Open and Parallel Tasks
During the most recent lesson we went through an interesting topic in Open and Parallel Tasks. I had never seen this before so it was a great introduction to another tool that can be used in the classroom.
First, I found open tasks a very useful tool, as it is something that can be quickly and easily done in a classroom. All you need is a question, which is probably the most difficult thing to formulate, but once that's done it's up to the students to decide how they want to solve the problem. What I like in particular is that students aren't bound to work through it in a predetermined way, but since it's an open question they are able to have more freedom in how they think through and process the question. However, despite this freedom, in the end there are still correct and incorrect answers so as the teacher you can still gain valuable assessment information through the task. I also think it's a good way for students to collaborate with each other after they worked through the open question, to see how others have worked through the problem, and through that gain valuable insight in seeing other approaches to the problem. Personally I can definitely see myself using these in a classroom as a quick way to ask a question and to see how well my students are understanding the current material, as long as I'm able to come up with a good question, which may be a little tricky.
Related to Open problems was Parallel Tasks, in which the students have a choice between a few problems to answer. These choices should all be related to the same topic but just vary either in complexity, form or context. I didn't find the Parallel Tasks quite as interesting as the open task, mostly because I think I can easily see the benefit of open tasks as they give freedom for how the students want to approach the problem. In comparison though parallel tasks are just regular problems that would normally be seen in class, and as such even though it may be nice as a student to have a choice to work on a certain problem, I would want the students to be able to solve all of the problems presented. So in the end I would probably want them to have worked through all the problems, which sort of defeats the purpose of Parallel Tasks. One instance that I could think of in which they may be useful though is in a situation with little time, in which case I could have students just complete one question of their choice within the limited time. However, this still doesn't sit completely right with me, because I also don't want some students to have been exposed to some problems, while others have worked on another set of problems. I may have to spend some further time looking into parallel tasks to understand them better and fully appreciate their application in a classroom.
First, I found open tasks a very useful tool, as it is something that can be quickly and easily done in a classroom. All you need is a question, which is probably the most difficult thing to formulate, but once that's done it's up to the students to decide how they want to solve the problem. What I like in particular is that students aren't bound to work through it in a predetermined way, but since it's an open question they are able to have more freedom in how they think through and process the question. However, despite this freedom, in the end there are still correct and incorrect answers so as the teacher you can still gain valuable assessment information through the task. I also think it's a good way for students to collaborate with each other after they worked through the open question, to see how others have worked through the problem, and through that gain valuable insight in seeing other approaches to the problem. Personally I can definitely see myself using these in a classroom as a quick way to ask a question and to see how well my students are understanding the current material, as long as I'm able to come up with a good question, which may be a little tricky.
 |
| Example of Open Question - from https://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/ARSI/www.uky.edu/pub/arsi/openresponsequestions/mathorq.pdf |
Related to Open problems was Parallel Tasks, in which the students have a choice between a few problems to answer. These choices should all be related to the same topic but just vary either in complexity, form or context. I didn't find the Parallel Tasks quite as interesting as the open task, mostly because I think I can easily see the benefit of open tasks as they give freedom for how the students want to approach the problem. In comparison though parallel tasks are just regular problems that would normally be seen in class, and as such even though it may be nice as a student to have a choice to work on a certain problem, I would want the students to be able to solve all of the problems presented. So in the end I would probably want them to have worked through all the problems, which sort of defeats the purpose of Parallel Tasks. One instance that I could think of in which they may be useful though is in a situation with little time, in which case I could have students just complete one question of their choice within the limited time. However, this still doesn't sit completely right with me, because I also don't want some students to have been exposed to some problems, while others have worked on another set of problems. I may have to spend some further time looking into parallel tasks to understand them better and fully appreciate their application in a classroom.
Comments
Post a Comment