WEBVTT 00:00:00.506 --> 00:00:09.576 [Music] 00:00:10.076 --> 00:00:16.666 I'm Mark McDaniel, Professor of Psychology and Education at Washington University in St. Louis. 00:00:17.206 --> 00:00:25.116 Typically in the educational setting we've been taught to think of quizzes and tests as ways 00:00:25.116 --> 00:00:28.386 to evaluate the student or ways to assign grades to the student, 00:00:28.386 --> 00:00:31.696 as the term that we use is summative assessments. 00:00:32.625 --> 00:00:37.856 But we know from the basic memory research, from research that I have done and other people here 00:00:37.916 --> 00:00:43.506 at Washington University and other locations, that when you have to retrieve information 00:00:43.506 --> 00:00:49.556 from memory it produces potent, potent advantages to further retention of the information. 00:00:50.246 --> 00:00:53.056 So now let's translate this to the educational situation. 00:00:53.516 --> 00:00:57.756 When we give tests to students, we're requiring them to retrieve information. 00:00:58.296 --> 00:01:03.676 So, essentially a quiz or a test is an opportunity to practice retrieving information. 00:01:04.546 --> 00:01:08.806 Looked at from that perspective, we could think of using quizzes as learning devices, 00:01:08.806 --> 00:01:11.566 not as necessarily summative assessments. 00:01:11.966 --> 00:01:19.546 That is we might think about giving quizzes frequently in the classroom in low-stakes settings. 00:01:19.546 --> 00:01:23.656 By that I mean quizzes are worth very little toward the final grade, 00:01:23.916 --> 00:01:28.146 or they are worth nothing at all; they are just given as exercises for the students. 00:01:28.726 --> 00:01:35.726 And in those situations we believe that given the retrieval practice that the student gets 00:01:35.726 --> 00:01:42.786 from the quizzes, also given the information the student gets about what they know 00:01:42.786 --> 00:01:48.326 and don't know, those things combined promote a very effective learning device. 00:01:48.876 --> 00:01:54.356 And we have had the opportunity, thanks to sponsorship from the department of education, 00:01:54.886 --> 00:02:02.436 to go into a middle school and implement quizzing programs in middle school science classes, 00:02:02.766 --> 00:02:06.456 middle school English classes and middle school social studies classes. 00:02:06.946 --> 00:02:13.116 The findings in our middle school science classes with using quizzes are very, very exciting. 00:02:13.466 --> 00:02:18.306 So for example these middle school kids go over genetics, they go over anatomy, 00:02:18.306 --> 00:02:24.316 they go over evolution and we find that the information that's quizzed is then retained 00:02:24.316 --> 00:02:30.606 at about a 90 percent level at least-92 percent, 93 percent level-whereas on exams, 00:02:30.606 --> 00:02:35.586 information that hasn't been quizzed is remembered at about a 75 percent to 80 percent level. 00:02:36.046 --> 00:02:43.076 So retention of these core science concepts is dramatically improved through the use 00:02:43.076 --> 00:02:46.116 of simple little quizzes in the classrooms. 00:02:46.586 --> 00:02:51.076 Now I might also add that these quizzes are very palatable to the children 00:02:51.076 --> 00:02:52.156 in the middle school we're working 00:02:52.156 --> 00:02:56.346 in because we are implementing the quizzes with so called clicker systems. 00:02:56.716 --> 00:03:00.516 These are interactive remote systems, each kid has their own clicker, 00:03:01.016 --> 00:03:06.966 and the quiz is presented on a board in front of the classroom, 00:03:07.436 --> 00:03:11.426 and for every question each kid clicks in their answer. 00:03:11.786 --> 00:03:19.316 And if the teacher so desires, each student can see the responses for the class as a whole, 00:03:19.726 --> 00:03:23.576 and they can so in a sense have fun at this. 00:03:23.576 --> 00:03:26.766 It becomes a game to see how they are doing relative to the class, 00:03:27.026 --> 00:03:30.456 how they are doing relative to what they did on the previous quiz, 00:03:30.766 --> 00:03:36.126 and it's a game-like atmosphere in as much as the student isn't taking a test 00:03:36.126 --> 00:03:38.226 that they then have to hand in to the teacher. 00:03:38.586 --> 00:03:41.976 There is nothing as far as the student is concerned that's recorded. 00:03:42.316 --> 00:03:44.946 They're just responding to this quiz exercise. 00:03:45.356 --> 00:03:46.876 So the students love these quizzes. 00:03:46.876 --> 00:03:49.176 In fact, on days when they don't have quizzes, 00:03:49.536 --> 00:03:52.556 they say to the teacher when can we do our clicker quizzes. 00:03:52.946 --> 00:03:56.706 So these things turn out to be a fun part of the classroom, 00:03:57.126 --> 00:04:00.896 and in addition they have superb pedagogical value 00:04:00.896 --> 00:04:02.846 because the kids are learning from this quizzing. 00:04:03.296 --> 00:04:11.116 In many, many courses-from middle school to high school to college-there is a wealth 00:04:11.116 --> 00:04:13.756 of information that these kids have to learn. 00:04:13.786 --> 00:04:16.755 It's a tremendous amount of information; it grows every year. 00:04:17.435 --> 00:04:25.626 And so, it is the case that though we want students to be able to reason with and understand 00:04:25.626 --> 00:04:30.786 and be curious about information, we also have a core set of facts that they have to learn, 00:04:31.146 --> 00:04:37.246 and quizzing is a tremendous way to help students commit to memory these core sets 00:04:37.246 --> 00:04:38.406 of facts that they need to learn. 00:04:38.826 --> 00:04:42.626 There are a number of ways you can implement quizzing in the classrooms. 00:04:42.836 --> 00:04:47.916 One way is the traditional paper and pencil test, so you can simply present small quizzes 00:04:47.916 --> 00:04:50.196 to students at the end of the class 00:04:50.196 --> 00:04:54.436 or beginning of the class-whatever the preference is-and have students take 5 00:04:54.436 --> 00:04:56.146 to 6 minutes on answering those quizzes. 00:04:56.366 --> 00:05:03.266 You can subscribe to websites that essentially quiz through games. 00:05:03.686 --> 00:05:10.926 And teachers can, at these websites, input the content of the material that they think is core 00:05:11.466 --> 00:05:17.546 to their lessons, and then these quiz sites take the material and manifest the material 00:05:17.546 --> 00:05:23.076 as hangman games or concentration games-that is matching games where you turn over one square, 00:05:23.416 --> 00:05:26.556 you have to remember what was on that square and match it with a related item 00:05:26.556 --> 00:05:29.836 on another square-and other kinds of games. 00:05:30.156 --> 00:05:35.666 Another thing is that quizzing does not require extensive curriculum reform. 00:05:36.126 --> 00:05:38.836 Every teacher-no matter what their philosophy is, 00:05:38.836 --> 00:05:43.336 no matter how they like to teach the course-can introduce quizzing into the classroom 00:05:43.646 --> 00:05:47.376 with minimal effort and minimal disruption to the ordinary curriculum, 00:05:47.706 --> 00:05:53.056 and they can do so-and by doing so they can achieve big gains. 00:05:53.216 --> 00:05:58.096 So in summary, quizzing is more than just re-presentation in the material. 00:05:58.746 --> 00:06:03.226 It has effects because it promotes retrieval, practices retrieval, 00:06:03.566 --> 00:06:08.126 allows students to know what they don't know so they can further direct study efficiently, 00:06:08.506 --> 00:06:11.396 get students more involved in the learning process. 00:06:12.516 --> 00:06:17.940 [Music]