Quiz: Not just a test of what you know!

How many of you think that a quiz is a way to test what you have learned? Well, maybe in school it was, but in the IDEA Solutions instructional strategy a quiz is a learning tool just like the practice, discussions and demonstrations.

First, you can take the quiz as many times as you want. Didn't make the score you wanted on the firs try? Then try again! and again, and again... There is no penalty. The classroom only records your highest score.

Need help concentrating on the important points while you are reading the book, online materials or resources? Then print the quiz and look for the answers as you are reading.

Not all the quiz answers will come from the resources. Some questions may require you to play with the application you are learning or try things out to see what happens. Consider the quiz a road map to the important points covered in each lesson.

The quiz will typically appeal to Active, Sensing, Verbal and Sequential learners, but the others can definitely approach the quiz in a way that works for them. Active learners learn by doing. Using the quiz to help you explore the topics for the lesson make this more of a "doing" activity than a "thinking" activity. Reflective learners may want to use the quiz a a final checkup to make sure they did learn what the course developer thought was important.

Sensing students like facts and the quiz definitely is about facts, not opinions or possibilities. Intuitive learners should be careful to read the questions before finding an answer since some questions may be asking which of the choices are NOT correct or are non-examples.

Verbal learners get more out of words so they may feel more comfortable taking the quiz than their Visual counterparts. But since you can use any resource to answer the questions, using diagrams, viewing the application or other visual activities may be used to find the answers to the questions.

Sequential learners are good at the details and many of the quiz questions will involve knowing the detailed information about a topic. Global learners can use the quiz to help themselves pick out the details that they might have missed.

Hopefully this will help those of you with test anxiety to approach the quiz with less fear and to see that it really is just another way to learn!

posted by Winona Winslow @ 6:42 PM