Ranking problems: assessment for learning

I read ‘The Physics Suite’ a few years ago, loved it and then failed to do anything with it. This year I started to look at ranking problems and have started to write a few of my own. (I also got hold of O’Kuma, Maloney and Hieggelke, 1999, Ranking task exercises in physics. And I think it should be in every physics teacher’s library. I love it! Some of the problems go beyond A level, some are perfect for A level and a few can be used at GCSE.)

These questions can be used in many ways, and here I am going give an few example I have developed and used this year for AfL.

The real problem is coming up with a way of getting responses from all students without it seeming threatening, but still finding out what everyone thinks.

So far I have tried

1. Getting everyone to say the answer out loud and unpicking all the problems. Apparently this is the most frightening for them – but it works best for their learning
2. Getting them to submit answer electronically and anonymously and then going over any problems – but I want to know who didn’t understand and what the problem was.
3. Getting an answer the whole class agrees on. They love this, and the discussion is always interesting to listen to, but I always wonder if the quiet ones just go along with it.

so here is my example – I like it because I discovered that although they could calculate upthrust, they didn’t really understand what was meant by the weight of water displaced, and that we needed to continue to work on Newton’s Laws.

So now I need to try setting them for homework and seeing individual answers.