😄 Whoa: Student-created quizzes??

Plus some cool Diffit activities!

🧠 What REALLY creates long-term memory

How is it that students remember some things they learned for the rest of their lives …

… and they forget other things before they walk out your classroom door?

Brain science has a lot to say about how we form long-term memory.

Our post, 10 ways to improve students’ long-term memory, has lots of concrete suggestions.

(One quick easy one: the “two things” strategy.✌ Simply ask, “What are two things you learned about this topic?” It’s easy … anyone can come up with two things. Plus, it encourages retrieval, which is proven to form long-term memory. It’s a great way to start class — or to wrap it up.)

Here’s one of my very favorite ways to form student long-term memory:

Student-created quizzes.  

In today’s 💡 Big Idea, I’ll share how it works and how to get started.

Inside:

  • 🎧️ Have you subscribed to my podcast?

  • 👀 DTT Digest: March Madness, Google, Quizizz

  • 💡 The Big Idea: Long-term learning with student-created quizzes

  • 💻 Tech Tip: Social media-style summary

  • 😄 Smile of the day: “The queen”

  • 👋 How we can help

🎧️ Have you subscribed to my podcast?

Have you subscribed to my podcast? 🎧️ 

I host the Digital Learning Podcast with Holly Clark. We talk about all sorts of topics related to blended learning. We’ve been focusing a lot on artificial intelligence recently.

We took a break for a bit while I transitioned back into the classroom, but we just recorded an episode that we’ll release next week.

Subscribe so you don’t miss out!

👀 DTT Digest

4 teaching resources worth checking out today

  • 🏀 ICYMI Bring March Madness into your class with STEM & the NBAThe Achievery has partnered with Learn Fresh to show you how to use real-world NBA data and storylines to bring the power of March Madness into your class with 28 free STEM lessons!

  • Google Drive gets dark mode — Check to see if it’s available by clicking on the settings wheel icon at the top. From there you can choose “dark” under Appearance.

  • 🔀 Randomize your Google Slides — If you use Google Slides as flashcards or just want to switch things up in a presentation you can use the Slides Randomizer chrome extension to automatically shuffle your slide deck.

  • 🏆 Get Quizizz AI certified — Earn your Quizizz AI certification and discover practical ways to use Quizizz AI in the classroom.

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

AI image created with Microsoft Designer

Make learning long-term with student-created quizzes

🧐How do they work?

After learning, students come up with one question that could be asked on a quiz.

Collect the questions and use them to help students retrieve and review.

Here's what I love about this. For one, it puts students in the quiz creator's seat. It's a different perspective that helps them understand the whole process better.

Second, it's not something imposed on them by a teacher. They're the ones making the questions.

Also: you don't have to grade these quizzes. One more time: you DON'T have to grade them! Again, remember, low-stakes leads to long-term memory. It's a learning strategy, not an assessment. 

🤷🏽‍♀️How do I get started?

Here's a fun, techy way to make these quizzes: Collect student questions in a Google Form and import them into a Quizizz game. Check out this slide deck tutorial or follow these instructions …

  • Create a Google Form with the following questions: Question (short answer), Option 1 (short answer), Option 2 (short answer), Option 3 (short answer), Option 4 (short answer), Option 5 (short answer), Correct Answer (multiple choice: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Time (number of seconds) or make a copy of this template.

  • Share a link to fill out the form with your students. They type their question and possible answers, identify the correct answer, and choose how much time.

  • When they're done, download the responses spreadsheet as an Excel spreadsheet.

  • Go to Quizizz (quizizz.com) and create a new quiz. Choose the "Import from spreadsheet" option to pull in your students' questions.

  • Complete your quiz and share a link with students so they can take it!

⬇️ Go deeper

💻 Tech Tip

🤳🏽 Social media style summary

Free this month!

In this Google Slides based activity from Diffit, students create a caption for a "social media" post to summarize what they learned.

The activity also includes slides for reading the passage and taking notes, short answer questions, multiple choice questions, and a discussion worksheet for open-ended prompts.

How to use it

  • Go to beta.diffit.me and either log in or sign up for your free account.

  • Choose what you want to generate resource for. You can insert a URL, any text or excerpt, or search for “literally anything”.

  • Click “Generate resources”

  • Once your resources have been generated click “Get student activities” and scroll over to “Social media style summary slides” under Summarize Learning.

  • Click “Get activity” and open in Google Slides!

Your Google Slides presentation is completely editable so change it up however you’d like before assigning to your class.

😄 Smile of the day

She definitely deserves the title “the queen.” 👑 

h/t georgie sook, Jennifer Grace and Bored Teachers via Teacher Memes Facebook group

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

  1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

  2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

  3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Choose the best fit for you ...

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.