As we continue to explore different tools and resources which schools can use as to take classes online through our ‘Technologies for School Resilience’ blog series, we have come to understand from teachers conducting virtual classes that student engagement is a hurdle that most of them continue to face.
Why is it the case? One – The lack of physical proximity implies that teachers are not able to get instantaneous feedback on the effectiveness of their teaching delivery. Two – Most of the virtual classes are a one-way street, wherein the teacher gives the student attendees instructions on how an exercise is to be done or a problem to be solved. Three – One cannot control the environment at the student’s house to ensure 100% attention to the virtual class.
Some insights into Behavioral science tenets which we have gained over the years by conducting our GMC Calibrator Digital Accelerator Program can help teachers in solving the ‘engagement’ conundrum. Student attention can be captured if teachers can:
- Increase interactivity of students – by enabling them to ask questions, doubts or clarifications as well as through animated slides and interactive worksheets which students can fill real-time
- Incentivize their attention through gamification of quizzes
We dealt with the former in detail in our previous blog (Read: Upping the Engagement Quotient of Virtual Classes | Part 1- Google Slides and Pear Deck). In today’s blog, we introduce you to a highly interactive tool called Quizizz for teachers to conduct quizzes during ‘live’ virtual classrooms as well as give it as an assessment for home assignments.
What is Quizizz?
Quizizz is a self-paced learning tool. Teachers can incorporate Quizizz into instruction, review, and assessment to support students in Pre-K through College. With Quizizz the teachers can conduct student-paced assessments in a fun and engaging way.
One of the reasons we recommend Quizizz is because it integrates seamlessly with Google classroom, if you are using it as a digital learning management system (LMS).
Watch: An Overview of Quizizz
How does Quizizz work?
The teacher starts a game
As a teacher, you can log into Quizizz with your Google credentials and view a library of public quizzes. You can search for quizzes by the name of the Subject or the username of the creator of the quiz. You can use Collections to organize quizzes which have been previously conducted. If you want, you can create your own quiz using the Quiz Editor.
Watch: How should teachers use Quizizz?
Watch: How to use Collections for your class quiz
Once you’ve picked a quiz, you can conduct it in class in the live mode or assign it as a homework game for students to practice on their own time. You share the link and game code with the students.
Read: Assigning a game in remote setting
You can create custom memes for your quizzes which show up as an image for every correct and incorrect response given by the student. You can even set a background music for the quiz countdown as well as during the quiz.
Watch: Creating Meme set for your quiz
What’s more? You can choose from a variety of settings like whether to show the answers in-game or post-game, set a question timer, show leaderboard (which infuses competitive spirit and keeps students on their toes), shuffle questions as well as answer options (so that students do not have time to share answers with each other) and whether to show memes or not for the responses given.
Students play the quiz
The students can use any device with a browser to go to the link. They enter the game code and their name and are ready to play! The students can play assigned game at any time and can play the same quiz any number of times.
The teacher can view the report
Quizizz auto grades all your quizzes and you can download and print these reports in different formats. You can view results of all games you hosted. You can use the feedback from reports to change your lesson plan in real-time. The reports give you a clear view of your overall class performance as well as a breakdown for each student.
These student-specific reports can also be emailed to their parents.
Our Take: Why Quizizz will work for your school?
- Student-paced: Questions appear on each student’s screen, so they can answer questions at their own pace, and review their answers at the end.
- Thousands of public quizzes: Amazing teachers around the world create thousands of great questions on Quizizz every day! This community effort generates great content that everyone can use.
- Quiz Editor: The Quizizz editor makes creating quizzes is easy. You can pluck questions from any quiz, easily add images from the internet
- Reports: Reports give you detailed class-level and student-level insights for every quiz you conduct.
- Quiz Customization: Teachers have multiple options to customize their quiz session to toggle the level of competition, speed, and other factors.
- Engaging: Quizizz makes conducting student assessments either as home work or live classes fun for both students as well as teachers.
What do you think of the recommendation of this tool? If you have questions about its usage or have an opinion on the suitability of this tool for your school, let us know in the comments section below.
We will continue to share more recommendations that are country specific on technological tools and resources you can use for your school during this phase of COVID19 lockdown in our future blogs.
About Aishwarya Saxena
