Incorporating frequent quizzing encourages students to practice memory retrieval, which results in deeper, long-term learning.
Assessment, Best Practices, Small Teaching Tip, Teaching Advice

Small Teaching Tip #6: The Benefits of Frequent Quizzing

In a previous post, I discussed the important role memory retrieval plays in learning.  To briefly review: each time we recall a piece of information, we strengthen the neural pathways that move the information from our long-term memories to our working memories.  So the more times we retrieve the information, the more deeply we learn it.  This is known as the “testing effect.”

There are numerous ways to encourage students to practice memory retrieval, but one of the best strategies is frequent quizzing.

Tips for Frequent Quizzing

While quizzing is an effective method to practice memory retrieval, not all quizzes are created equal.  There are a few empirically-tested stipulations that must be considered:

  • First, make the quizzes count towards the course grade.  While we would love our students to complete quizzes simply for the joy of learning, most require extra incentive.  That being said, the quizzes should be relatively low-stakes.  The purpose of these quizzes is to practice retrieval, not to have an anxiety attack each week.
  • Second, avoid the pop quiz.  Pop quizzes are only effective at intimidating students into coming to class.  For most students, they do not encourage actual learning.  But quizzes that students know about in advance do.  Rest assured, these assessments do not need to be lengthy or require labor-intensive grading (there are countless instructional technologies that can help facilitate this process).
  • Third, design quizzes to be at least partially cumulative.  This requires students to reach back to concepts covered earlier in the term, developing deeper understanding and more complex mental models.  Remember: greater retrieval efforts equal greater learning (note the emphasis on the word effort).
  • Fourth, include question types that will be similar to what students can expect on exams.  This allows students to familiarize themselves with those formats so the exam is a test of knowledge instead of exam-taking ability.
  • Finally, occasionally assign quizzes that students complete before they learn new material.  This may seem strange, but a pre-quiz encourages students to consult their previous knowledge to help them grapple with new ideas.

If you don’t have enough class time to devote to frequent quizzes, consider using online quizzes through OAKS.  Most textbook publishers provide gigantic test banks that provide more than enough questions to create multiple quizzes throughout the semester. These banks are designed to be quickly imported into OAKS and quizzes can be automatically-graded, making quiz creation and administration simple.  But to ensure students are practicing retrieval, restrict the time limit so they don’t have the leeway to look up every answer in their notes or book (20-50 seconds per multiple choice question is advisable).

Providing frequent opportunities for retrieval will not only help your students remember important information, it will also open the door to higher levels of cognition.  I’ve shared one simple but powerful way to help your students learn that does not require an overwhelming amount of grading or extra preparation. Want more ideas?  Check out the rest of our Small Teaching Tips series!

References

Roediger, H. L., Agarwal, P. K., McDaniel, M. A., & McDermott, K. (2011). Test-enhanced learning in the classroom: Long-term improvements from quizzing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 17, 382-395.

Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of testing memory: Basic research and implications for educational practice. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 181-210.

Leeming, F. C. (2002). The exam-a-day procedure improves performance in psychology classes. Teaching of Psychology, 29, 210-212.

Lyle, K. B., & Crawford, N. A. (2011). Retrieving essential material at the end of lectures improves performance on statistics exams. Teaching of Psychology, 38, 94-97.

Richland, L. E., Kornell, N., & Kao, L. S. (2009). The pretesting effect: Do unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 15, 243-257.


This post is part of a series which presents low risk, high reward teaching ideas, inspired by James Lang’s book Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning.

Did you know?
Assessment

DID YOU KNOW…YOU CAN BLIND-GRADE QUIZ ESSAYS IN OAKS?

DID YOU KNOW? BLIND GRADING IN OAKS

I just learned that the OAKS Quizzes tool allows you to grade short answer, essay, or long answer questions without knowing which student wrote them.  This blind grading feature is something that has evidently been around for awhile but is so nicely hidden most users wouldn’t even know to look for it and is a great way to help remove grading bias.

  1. To blind grade a quiz begin by clicking on Grade > Quizzes from the upper navigation.
  2. Next to the appropriate quiz click Grade from the dropdown arrow.
  3. Click the Questions tab
  4. Click Blind Marking
  5. Click on the first question to grade
  6. Read the response and type in a grade and feedback
  7. You can navigate between student responses using the arrows at the top
  8. When finished click Save  then repeat the process for any other questions.

Images of the above directions

 

Teacher and students engaged in discussion
Assessment, Best Practices, Pedagogy, Teaching Advice

The Essential Role of Memory Retrieval in Student Learning

Too often, at professional development workshops or on education blogs, there’s an emphasis on designing courses that encourage students to reach the summit of Bloom’s pyramid.  There’s absolutely nothing inadvisable about helping students analyze, evaluate, and explore.  But in our race to the top, we often overlook the importance of remembering, understanding, and even applying (especially in our upper-level courses).  According to cognitive psychologists, this is a mistake that can have damaging effects on student learning.  Without foundational knowledge, it is difficult, if not impossible, for students to demonstrate higher order levels of thinking.  According to cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham:

“Thinking well requires knowing facts, and that’s true not simply because you need something to think about. The very processes that teachers care most about–critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem-solving–are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is stored in long-term memory (not just found in the environment).” (quoted in Lang, 2016, p. 16)

Without a solid understanding of basic concepts, theories, and processes, a student cannot think creatively or critically about a discipline’s body of knowledge.  This academic groundwork allows students to integrate new knowledge in deeper ways and make more sophisticated connections.

Unfortunately, students often make poor choices when they attempt to learn new information.  Have you ever asked your students (maybe after the class did terribly on an exam) how they studied?  Often, students will say things like “I re-read my notes” or “I made flash cards and read them over and over again.”  Research has demonstrated that these are some of the least effective strategies for committing information to long-term memory.  Thus, if we care about our students’ learning, then we must design our courses in ways that actually help students learn, not simply cram and forget.  

Exams are considered by many to be the gold standard of measuring student learning.  However, most instructors are not familiar with the cognitive science literature and, therefore, do not design exams that actually result in student learning.  Better understanding the retrieval effect (sometimes called the testing effect) will help us to create more effective assessments.

How many times have you claimed your “brain is full” or “you can only remember so much”?  Our long-term memories are actually capable of holding quite a lot of information.  Cognitive psychologist Michelle Miller argues “the limiting factor is not storage capacity, but rather the ability to find what you need when you need it.  Long-term memory is rather like having a vast amount of closet space–it is easy to store many items, but it is difficult to retrieve the needed item in a timely fashion” (quoted in Lang, 2016, p. 28).  She explains that each time we recall a piece of information, we strengthen the neural pathways that move the information from our long-term memories to our working memories.  This is key.  The more times we retrieve the information, the better.

Book Small Teaching by James Lang

To encourage your students to practice retrieval, try these strategies from James Lang’s book Small Teaching:

The Retrieval Syllabus.  Most of us distribute our syllabi on the first day of class and never bring it up again, until a student violates a policy or makes a complaint.  Instead of thinking of your syllabus as a contract, envision it as a resource that is continuously referred to throughout the semester.  Fill out the course schedule with details that will help students see how the course will progress, how topics connect to one another, and how knowledge is organized in your discipline.  Then, during class, ask students to look at the document to orient themselves as well as remind them of what has been discussed thus far.

Warm-up Review.  In the first few minutes of class, ask students to write down on a scrap sheet of paper the topics that were covered the class period before or the main themes from the reading.  Ask students to share their “take aways”: What do they think was the most important point?  What struck them?  What piqued their interest?

I’ve done something similar with my students, but I simply asked the class to provide a review orally.  Typically, the same few students are the only ones who reply.  Thus, not everyone is encouraged to practice retrieval, so this method is less effective than asking all students to write down their recap.  This simple exercise has the added benefit of an intellectual “warm-up” — prepping students for learning and participating during class.

Exit Tickets.  Similarly, at the end of class, have students to complete an exit ticket.  For example, you could ask students to write down two things they learned and one question they still have.  This requires retrieval as well as provides valuable information about what students identify as important and what they are struggling with.  This can serve as a great jumping off point for the next class period.

What is absolutely essential for both warm-ups and exit tickets is that students are told not to consult their notes or textbook when responding.  If students look up the answers, they are not practicing retrieval.  It’s also important to explain to students the purpose of these exercises.  You’re not trying to test them or give them busy-work; you’re trying to help them learn more effectively.

Frequent Quizzing.  Frequent, low-stakes quizzes are one of the best ways for students to strengthen their retrieval muscles.  Remember that the more we recall information, the stronger the neural pathways between long-term and working memory.  When creating quizzes, it’s essential that they are not weighted heavily.  The point is to encourage retrieval, not stress students out.  It’s also important to include question types that will be similar to what students can expect on exams.  This allows students to familiarize themselves with those formats so the exam is a test of knowledge instead of exam-taking ability.

If you don’t have enough class time to devote to frequent quizzes, consider using online quizzes, such as through your Learning Management System (LMS).  Most textbook publishers provide gigantic test banks that provide more than enough questions to create multiple quizzes throughout the semester. These banks are designed to be quickly imported into your LMS and quizzes can be automatically-graded, making quiz creation and administration simple.  To ensure students are practicing retrieval, restrict the time limit so they don’t have the leeway to look up every answer in their notes or book (30-60 seconds per multiple choice question is advisable).

Space Out Due Dates.  Students should complete multiple smaller assessments throughout the semester (as opposed to only one midterm and one final exam).  Intersperse lower stakes assessments (e.g. weekly quizzes, practice problems, minute papers) with higher stakes assessments (e.g. exams, research papers, lab reports).  According to James Lang, “the more frequently that your students have to check in and offer some demonstration of their learning, the more often you are giving them retrieval practice” (2016, p. 36).

Providing frequent opportunities for retrieval will not only help your students remember important information, it will also open the door to higher levels of cognition.  I’ve shared simple but powerful ways to help your students learn that do not require extra preparation, overwhelming amounts of grading, or even that much class time.  Want more ideas?  Check out James Lang’s fantastic book Small Teaching and then ask yourself, “what small changes can I make to help my students learn?”

Assessment, Innovative Instruction, instructional technology, Pedagogy, TLT, Web 2.0

Get Geddit to track understanding in your classroom

UPDATE: On 3/14/15, we received an email from Geddit notifying us that their servers will be shutdown on July 1, 2015. Contact your instructional technologist to review possible alternatives.

 

What is Geddit?

Geddit is an online tool that enables instructors to track understanding, instantly and privately, in their classrooms. Geddit is easy for students to use during class, and it can be viewed on any device with an internet browser. It takes just a moment for instructors to invite students to join a class and set up a lesson. There are many benefits to using Geddit in your courses, such as incorporating Just-in-Time Teaching, and we will touch on just a few of advantages and features in this overview.

Geddit Check-ins Overview
Geddit Check-ins Overview

 

How does it work?

During class, students can “check in” by self-assessing their understanding of the current topic being covered in class. Instructors can launch poll, multiple-choice, short answer (140 characters), long answer (unlimited characters), and math questions and view results in real-time.

Student Check-in View
Student Check-in View

 

Why should you try it?

The information tracked by Geddit makes it possible for instructors to adapt their teaching and the amount of time spent on certain topics to meet students’ needs. A quick glance at Geddit during class provides valuable information as challenging concepts are introduced and discussed.

Student reported understanding on the cell cycle. Green and blue colors indicate that most students indicate understanding.
Student reported understanding on the cell cycle. Green and blue colors indicate that most students responded with “I’ve got this!” or “I’m OK with this.”

 

The real benefit and strength of this web-based app is the variety of information both instructors and students can review after class. Instructors can view class understanding as a whole, along with responses from individual students. It is easy to view trends and fluctuations in class understanding by topic over the length of the class period. Students indicating confusion on certain topics are flagged allowing instructors to easily follow-up and manage struggling students. It is also possible to review responses to any questions asked through Geddit. Importantly, instructors can export all check-in information and question responses to a CSV file for sorting and grading purposes.

Geddit Check-ins Over time
Geddit Check-ins Over time

 

A further advantage of using Geddit is that students can revisit their own reports from a lesson and quickly see which topics they flagged as not being very clear. The report highlights topics students should study.

 

Students can easily find out which topics they need to review after class and before exams.
Students can easily find out which topics they need to review after class and before exams.

 

Where can you get Geddit?

Visit http://letsgeddit.com and sign up for a free account. Try Geddit on your most challenging classes.