>How about individual mathematics faculty CREATING questions developed in
>the "context" of a problem. How about individual mathematics faculty
>CREATING questions that connect mathematics to other disciplines. How about
>individual mathematics faculty CREATING questions that connect mathematics
>to the events in the lives of our students. How about individual
>mathematics faculty CREATING questions that can't be done without
>technology. Etc. Etc.
I agree that individual instructors should be able to (and should) develop
interesting questions of their own. And this is an excellent forum for
sharing those ideas. However...
Most of us agree that students need to practice skills (our disagreements
are about how much, whether it is required or not, etc.) If we begin to
expect students to be able to answer questions that illustrate the
understanding of a concept as opposed to a specific skill more than we have
in the past, then we also need to provide the students with practice for
those questions (practice in understanding the directions, the time to
develop their own understanding of the question, the time to compare
different questions about the same concept,...). If the textbook I am
using does not provide the students with those types of questions in the
quantity and with the variety I want, then I have to provide them for the
student. I personally am willing to do that (as some others are) but there
are those that argue that they do not have the time nor the resources
available to develop such questions and distribute them to the class. It
is for these people that I think a repository (whether it is a textbook or
not I don't care) of questions should be available as well as those of us
who would like to dip into the repository periodically to find something
new and interesting.
The above argument also applies to exercises that _require_ the use of
technology. We cannot ask exactly the same questions now (using
technology) that we used to ask (before technology) so we need to develop
new exercises. We also need to provide a variety of such exercises to the
student. If there were a larger, easily available, well known source for
such questions, a broader usage of GPs in the classroom might result.
Again, I agree that instructors should be developing exercises, but face
it, not everyone will. So do we ignore those instructors (and their
students) or do we help them out?
Murphy
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Murphy Waggoner
Department of Mathematics
Simpson College
701 North C Street
Indianola, IA 50125
waggoner@storm.simpson.edu
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