A Little Fun with Pop Quizzes

Sometimes you gotta check in to see what the kids are getting and what needs some work, which in fancy lingo is referred to as formative assessment. I do this in a variety of ways, but sometimes a pop quiz is the way to go. However, I don't want the kids to get so freaked out that test anxiety confounds the results and I don't know if they actually don't know what I want them to know, or if they couldn't produce what they know because of nerves and therefore look like they don't know what they know.

Did you have to read that twice?

Point being I try to make things like this as anxiety-free as I can. One thing that's fun to do is give a pop quiz in the form of a card. Below is an example of a vitamin pop quiz I gave. I made little quiz-cards, placed them in envelopes, sealed them with veggie stickers (unnecessary but added to the fun! Thank you Target dollar bins), then popped them into their folders with a "Do Not Open" note written on them.

Was it more work than just handing out a quiz the old-fashioned way? Yes. Was it a little cutesy? Yes. Did the kids like it? Yes. Were they freaked out about taking a quiz? No.

Would I have done this for multiple large classes? Heck no, unless I had student helpers - this would be a great thing for student helpers to do, by the way. But, for just a couple of classes, it was totally worth it, and made learning about vitamins just a touch more fun. 

p.s. Want more vitamin fun? Check out my completely ridiculous yet useful Vitamin Poem!