quiz

Sharon set up a short quizzes for pupils at Key Stage 3

Sharon wrote about the thinking behind the quiz, the plan for implementation and the feedback.

Background

Having used my placement school’s VLE to upload SoW for years 7 and 8 I now want to experiment with using more advanced features. I decided to create a quiz as this would have the added bonus of providing me with additional evaluation. I wanted to create a quiz that would reinforce the work we had covered in class. I also liked the idea of being able to offer direct and differentiated feedback to the students. The idea could then be developed into having tests as homework, as I would be able to build in the scaffolding needed to enable each individual to complete the work correctly.

Planning for implementation

I want	This means.....	Notes
Easy to follow quizzes	Questions have to be very clear and lay out uncluttered	I will have to work out how to do this, but it should be within my capabilities to do so, otherwise I will seek help from my school mentor.
To reinforce work covered in class	Looking carefully at topics covered and not spring surprises. This first quiz will be about the scratch SoW we have just covered.	I need to refer closely to content and look for different levels of difficulty. The questions need to be linked closely to the SoW.
To provide an entry point for everyone	Questions have to be clear, supported by pictures or sound if possible	I can build up levels of difficulty. Some questions should be simple recall whilst others more conceptual, applying principles learnt to other situations i.e. general programming as opposed to just scratch.
To offer feedback	Right / wrong answers should be explained	This is more than just saying Correct / Incorrect. Each incorrect answer should give an idea of where they are going wrong and therefore structured and focused feedback should enable the correct answer to be arrived at.
Add value	A link so that they could email questions. This would provide invaluable feedback to me on any misunderstandings or further clarity that may be needed in future lessons. It is not so that I can be there to ‘teach’ 24/7.	I may need help in setting this up.

 

Planning for evaluation

I want	I will
Were the quizzes easy to follow?	Dry run the quiz and observe pupils
Was class work reinforced?	Observe pupils and look at test scores
Was there an entry point for everyone?	Ask less able students
Was feedback useful?	Observe and ask pupils to explain the feedback
Was the email link used?	Monitor any messages

 

Implementation

 Once the quiz had been designed and implemented on the VLE I was able to ask one class of students to complete it.

Pupil evaluation

Comments gathered from the students were that it was easy to follow. Some said that they liked and used the feedback for individual answers, others hadn’t realised it had been given. Most thought the questions were easy and hard.

Personal thoughts

The quiz itself was relatively easy to enter onto the VLE. I had some difficulty working out how to incorporate a picture ( code cut) so that I could then ask subsequent questions to test their understanding. The way I worked round this was to include a short answer question that allowed me to upload an image, however the VLE treated this as a question and therefore needed an answer. Although I tried to make this clear by instructing the quiz users to just answer yes, this question caused the most confusion. Is there a way to incorporate images without the need to treat them as a question?

I was surprised that most students found it easy/hard when there was a large proportion of lower ability taking it. I think this came about because although I had thought I had made the questions one attempt only, the students said they were able to re-enter their answers until they made the correct choice. This then made them think the quiz was easy as they finished with a high score, not having taken account of how many tries they took to reach it. In the future therefore I would definitely ensure that any multi-choice answers were one attempt only.

Although the feedback I received about the look of the quiz was good, I felt that it was a little lack-lustre, but I would need someone to show me how this could be improved.

 

Frances and a 6th form quiz

Frances was working with 6^th form using the VLE to upload her notes so that the class had access to them. The 6^th form were familiar with the VLE, and some kept their notes electronically. Frances decided to introduce interactivity by building a quiz on a case study they had been looking at in preparation for an examination. It was hoped that the students responses would be met with feedback on each question in addition to the number of correct or incorrect answers. Frances also decided that there should be questions of different difficulty levels so that all could answer some questions, but also allowed for challenge. Unfortunately, this facility was not available on the school VLE, so she used her University’s VLE Quiz Maker package. The only problem with this was it did not allow feedback to go straight to the teacher.

In her evaluation, Frances commented:

 The pupils who have completed the quiz have said that the quiz has made them look more carefully at the case study. In addition, someone said it had improved their understanding of how to identify Inputs, Processes and Outputs ...I was particularly pleased about this because many students had struggled with homework on this topic.

The class teacher and I felt the quiz was effective in making pupils look more carefully at the case study.

 

Ed

Ed decided to create a quiz using the quiz builder tool as he felt that it was one of the more useful, but undervalued features, on the VLE. He decided to build a quiz to assess the understanding on a topic they had already covered but about which they were still having difficulty. In building a quiz, Ed realised that there were some considerations to make such as, including questions of varying complexity to include all students, limiting time to answer the questions. The quiz builder structure allowed questions to be set out in different orders to make copying answers of a neighbour less likely. Ed followed the activity with a discussion to see how the more and least able had felt about the quiz.

Ed commented: The pupils felt that the quiz was challenging but at the same time provided easier questions. One pupil commented that they would have preferred a more varied mix of questions other than essay, true or false and multiple-choice questions, but other pupils felt that the mix of questions was sufficient enough to test them. All pupils enjoyed this form of assessment.

 

Scott and Year 9

Scott was using RM’s We-Learn system, which combines Kaleidos and SharePoint functionality. He chose to use quiz builder with a Year 9 class to examine their knowledge on business letter writing, which they had covered in the previous lesson. He found that although it was possible to import a class list from SIMS, there were quite a number of processes involved in creating and launching the quiz. Scott made use of the different styles of question and commented afterwards that:

The entire class successfully accessed and completed the test, though there were a few technical issues which delayed the test starting for some students. I was pleased to see the class demonstrate what they had learnt by completing the quiz, though disappointed the quiz did not provide feedback to students.

Following the quiz Scott highlighted advantages and disadvantages of using a VLE quiz. One advantage is that the quiz can be re-used with the same students or another class. Students who are off ill can also access it at home. Possible technical problems are a disadvantage and he cites that there is a limitation on the question types available. It is also not possible to give feedback on the question answers, although a mark sheet can be printed after the class have completed the test.

Scott followed the quiz with an on-line survey.... From this survey I have learnt that (from this particular class at least) students enjoy online learning and a high percentage have computer and internet access at home.

When considering the project he wrote:

I can see that VLEs can be extremely useful at sharing and storing resources, in addition to testing student’s knowledge. It can be more appealing than a written quiz, although considerable preparation is required for an online test to be produced and made available for students to complete.