Student Generated Questions
Ask students to write questions that could appear in an assessment on this topic. Collate the best and use them for review. Generating questions demands higher order thinking than simply answering them.
The strategy, as published
Exactly as it appears on the card
Part of Students as Learning Resources in 02 Formative Assessment, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.
Why you might use it
The problem it may help with
Answering a question exercises what a pupil knows. Writing one that could plausibly appear in an assessment demands more: surveying the topic, judging which ideas are assessable, and knowing the material well enough to say what a fair question and a correct answer look like. The card puts it directly: generating questions demands higher order thinking than simply answering them.
The questions also come back to you as evidence. What pupils choose to ask, and what they avoid, maps the topic as they see it.
What it might look like
One version of it, in a classroom
Closing a unit on rivers, each pupil writes two possible assessment questions with answers. The teacher collates the strongest into next week's review quiz, and notices that almost nobody has written a question about deposition, which says something about where the class's confidence runs out.
Try it
A way to begin
End one topic with: write two questions that could be on the test, with answers. Use the best of them in your next review.
What to notice
Reading what happens
- The level of the questions: pure recall, or questions that need explanation and application to answer.
- The topics nobody writes questions about. Avoidance is data too.
Things to think about
Before and while you use it
- A vague or unanswerable question usually points at a gap in understanding the content, not the task, which makes it worth following up rather than discarding.
The wider thinking
Where the evidence sits
Black and Wiliam place this kind of activity with students as resources for, and owners of, their own learning: the assessment thinking starts to move from teacher to pupil. The card’s attribution stands as published: Black & Wiliam.
The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Formative Assessment.
Keep exploring
Where next?
Back to this strategy in 02 Formative Assessment, across to what you're trying to improve, or into all 144 at once.
Want to take this further?
Support is available
Pedagogy First gives you a starting point. If you want support exploring how approaches like this can work across your school, trust or professional learning programme, that work is available.