Educational Assessments and Quizzes
Educational quizzes can be used for a variety of purposes. Some quizzes may be primarily for education-related fun and can help stimulate interest and promote further learning and investigation. Others are assessment tools that either determine a student’s prior knowledge or evaluate how much a student has learned after the information has been taught and presented. Other educational quizzes do not involve specific factual information but deal with education-related aspects, like personality and learning styles, specific learning difficulties, student interests, barriers to learning, etc. Anyone can use educational quizzes, and quizzes are often thought to be less formal, shorter, and less extensive than the more frightening “tests.” As a result, there is a greater range of potential uses for quizzes.
Educational Quizzes: Uses and Types
The primary place where education quizzes are used is the school classroom. Many teachers, because of their desire to determine exactly where a student’s knowledge stops and instruction should begin, administer educational quizzes before beginning a new unit or lesson as a way of assessing a student’s prior learning. When a teacher knows how much his or her students already understand, he or she can better meet the students’ needs and plan meaningful instructional. In some cases, the quizzes may indicate that further review of past concepts and topic is needed before going on, while in other cases the quizzes may reveal that the students need less review than had initially been planned. When used in this manner, these quizzes allow for the best use of instructional time because the majority of time is spent teaching new concepts that the students need to know and are prepared to learn instead of reviewing unnecessarily or teaching above the students’ level of understanding.
Parents can use informal educational quizzes found in supplementary materials or online to determine exactly where their children’s interests lie. In this way, parents can encourage learning outside of school and help their children to develop an increased knowledge of the subjects that really interest them. Informal educational quizzes can also foster the development of new interests because when students interact with quizzes on certain subjects, they may find that they want to know more and be prompted to investigate further.
A different type of educational quiz deals with learning styles or personality traits. When students—and parents and teachers—know the ways in which they learn best, they have a better chance for success in the classroom because they can better connect with the information. Knowing the specifics about learning styles and personality can give teachers and parents a window into the students’ and children’s mind and enable them to present the information appropriately and create the best type of learning environment.