi-choice question (MCQ) tests, are there to encourage you to create a good resource to help everyone revise and prepare for the tests.

You can tell when you've reached your targets by looking at your main IJP page on PeerWise:

We hope to include some of your best questions in the MCQ tests.

Writing questions

The PeerWise site's Guide for Students contains some guidelines for question-writing. Here are a few more tips, from a talk by Paul Denny, PeerWise's author:

• Don't rush your question — writing a good MCQ is difficult. The more time you put into creating it, the more you will learn from it and the more useful other students are likely to find it.
• When choosing a topic for a MCQ, try to find something you were confused about at first, and make a note of what you were confused about. Your misconceptions can be used to generate excellent incorrect choices (also called “distracters”) for your MCQs.
• Avoid spelling and grammar mistakes. People often think such mistakes are made on purpose to confuse people, even when the mistakes are accidental.
• Avoid trick questions. Try not to write questions where it is unclear what you are testing. Rather than trying to hide the correct answer behind a trick, ask a question that really determines whether or not someone understands an important concept.
• Writing the distracters is probably the hardest part. Your distracters should be plausible and not easily dismissed as incorrect or illogical. This makes answering the question by process-of-elimination more difficult. You want to test people on what they know, not their ability to simply recognise an incorrect answer.
• Don't forget to write a clear explanation as to why the correct answer is correct, and also why the incorrect answers are incorrect. These questions are a great opportunity for learning, but only if you provide some guidance about the correct answer.
• You should “tag” your questions appropriately. Below are some example tags to give you some ideas:
  • To help readers identify questions related to the chapter in Objects First with Java that they're revising, tag with chapters, for example “chapter 1”.
  • To help readers identify questions on specific topics, tag with topic names, for example “object diagrams”.
  • You may wish to tag your questions with associated course learning outcomes, for example “principles of OO”, “documentation”, etc.

Providing feedback

Here is some of Paul's advice on providing feedback. You should look specifically for (and leave feedback about):

• Questions that are unclear. Occasionally this is due to the grammar, but it may also reflect a complex topic. This problem may show up in the question, in the alternative choices, the answer explanation, or any combination of these.
• Sometimes there will be more than one right answer — or no right answer. It's occasionally due to a problem in the writing of the choices, but it's sometimes because the question was too complicated.
• Sometimes the question is too easy. The alternatives might be unrealistic and too easy to eliminate.
• When you make suggestions, try to be specific. For example you might suggest that the question be worded in a different way and provide that alternate wording, or you might suggest that one of the choices be replaced with something that makes the question more challenging.
• Be constructive and polite. If possible, point out what was good about the question first, and then make suggestions.

Version 1.8, 2010/11/18 16:42:50