When I give a y/n quick quiz, now I leave the reading up. The students, in order to check their answer, pore over the text with intense attention to detail. It’s a way to make sure that the test has pedagogical value while at the same time guaranteeing the kids success on the test. A kid today said I was allowing cheating. Fine, so be it. I’m not into assessing – I’m into reps and building confidence in students.
CI and the Research (cont.)
Admins don’t actually read the research. They don’t have time. If or when they do read it, they do not really grasp it. How could
6 thoughts on “New Quick Quiz Detail”
Interesting.
No, this is NOT cheating. The only thing you’re NOT doing is assessing whether a kid has a great memory, and really, who cares about that? What you ARE doing is assessing whether they can understand what they read, which is really all that counts anyway.
The only difference between this new detail and creating a quiz with a reading passage followed by comprehension questions is that the Quick Quiz questions are asked orally, and don’t require the prep (which allows for some customization).
Typically, the Quick Quiz can be aced by anyone who was conscious in the room. It’s a total confidence booster, and gradebook-filler. I stopped using Quiz Quizzes because I “thought” they didn’t tell me much beyond who was conscious and not. That was when I “thought” that I needed a piece of paper to tell me whether or not a kid understood Latin. The moment I changed my mind on that, the more I started paying attention to the actual interactions with students.
Also, I don’t really buy it when teachers tell me “Oh, well MY assessments are actually part of the learning process, and students learn while taking them.” This new detail, however, is one way to actually do that.
Great epiphany, Ben.
Nice comment, Lance!
Does anyone have any helpful tip for using this idea when you are telling a story? The obstacle seems to me that it is not yet written up. We create a story for 20 min and I want to give a quick quiz (its whole point being QUICK). Does it take a 5-10 min dictation while typing and students listening before we can take a QQ then? I love this idea especially for my younger students and would like to use it more often except that most of my QQ’s are given BEFORE we have a reading to project.
Matthew, I do a similar thing in Step 2. I often do a 5-question quick quiz on a day focused around listening (story-asking, etc.). I leave up any new words (and their English equivalents) when I give the quick quiz.
It’s fine with me if they check the meaning again — they still need to understand the whole question or T/F statement, and they still need to have listened during the class to know how to answer. I think for some students, it’s their best attempt really to listen with the intent to understand that whole class period (because now there is a grade involved). It’s working with the limitations of being in school (ex, required grades & how some students are there just for a grade), without, hopefully, punishing kids who are slower processors with new stuff. Usually students get 4’s and 5’s on these quizzes. Anything below that & I want to ensure the student is getting all the comprehension checks that he or she needs during class.
Pictures? My students are not really good with acting things out (gets way too out-of-hand too quickly), so they do a lot of Pictados (Listen&Draw), or else I have pictures of my own on the board that I draw as we create the story. Or if you use a Class Artist, throw their work up on the projector. Pictures provide just as much scaffolding as a written text.
Thanks Ben. Great comments all.
I am in the position of having to give a recorded listening assessment for the company created test. The question, as Lance clarified, is what are we testing, comprehension or memory?
On my first listening selections, I realized that students might be hurt by all of the reading they had to do. To help remedy this I read the questions and answers aloud before playing the CD. (The assessment was so confusing they did poorly anyway, so we had to compensate by counting 5/10 equal to 100%.) I plan to continue doing this so that my strong listeners are not hampered by slow reading skills and so that it is clearer that we are not confusing listening and reading. There is already a separate reading section which has not listening component. Why would it? The purpose of a textbook is not to create solid, comprehending listeners.