Quizzes - How can quizzes benefit you and your students?

In its most basic form, quizzes are a learning tool that assesses retention of knowledge. But when done well, quizzes also serve two very important functions.

  1. For you, as an instructor, quizzes can provide valuable feedback on your teaching.
  2. For students, quizzes can be used as a crucial building block towards strong critical thinking skills and can provide immediate feedback about what the student's have learned or need more practice on. 

When testing to measure a student's ability to retrieve information, there are multiple net effects that occur. Accompanied by appropriate instruction, testing encourages students to engage and organize the material to an extent they may not otherwise do. On the next page - "What do great quizzes look like" - we will discuss some teaching strategies to help your students get the most out of quizzes. Similarly, on the "How do you build quizzes" page, we will also look at various question types that will help you measure your desired outcomes.

Once a quiz has been graded, the real fun then begins for you as instructor. Quizzes are only as effective as you want them to be. Canvas has powerful quiz analytics  Links to an external site.that allow you to look closely at individual student performances as well as focus in on specific questions. In addition, there are course analytics Links to an external site. so that if you give weekly quizzes you can track both individual and course-wide progress.

For further reading:

Roediger, H. L., Putnam, A. L., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Ten benefits of testing and their applications to educational practice. In J. Mestre & B. Ross (Eds.), Psychology of learning and motivation: Cognition in education (pp. 1-36). Oxford: Elsevier. Link from Research Gate Links to an external site. 

Romo, S.(2010, August 25) “Using Quizzes to Measure Teaching Effectiveness: How Do You Measure Up?” Education World: Using Quizzes to Measure Teaching Effectiveness.   www.educationworld.com/a_curr/profdev/profdev180.shtml Links to an external site..

Smith, M, and Y Weinstein. “The Many Benefits of Retrieval Practice.” The Learning Scientists, 5 May 2016, www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/5/5-1 Links to an external site..

Weimar, M. (2017, January 24) “Do Quizzes Improve Student Learning? A Look at the Evidence.” Faculty Focus |n Higher Ed Teaching & Learning, www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/quizzes-improve-student-learning Links to an external site.. Includes a short list of additional sources

Willyard, C. (2017, July 26). The Benefits of Pop Quizzes. Retrieved December 01, 2017, from http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/10/benefits-pop-quizzes Links to an external site.

 Zeiger, S. (2017, August 24). "10 Reasons to Quiz Students."   http://www.helpteaching.com/blog/10-reasons-to-quiz-students.html Links to an external site.