Why you should pay attention to the questions which set the platform

Last semester I went on my first six-week teaching prac for the year.

While I was on prac I marked my first set of assignments.

In doing so I quickly found out why teachers mark students work accompanied with a hearty dose of wine.

The buzz of marking quickly wore away.

But one important thing was exposed.

Always start with multiple choice questions.

Why?

Because they quickly reveal the level of knowledge of the student.

Of course, multiple choice questions are easier to mark, but once they are completed and ranked, then you have a fairly clear order of the best-through-worst students.

This helps further marking because, as you subsequently mark from the best-to-worst, then you’ll quickly be able to discern what a quality answer (at least for that class/year) looks like.

We should do a similar thing when it comes to bible studies.

It is tempting to dive right into the “deep” questions, but this can be problematic if we overlook the questions which lay the platform.

No only do introduction and comprehension questions warm the group up by opening up avenues to talk and actually delve into the nuts-and-bolts of a passage, but they expose the depth that the group may be willing or capable of going.

These are the equivalent of the multiple choice questions in a school exam.

They give a foretaste of what to expect.

So, if you have a group that struggles to share or is having trouble grasping the details of a passage, then you’d be amiss to dive into deeper topic prematurely.