How to Design Questions and Tasks to Assess Student Thinking

With new standards emphasizing higher-order thinking skills, students will have to demonstrate their ability to do far more than simply remember facts and procedures. But what’s the best way for teachers to ensure that students have such skills? In this highly accessible guide, author Susan M. Brookhart shows how to do just that, by providing specific guidelines for designing targeted questions and tasks that align with standards and assess students’ ability to think at higher levels. Aided by dozens of examples across grade levels and subject areas, readers will learn how to:

Take a student perspective and view assessment questions and tasks as
problems to solve.

Design multiple-choice questions that require higher-order thinking. Understand the difference between
open
and
closed
questions and how to use open questions effectively. Vary and control the features of performance assessment tasks, including cognitive level and difficulty, to target different thinking skills. Manage the assessment of higher-order thinking within the larger context of teaching and learning.

Brookhart also provides an
idea bank
that teachers can use to jump-start their own thinking as they create assessments.

Timely and practical, How to Design Questions and Tasks to Assess Student Thinking is essential reading for 21st century teachers who want their students to excel in the classroom and beyond.