Round 5.2: Assessment

Jun 12, 2013 • Greg Wilson

For this round, we would like people to design two multiple-choice questions. The first will distinguish novices from competent and expert practitioners; the second will distinguish the experts from the “merely competent”. The distinction between these three groups is:

  • Novices don’t know what they don’t know: they lack both factual content (information) and structure (conceptual categories).
  • Competent practitioners have a working map of the terrain: they can apply the right rule, correctly, in most situations.
  • Experts know when to break the rules: they understand the exceptions and special cases, primarily because their mental model is richer.

Questions to distinguish novices from everyone else can often be fact-based, and usually have just one right answer. Questions to distinguish experts are usually much harder to come up with, since they often involve “why” (or “why not”), and there may be several right answers.

Please post your questions in the “Round 5.2″ topic, but do not post your answers. Please then answer questions posted by at least two other people, and also report how much you think you know about the topic.  We’ll meet again online on Thursday, June 20 to discuss the results.