How to Personalize Quizzes for Your Students

Failed Quizzes

            Sometimes it happens: the quiz is from a pre-set curriculum, it came recommended from another teacher trying to save you time, or it came from the great book, but the quiz itself is… rough.  In order to determine whether students have learned something, it’s necessary to assess them. While many teachers would probably dream of a day when they could only ask students whether they understand or remember a concept and that be an accurate determination of their knowledge, that fantasy land doesn’t currently exist. Data driven assessments are not only more lie-proof than a student’s word that they understand, but they are also criticism-resistant.

Why We Stick With Them

            When faced with judgmental parents and unsupportive administrators, there are few things more satisfying than having incontrovertible data to shut them down. Quizzes are one way to accomplish that sweet, sweet victory. However, as I mentioned previously, not all quizzes are perfect. While dodging complaints from parents and administrators, you might run from a drizzle into a monsoon. Students often grumble at quizzes. They claim that they are unfair, that they weren’t prepared, and that more than one answer could be correct. While no quiz is immune to critique, you can make it easier on yourself, by modifying the preset quizzes that are often handed to teachers.

What Vs. How

            At my new full-time job, there is a pre-set curriculum and while we are not allowed to deviate from the content, my co-workers have repeatedly decreed, “Change the how, not the what.” So as long as we cover what the curriculum includes like books, literary concepts, and vocab, we can change how we introduce, reinforce, review, and assess the material. During the last meeting, I had with my coworkers, they gave the new teachers, my neighbor teacher and I, a heads up that the quiz coming up was….rough. They weren’t kidding. When I looked at that quiz*, I couldn’t pass it.

Multiple Correct Answers

            If you can’t pass a quiz, that’s the clearest indication that you should modify it. So the first criteria of a decent quiz, is that the teacher could pass it easily. If you find yourself debating between two answers on the quiz, then your students are probably going to be even more confused. Save yourself some time.  You have a couple of options for how to fix this though.

(1) Pick one and get rid of the other. This is the simplest solution and works for when you could see both answers being right, but only one makes sense with how your class has been approaching the subject matter.

(2) Combine the answers into one correct answer. I like this option for when I could really see it going either way. For a straightforward example, in Frankenstein you could argue that both Dr. Frankenstein and his creation are both monsters. So I wouldn’t want students to have to chose between the two on a quiz.

(3) Go over the ‘more’ correct answer over and over in class and stress that though you could see B being correct, A is actually it. This works well to see if students are paying attention in class. Another clean example: You stress over and over again that you could easily answer that Okonkwo was a successful man at the beginning of the book Things Fall Apart, but by the end of the book he was one of the least successful since he wouldn’t adapt, though his ‘financial’ yam prospects had remained unchanged. So when you ask the question, “Was Okonkwo a successful man at the end of the book?” students have no excuse for picking “yes, he was a wealthy man with many yams” instead of “no, he refused to adapt to the changing times.”

Wordy Quotes

Another pitfall quizzes often have is asking students to provide support for a statement by choosing from some quotes. While this tests higher-level thinking, often the quotes are too long for the students to sift through what quote’s point is, let alone which one matches the argument in the question. My rule of thumb is if a student would have to block quote the option in question, the book passage is too long to utilize in “support this argument” questions. Likewise when asking students to pick out the main point of a passage, then don’t ask them to read (or even reread) more than a paragraph, at least not for high school. When filled with adrenaline, people are much more likely to make mistakes that they wouldn’t commit otherwise, which is contrary to our aim in assessing the students. I would much rather they engage with the book meaningfully. I, at least, don’t care if students are able to define Kafkaesque woken up from the middle of the night in the midst of the blaring or air raid sirens.

What About You?

How do you modify the standard quizzes for your students? How do you personalize it for your kids? How do you make it more difficult for those than need an extra challenge?

Notes:

*Two days before I had to give it, because first year teachers are taking it a day at a time trying not to drown. It’s fine? It’s fine.

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Image Credit: “social/personal knowledge quiz” by Mai Lee