Student Created Quizzes

[amanda_taintor]

I had a faculty pose a great instructional strategy she uses in her face to face course, we are trying to figure out how to replicate in the online environment.  I have some ideas but want to see what this AMAZING group recommends.

1) Students read the chapter/content

2) Create their own individual questions for that chapter OR (and we like this option much better if possible) split students into  groups and have the group propose 10 different quiz questions. 

3)Have the class vote for the top 5-10 quiz questions for that week's chapter

Bonus points if you know of an easy (or even possible) way for students to create the questions in a quiz and then have those top 10 move into a quiz

Thanks!

Amanda Taintor 

[kroeninm · Accepted solution]

I don't have an integrated way to make this happen in Canvas (though I suspect someone smart might be able to use a Google doc to do something magical). But, a few ideas...

If students are "voting" on questions, then the tools that come to mind to me are Tricider and Dotstorming as a way to brainstorm and then vote.  I've used Tricider often and it works well for the social brainstorming and voting functionality.  The voting could also be done via "likes" in a Canvas discussion.  I think Dotstorming does something similar.  

The voting seems to be the most difficult aspect to me so that is where I would start.  

Another option to look at is Google.  I worked with one instructor that had students submit questions via a Google form to ensure good formatting and then displayed them in an embedded document in Canvas so students could study the questions.  Then he could easily copy and paste the questions into Canvas.  He didn't have the voting option though.

Finally, there is a web-based tool somewhere that coordinates the student generation of quiz questions as it's primary purpose.  I'll see if I can find it in my bookmarks again and share it.  I can't remember if it was free and what features it had.

- Melanie

[awilliams]

Hello  @amandataintor .  Because your question may not necessarily have one "correct" answer, I have changed your posting from a "Question" to a "Discussion."  I hope this is okay with you.

[canvas18]

Amanda,

We are currently testing Peerwise, a free service from the University of New Zealand - Auckland, for this exact purpose.

In our test course, we ask our students (each week) to write one, comment on two, and take three peer-developed questions.  We provide basic instruction on how to develop a quality question with the assignment.  Once the experiment is complete (in December), I'll post an update here and let you know how it went.

[kroeninm]

That was the one I was thinking of!  Bookmarking it again, would love to hear how it goes.

- Melanie

[p_denny]

Hi Amanda,

As Mike suggested, you might like to explore PeerWise as an external tool for supporting student-generated quiz questions.  As an added bonus, PeerWise is available (via LTI) as an external tool that you can simply plug-in to Canvas.  This LTI integration is a relatively new feature, and most people still use PeerWise as a stand-alone service.

As soon as a student creates and publishes a question in PeerWise, it is available for their classmates to answer.  When a student attempts a question, they get immediate feedback including an explanation for the answer (provided by the question author) and they can see how all other students have answered the question.  They can then rate the question (for quality and difficulty) and they can participate in a discussion thread about the question.  Students can follow authors that are publishing high quality questions, and they can run personal quizzes which are auto-generated by PeerWise and keep track of a student's performance over time.  Students can also earn a range of badges, appear on leaderboards and collect "reputation" points.

In terms of your original question, as the instructor you can set up "topics" such as "Chapter1", "Chapter2", and have students tag their questions according to those topics.  This allows students to search the bank of questions for topics of interest.  Students are continuously voting for which questions are the best questions, and they can find the highest rated questions on any given topic.

If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch.

Regards,
Paul.

----
Dr Paul Denny
CSEd Research Group
Senior Lecturer, Computer Science
The University of Auckland
New Zealand
Ph: +64 9 3737599 x 87087

[amanda_taintor]

This does look like an excellent resource/option. Do instructors have the option to approve quiz questions before launched by students? 

[p_denny]

While instructors can place a special comment on any question (for example, to acknowledge their approval), the model that PeerWise uses is that students perform the moderation themselves.  In other words, as soon as a question is posted, it is immediately available for other students to view (i.e. to answer, rate and critique).  Encouraging students to perform this moderation helps to bring their critical analysis skills into play.  Students can sort the available questions by aggregate rating in order to find the most useful questions.  In many cases, instructors might select some of the best student-generated questions to appear on summative tests and exams.

There are pros and cons to this model.  A downside is that there generally are some lower quality questions posted (although this provides an opportunity for constructive critique that is generally not present in instructor-approved question banks).  On the upside, large question banks that are closely related to the presentation of course content in a particular offering of a course are created quickly.  As an example, here is some feedback from Assoc. Prof. Gareth Denyer of the University of Sydney (School of Molecular Bioscience): "Peerwise has catalyzed a surge of engagement around my subject.  It has provided an outlet for so many different learning approaches: the creative, the critical, the studious, the explainers and the inquisitive.  The best rated questions are generally better than what I would get from my academic colleagues; they are related to the syllabus, tested, refined and, above all, they have explanations."

[amanda_taintor]

Thanks Paul, this was very helpful. I can't wait to test in my own course this semester!

[petern]

Hi Paul.  This sounds really interesting.  How does the LTI work?

[p_denny]

Hi Peter,

Basically you request an LTI account on PeerWise (this process sets up a consumer key and shared secret for you to use).  You then enter this information into your Canvas instance to configure an external app.  Once the app is set up, you can add a link anywhere you like in your Canvas course - when students click on this link they are automatically signed in to PeerWise (with their Canvas credentials) and taken straight into a question repository - where they can start collaboratively building a question bank!  All of the full features of PeerWise are available, the LTI integration simply provides a mechanism for logging in.

If you would like to try PeerWise, you can always experiment with the web version:

  https://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz

or, if you would like to use the LTI integration, please let me know (you will find an email address on the bottom of the page linked above).

Best regards,
Paul.

[petern]

Sounds great I'll give it a go.  I thought it would be good if Canvas offered a built in feature like this too so I created this idea: https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9943-student-created-quiz-questions-peer-quiz , although even if that's implemented, I don't see the voting on questions happening soon.

[j_c_turner]

Hi Paul

Do you have any more information on the LTI, please

many thanks

jim

[p_denny]

Dear James,

Yes, if you would like to request a consumer key / shared secret to allow students to access PeerWise via LTI, please get in touch with me directly.  I can then set this up for you, and you can use the key/secret to create launch links within your Canvas courses.  A number of institutions are using LTI now, although the web version of PeerWise still remains more popular.

Please let me know if you have any questions - you can find my contact details at the link in my earlier post.

Best regards,
Paul.

----
Dr Paul Denny
CSEd Research Group
Senior Lecturer, Computer Science
The University of Auckland
New Zealand
Ph: +64 9 3737599 x 87087

[kbink]

I wonder if you could create a non-enrollment course, enroll the students as teachers and have them create questions in weekly question banks.  You'd have to show them how, which may be tricky.  You could easily generate a quiz in that non-enrollment site and then import into the class site for everyone to take.  No idea how you could get them to vote up questions.