Favorite Technology Part 3: Quia

       Today's favorite is actually one that I pay for, but it's worth the $49 a year to me.  Quia has lots of ways to create online practice activities.  There are a total of 15 activities that you can create for your students.  My favorites are Battleship, Challenge Board, Cloze, Flashcards and Rags to Riches.

        Battleship is just like the board game.  Students play against the computer.  Each time they answer a question correctly they get a turn to try to sink the computer's battleship.  It can be a fun way to get my kids practicing.   Rags to Riches is similar to Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  This is another game where students play against the computer as they answer progressively harder questions to practice.  The flashcards allow students to play Memory.

       The Challenge Board is also fun.  It is basically a version of Jeopardy.  This is a fun one because it does allow students to play individually or with a partner.  It's also a great way to review since you can create different categories.

       These are all fun ways for students to practice and get feedback....but they are actually not what I love about Quia.  Quia is what I usually use for online quizzes.  As much as possible, I use Quia to give formative assessments because it is such an easy way for my students to get useful feedback that they can learn from.

       There are three main reasons why I love giving quizzes on Quia.  First, I love that the grading is quick and easy.  Quia will grade multiple choice and multiple mark items for you.  It will also grade short answer questions for you, based on whatever answers you have indicated are correct.  It is also easy to override the automatic grading if a student gives a correct answer that you didn't think to list in your answers.  Quick feedback is good for student learning, plus a the online grading is a major time-saver for me!

     The second reason I love giving quizzes on Quia is that I can give students feedback AS they take the quiz.  Yes, you read that right....AS students take the quiz.  This is really the reason why I'm willing to pay for Quia.  You can set Quia to give students one question at a time, and to show them feedback as they go.  Using these settings, students get feedback on the quiz as they take it!  So I always base my feedback for incorrect answers on what might be a common mistake or misunderstanding.  I just love the idea that students could be learning AS they are taking an assessment.

       The third reason I love using Quia for quizzes is still about feedback.  Once all of the students have taken the quiz, you can look over each question one at a time and give even more feedback.  For example, if a student made a different mistake from what my feedback for incorrect answers anticipated, you can give customized feedback just to that particular student (or to all of the students that made the same error by copying and pasting).

       I have tried using Google Forms to give quizzes, but have just found that it takes me longer to create a quiz with the same feedback.  I also find it takes me longer to give individualized feedback through Google Forms than through Quia.  I use Google Forms for surveys and other things, but generally for short quizzes, I prefer Quia.

        Giving feedback to students is hands-down one of the most effective teaching strategies that we can use in our classrooms.  I feel like Quia gives me a hand in effectively doing this in a very timely manner!

5 Best Things from Last Year...as I Start Thinking about Next Year!

Well, it happened today.  My least favorite day of the summer.....the day my letter came.  You know the one that tells me all about reporting back to work.  That reminder that summer is drawing to a close...oh no!

But, now that I've had a little while to take it all in, I've decided the best thing to do is reflect back on the best things from last year to get me excited for next year.  So here is my top 5 discoveries last year.

1.  The "Train Problem" from the MidSchool Math conference.  This was the most amazing conference I've ever been to, and the train problem was my absolute favorite part!  It was your traditional train problem....you remember (perhaps with horror!) the kind....two trains are headed on the track....blech!  Anyway, same math, but presented in the best way.  We signed up as "spy teams", and we had to save the world.  From two trains.  Headed towards each other on the same track.  It was totally  your classic story problem, but if you change up the way it was presented, it was AMAZING!  

      

Unfortunately, my team did not save the world.  But this did help me realize that the key word in "story problem" is STORY.....take the math and put it in an interesting story that the kids can't resist.  

I tried one of my own math stories about a killer vine that was taken over a compound in the post-apocalyptic future, and the kids loved it.  The kids took on the role of groundskeepers that had to use a map with the growth pattern marked to determine how long it would take until the vine would bein to threaten the buildings.  Then they had to figure out the "combination" to the safe, and finally they had to find the right mix of chemicals to kill the vine.  That was definitely the most excited my kids were to figure slope all year long!  When the kids got the "safe" open, the directions told them where to find the next clue.  It also mentioned that they should be "low-key" and not tip off the other groups where to find the next clue.  This was the best part to watch...7th graders are so funny!  This was definitely one of my favorite days last year, and the kids loved it!  You can check out this math story and others that I have created.

2.  I discovered escape rooms....and Breakout EDU!  My family went to an escape room and had such a blast, I was excited to find out about Breakout EDU.    It's basically a box and a bunch of locks, and the students are trying to get in to the box, solving a series of puzzles.  I didn't get my breakout box until the very end of the year, so I only had time to do a couple of breakouts, but they were fun!  It was awesome to see some of my kids that are usually disengaged in class taking a role as leaders.  Looking forward to more of this next year!

3.  Desmos was a great discovery.  I used to absolutely dread having to teach anything with graphing calculators because I would spend the entire lesson running frantically around the room resetting calculators that were working at the beginning of the day!  This year I used Desmos, and it was the most stress free time teaching linear regression I've ever had.   It worked easily, no settings to redo, plus the added bonus of being able to easily use "real" data from the internet instead of the lame data in the book.  My kids would even think of using Desmos as a tool to solve problems without being prompted....that's what technology is supposed to do!

4.  Desmos....again (and that is not a typo!).  At the end of the year, I discovered the capability of creating lessons on Desmos and it was awesome!  Kids work through the lesson screen by screen, but the best part was I could go to one screen and see every single answer given to a certain question.  What a great way to give immediate feedback to students.

5.  And speaking of feedback, my final one is quia.  Trying to give kids useful feedback, not just a checkmark, has been a goal of mine for the last couple of year.  Quia is an excellent way to do this....this online platform allows you to create quizzes....no big deal.  The cool part is you can put in different feedback for if they get it right or wrong, and set it so that they get the feedback while they are working if that is what you want.  I really like this feature, plus it lightened my grading load.  A win-win!

Feedback for incorrect answers....that's the best part.  They learn while they're taking the quiz!