PLC Book: How to
Design Questions and
Tasks to Assess
Student Thinking by
Susan M. Brookhart
Group: Kevin Brown, Pat Cawley,
Myriah Hudak, Amanda Nobbs, Kristin
Sternberg, Sandra Gianfriddo
Summary
Our group analyzed the book, How to Design Questions and
Tasks to Assess Student Thinking by Susan M. Brookhart. This book
challenged us to design questions that require higher order thinking skills
in order to improve student learning, classroom instruction, and how tasks
are assessed. In addition, the book emphasized the importance of
providing students with something to think about and how this will greatly
assist in the development of higher order thinking questions and tasks.
Some highlights included:
• Tasks and assessment questions created as “Problems to Solve”
• Multiple choice questions that assess higher order thinking
• Controlling for cognitive level and difficulty
• Open ended questions
• Numerous examples for ELA, math, science, and social studies
Multiple Choice Assessments to
Target Higher Order Cognitive Skills
 Identify and specific content knowledge to be mastered.
 Requires inferential thinking using logic and additional student
experience background.
 Differentiate according students’ ability levels by selection of text
and Lexile level.
 Train students to unpack the prompt – i.e. “ What is the question
asking to do?” and “ Find the verbs – determine what the verbs
are telling students to demonstrate, identify, or determine”.
Multiple choice example- 8th grade ELA
Life As We Knew It, Susan Pfeffer
Read the following passage. Then respond to the follow up questions.
“I’m here about Megan Wayne,” I said. “ I was her best friend.”
“Her best friend on earth,” Reverend Marshall said.
I didn’t have the energy to argue theology with him so I just nodded. “She’s dead,” I said, like he
wouldn’t know it. “And her mother, too. I thought maybe you could tell me what happened.”. “
“God took them,” he said. “I pray for their souls.”
“Megan’s soul is just fine,” I said,” Her mother’s, too. How exactly did God take them?”
Reverend Marshall looked at me like I was a mosquito he wanted to swat. “It’s not our
place to question God’s decisions,” he said.
“I’m not questioning anyone except you,” I said. “What happened?
“God chose the moment of Megan’s death,” he said. “What the early cause was we’ll
never know. Her mother summoned me one morning and we prayed over Megan’s remains. She
asked me to bury Megan in their backyard, but the ground was frozen and I knew I couldn’t do it
alone. I went back to the church to ask for help and when we returned to the house we found
Mrs. Wayne had hung herself.” ( Pfeffer, page 221)
Multiple choice example continued
Question One –
1. What passage illustrates the conflict of man vs man regarding Miranda’s religious beliefs in contrast to Reverend
Marshall’s beliefs? _______
a. “Her best friend on earth,”
b. “I didn’t have the energy to argue theology with him so I just nodded.”
c. “I pray for their souls.”
d. “Her mother summoned me one morning and we prayed over Megan’s remains.”
Question Two 2. What is an example of a simile to illustrate the Reverend’s angry attitude toward Miranda. ______?
a. “God took them”
b. “God chose the moment of Megan’s death…”
c. “Reverend Marshall looked at me like I was a mosquito he wanted to swat.”
d. “It’s not our place to question God’s decisions,”
Open-Ended Questions
 Closed Questions vs. Open Questions
Closed Questions: have one right answer or one correct solution and usually
require thinking at the Remember, Understand, or Apply level(ex: Where does the
main character in the novel live?)
Open Questions: have multiple good answers or several different solutions and
usually require thinking at the Analyze, Evaluate, or Create level (ex: How would the
plot change if the character lived in a different part of the world?)
 While both types of questions can yield useful data, open questions require a
deeper understanding of the skill or content. When designing open questions, it is
important to be cognizant of the knowledge and skills needed to answer them to
ensure that your students will be successful. Also, since open questions require
more time to answer than closed questions, you must plan to give your students
the extended wait time or write time needed to do so.
 Students should be expected to both answer and create open questions often,
and teachers should always be looking for opportunities for them to do this.
Performance Assessment Task
The more students have to do on their own, the more opportunities they
will have for higher order thinking, and the more varied their
performances will be.
To design a “Performance Task”
• Identify what needs to be assessed, like content knowledge and skills, as
well as thinking skills
• Draft a task and criteria to match the learning outcomes
• Evaluate the match and revise as needed
• Develop criteria into rubrics by adding descriptions of each
performance level
• Avoid adding irrelevant skills
Performance Assessment Test
Category
Advanced
Proficient
CONCEPT:
Student clearly understands all of
the assignment concepts.
Student builds on prior
knowledge, and logically
synthesizing the drawing effects.
Student clearly understands all of Student is inconsistent in the
Student does not demonstrate an
the assignment concepts, and
understanding of the assignment understanding of the assignment
they are demonstrated in the
concepts.
concepts.
drawing.
MECHANICS:
Technical Criteria
Student demonstrates the
technique accurately and
challenges himself/herself by
taking risks, or adding detail
beyond the assigned task.
Student presents the work in an
overall neat and organized
manner. Care was taken during
the project not to wreck the
paper. It is “frame worthy”.
Student demonstrates the
technique accurately in the
assignment. Student presents the
work in fairly neat manner, by
erasing extra marks, yet still
some extra marks might show
through, or there might be
wrinkles, which are marginally
distracting.
Student demonstrates some of
the techniques in the
assignment.
Student did not take the time to
erase extra marks, or there are
wrinkles or smudges which are
distracting.
A majority of the technique is
missing or poorly done.
Student took no care in the
presentation.
CONNECTIONS:
Compositional Design
Elements
Student includes all of the
required components. Student
considers options for
composition and innovates by
adding unique parts that might
reflect his/her interest or
personality.
Student includes all of the
required components and the
composition is well thought out.
Student included a majority of
the required components, but
missed one or two.
Student did not included most of
the required components.
VOCABULARY
Student clearly understands key
terms and uses them effectively,
also draws on prior knowledge
comfortably places terms into
new context.
Student clearly understands key
terms by demonstrating their
use.
Students not clear on key terms
for the project.
Student doesn’t attempt to use
the key terms for the project.
MECHANICS:
Presentation
Emerging/ Needs Improvement
Unsatisfactory
Performance Assessment Task Benefits
Strategies can control cognitive and level of
difficulty
• Many options for assessing different levels of
learning, like skills
• Many choices are available for students
• The longer the task, the higher order of thinking
• Varied cognitive levels can motivate and
challenge students
Using a Test Blueprint to Plan a Test
• A test blueprint:
– indicates the balance of content knowledge and
thinking skills in a whole test.
– Allows you to check that your assessment aligns with
the learning outcomes you intend to assess.
– Allows you to check that the balance among
aspects of content and among levels of thinking
reflects the emphasis specified in your learning
outcome or outcomes.
When a test is not balanced…
• The author explained that she once created an unbalanced
reading test with:
– 75% on new vocabulary
– 25% on comprehending the story
• She decided to create a more balanced test that assessed the
following learning objectives:
– What the student remembered (17%)
– What the student understood (50%)
– What the student analyzed (10%)
– TOTAL = 100%
A Blueprint for a Reading Test with
Points in Three Cognitive Levels
LEARNING
OBJECTIVES:
Define new vocab
Remember
Understand
5
Use new vocab in sentences
Comprehend main points in the
story
5 (17%)
Total
5 (17%)
5
5 (17%)
10
10 (33%)
Connect elements from the
story (character, plot, setting)
with own life or other texts
Total
Analyze
15 (50%)
10
10 (33%)
10 (33%)
30 (100%)
Implications District/Student Learning
• Builds a toolkit of various assessments for teachers to use depending
on topics being assess.
• Provides assessment that are more suited for higher order thinking.
• Students not only replicate knowledge; furthermore, they are able
to transform it.
• Follows the belief that all students are capable of higher order
thinking tasks, difficulty can be changed based on the need of the
learners.
• Teaching thinking skills increases development of cognitive skills,
promotes achievement in school subjects, and motivation to learn.
• Supports Common Core Standards
Reflection
How to Design Questions and Tasks to Assess Student Thinking
provides many useful strategies to engage learners in higher order
thinking skills. By focusing on building multiple choice questions,
performance based assessments, and opened ended questions
that assess the content being taught as well as higher level
thinking. As a result, students are able to develop the ability to dig
deeper into a topic and be able to apply knowledge to multiple
subject areas. This book challenges teachers to examine their
assessments to not only concentrate on content knowledge but on
thinking skills. While encouraging teachers to look at their
assessment practices, it also provides supports and examples to
begin creating these types of assessments.