Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The 2nd Click is Worse Than the First

What happens when a student in Reading Workshop misses a question on Study Island?  They click on the next choice, of course.



This is how it works:

1.  A student logs on to Study Island and chooses the topic.
2.  He looks at the question and then skims the essay.
3.  He rereads the question and answer choices.
4.  He clicks on the one that sounds right.
5.  He says, "shoot, I missed it."
6.  Then he goes mouse crazy--Click, Click, Click

Somewhere along the way, he gets the right answer.  After all, there are only four choices, so he has to get it right sooner or later.  For some reason, after students miss a question, the rate of answering speeds up. 

WHY???????????

When a student misses an answer, they need to

S    L    O    W        D    O    W    N!

The key to good scores is to missing as few as possible.  When a student misses with their first choice, the odds increase from a 25% chance to a 33% chance of getting the question right.  If a student uses the skill of eliminating nonsensical answers, at the worst he would have a 50/50 shot at answering the question correctly. 

I am not sure why missing an answer causes students to go click crazy and start guessing, but I have seen it happen over and over.   For students that want to be successful on Study Island, missing an answer means it is time for super slow motion.  Reread the essay. Reread the question.  Find the place in the passage the question is focusing.  Eliminate bad answers.  Then you will be ready to get the answer right!
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been going back and forth Study Island and The Reading Workshop reading bach and forth trying to get some advise. Well it worked.I went to this blog post and I used some of the choices and to tell you the truth they all work i got around 98.7- 100% each time. I hope that people use the advise that you have givin' because it is all really good advise that works.

Anonymous said...

Mr.McGuire,

I do the same thing about what you are saying and I always did the click, click, click thing. Now I don't do that and I have got more questions right because I go back and find the answer in the the passage. I know a lot of other kids that do the same thing(click,click,click).

Mr. McGuire said...

Destiny and Jessika,

I am glad you guys are finding the tips useful. Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

I used to do the click,click,click and it does not help, it only makes it worse. You have a better chance of getting it right the second time if you go back and check in the passage. It is not going to hurt you to go back it only takes you two minutes maybe.