In the ever changing digital age, providing students with effective assessment and feedback can be a challenging task. Formative assessment can lead to higher levels of student engagement and help students to identify their own strengths and weaknesses (Bälter, Enström and Klingenberg, 2013), while also embedding learning in assessment (Montgomery, McDowell and Sambell, 2012).
Quizlet - an online learning application, was adopted for use in IT Carlow, during the academic year 2016-17 with students studying Carpentry and Joinery and Electrical/Instrumentation apprenticeship programs. It helped to provide a more flexible approach to learning and improve levels of student engagement using its variety of different quiz modes. The app provides students with both study and assessment quiz-modes via mobile or desktop devices. Studying curriculum content and carrying out self-assessments with automatic feedback enabled students to monitor their progress and to track their own learning. Students used the study modes primarily for self-directed learning while the play modes helped to create a collaborative and fun learning environment during class time.
As part of a study on learner interaction with Quizlet, students were invited to share their experience using different quiz modes and a comparative survey provided an insight in relation to quiz modes students found most beneficial. 100% of respondents surveyed would recommend Quizlet to a friend and student responses highlighted the competitive aspect of play-modes to be a motivating factor both during and outside class time. Learner experience and comparative analysis data on student preferences of using Quizlet were compiled and used to create a practitioners’ guide to Quizlet in the form of a poster.[1]
During the practitioners’ session, Quizlet will be used to engage participants in an interactive hands-on demonstration using the application. We will also share our practitioner experience, provide suggestions for effective implementation, and highlight some of the benefits and limitations outlined by the students themselves.
References:
Bälter, O., Enström, E. and Klingenberg, B. (2013). The effect of short formative diagnostic web quizzes with minimal feedback. Computers & Education, 60(1), pp.234-242. Montgomery, C., McDowell, L. and Sambell, K. (2012). Assessment for learning in higher education. New York, NY: Routledge.
[1] Appendix 1 : Poster – Practitioners’ guide to using Quizlet
Topics: Assessment and feedback in a digital age , Topics: Digital technologies in disciplinary contexts
