Description

  • An Open-Ended Response is a meaningful answer to a question, task, or problem presented to students that has more than one possible answer. When teachers utilize this effective practice, students can provide a quality open-ended response clearly demonstrating an understanding of the content and an explanation or opinion that extends beyond basic understanding. Open-ended responses can be used to promote curiosity, reasoning ability, creativity, and student independence. This type of response allows for different levels of complexity allowing for the personalization of learning.

    • Determine the lesson objective and what students need to master by the end of the lesson or unit.
    • Create and post tasks that will encourage students to express their ideas, thoughts, and/or feelings based on knowledge of the content.
    • Determine how student responses and/or work products will be assessed.  The teacher may use an existing rubric, create a rubric, assign a completion grade, or have students complete a self-reflection tool.
    • Assign open-ended tasks to students during and/or after the lesson. Allow time for students to generate and share their answers and products.
    • Share expectations by modeling and/or presenting an open-ended response.
    • Tell students how their answers and products will be assessed.
    • Monitor work time and provide written or verbal feedback to promote reasoning ability.
    • Assess student answers and products using the chosen assessment tool. Teacher-written or verbal feedback is essential in promoting reasoning ability.
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