Photo by creative commons from n2linux
It’s been observed that integrating fun and learning helps students (of all ages) absorb and retain information better.
With that said, anytime you have the chance to make learning a fun experience, you should do it! Even long proven teaching tools such as quizzes, can be turned into an enjoyable learning opportunity if you do following steps below.
1. Know your students
Find out what you can about your students. I usually ask them for their favorite books, sports, color, TV shows, comics and hobbies to get to know them more. The information helps me relate better to them.
2. Relate the topic with their interests
Here is where you let your creative juices flow! If you are a history teacher, for example, and you’ve just given a lecture on the Salem Witch Trials, the next step for you to get your students to love your quizzes is by making some of the questions relevant to today.
A sample question or statement could be:
The accused witches from Salem behaved similar to the characters from the TV show Charmed.
(The correct answer is no since the following were observed from the alleged witches: seizures, blasphemous screaming and being in trance-like states. Very different from how Charmed characters are.)
3. Personalize questions
For one-on-one lessons, this is where knowing your students well will come in handy. I once taught English to a 16 year old girl, Natasha, who loved strawberry ice cream. In one of my fill-in-the-blanks vocabulary quizzes, I gave her these questions:
Choose the correct idioms for the sentences below: without question, turned out
____________, the best ice cream flavor for Natasha is strawberry!
This test teacher gave me ____________ to be very easy. I was worried for nothing!
While I was waiting for her to finish the test, I actually heard her chuckle a few times. Giving it a personal feels helps remove the sting and dread of quizzes, making quiz taking a fun and enjoyable experience.
4. Mix things up!
Instead doing the standard (and boring) question and answer format, spice it up a bit! I sometimes use a more “conversational” tone to make it more appealing for my students.
Instead of this:
The Salem Witch Trials happened during 1692.
True
False
Do this:
Ruby: Hey Andy, do you remember what year Professor Smarty said the Salem Witch Trials started?
Andy: Yeah, I think he said 1692.
a. This is oh so true!
b. Andy was probably daydreaming in class because the correct answer is 1697.
(The correct answer is 1692)
5. Make quizzes more visually engaging
Stay away from paper if you can and take advantage of technology.
Our quiz maker software, Question Writer, allows me to do the following things to my quizzes:
- add pictures, audio files and videos (students are sure to enjoy this!)
- select fun themes for each of quiz
- give feedback to the student at the end of the question for both correct or incorrect answers
Of course there are tons of other quiz making software programs out there that make the whole quiz taking experience an enjoyable one.
So what are you waiting for? Get creative! Download Question Writer and start creating quizzes that you students will love!