Hi
I stopped using the classic quizzes over a year ago. Categorization and ordering were two types of questions that were important. Matching is not used. Item banks include tags and have a nice filter feature (show only multiple choice, etc). It took a long time to migrate the question banks but it’s been worthwhile.
Issues do exist. (1) Moving multiple questions to another bank isn’t possible and must be done one question at a time, (2) There isn’t a search across item banks, (3) No description field exists for item banks and so teachers can put questions in the wrong item bank (there are over 800 item banks for our physics team), (4) Full permissions exist if sharing an item bank (someone can delete so be careful!), (5) reports are super slow to generate, (6) links from the quiz to a bank aren’t available— so we prelabel each question to identify the bank, (7) there is no browser lockdown so we use a GoGuardian to view during in class exams, (8) We cannot export the item banks and hope Instructure has a backup — yikes! (9) There isn’t a clean way to create a survey, (10) mastery paths are painful because the student is dumped out away from the module. (11) Navigation fails on safari or chrome on an iPad. Use Edge and all is fine.
It should be stated, though, that not all of our teachers have changed. We have teachers using matching and relying on breaking up a quiz into sections, with a defined text break. Other teachers are waiting for easier migration of question banks.
Am I glad to have migrated? Absolutely. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Why? The interface is cleaner. The categorization and ordering questions have allowed us to see misunderstandings missed in classic quizzes. We have four teachers now collaborating, rather than each wanting their own banks. We can create common assessments with great randomization, yet can see the reports that students are getting the same level of difficulty in the questions.
Bluntly, the positives outweigh the current negatives. I also trust that developers will continue to improve new quizzes. After all, classic quizzes had been around for ages and was mature. New quizzes is the little 5 week old puppy. In time, it’ll be the alpha.
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