Student-Made Quizzes Boost Test Scores

Welcome to the show, everyone. I'm Renata Salas, and I'm here with Colin Whitfield. And Colin, before we even dive into today, I have a finding that completely reframes how we think about assessment. It comes from Daniel Leonard, writing in Edutopia, and he looked at what happens when we stop writing the quizzes and make the students do it. The study found that students who generated their own test questions scored a full letter grade higher on subsequent exams than those who just spent the time reviewing. A full letter grade? In the world of educational research, that is not a minor statistical blip. That is the difference between a C and a B, achieved not by teaching more material, but simply by altering how students process what they have already heard. How exactly are we defining the method here, Renata? Is this a complex multi-week project? Not at all It's actually incredibly low tech After about 20 or 30 minutes of direct instruction a lecture or even a reading assignment you have the students close their notebooks close their textbooks and write exactly three questions entirely from memory Not looking at the page not skimming their notes From memory Ah thoughtfully that from memory part is the absolute linchpin If the textbook is open it is simply a copying exercise it is transcription not learning By closing the book you force what cognitive scientists call desirable difficulty The student has to engage in deeper retrieval They have to mentally sift through the last 30 minutes decide what actually mattered recall the specific details and then reconstruct that information into a coherent question with a verifiable correct answer Exactly and think about the contrast here When I write a quiz it is clean it is aligned to my standards and it makes me feel like I'm in control But the kids are passive They are just waiting for my cues to trigger their memory When they have to generate the question they are doing the heavy cognitive lifting They have to think like an assessor Yes, they are transitioning from being consumers of a test to designers of one. And as any teacher knows, you do not truly understand a concept until you have to figure out how to assess someone else on it. Now, to make this work in a busy classroom without it devolving into chaos, you need a highly structured, repeatable routine. I like a simple five-step framework that takes about 10 minutes total. Step one, students get five minutes to write their three questions. Step two, they write the correct answers on the back or the bottom of their paper. Step three, they swap with a partner. Step four, they answer their partner's questions from memory. And step five, they compare answers and actively debate any discrepancies. That fifth step the debating part is where the magic happens in a middle school classroom Take 7th grade science for example If a student writes what organelle is called the powerhouse of the cell and what does it actually do they are not just looking for the word mitochondria When they swap and their partner says oh it makes energy the author of the question has to push back and say wait how does it make energy You didn't mention cellular respiration Haha cellular respiration in 7th grade But you are entirely correct That interaction forces them to evaluate the precision of an explanation and the cognitive science behind this is robust If you look at the work of Pooja Agarwal and Patrice Bain at retrievalpractice org they emphasise that pulling information out of the brain actually strengthens the neural pathways and memory traces far more than putting information in Rereading a textbook is passive Retrieval is generative It really is. And there is a fantastic real-world application of this, profiled by Jennifer Gonzalez on Cult of Pedagogy. She looked at Dr. Janelle Blunt at Anderson University, who implemented structured whiteboard retrieval sessions in her classes. Students had to sketch out and write concepts from memory on whiteboards. The data from Dr. Blunt's work showed a staggering 20% improvement in exam grades. 20 That is a massive effect size If a pharmaceutical company produced a pill that improved cognitive performance by 20 it would be a multi billion dollar asset Yet here we have a free pedagogical tool that achieves the exact same result simply by changing the direction of the information flow from outward bound retrieval rather than inward bound review And think about the practical payoff for the teacher. At the end of that 10-minute routine, you don't just throw those papers away. You collect them, or you just walk around the room and snap a few photos of the strongest questions on your phone. Instantly, you have a student-generated question bank. You can use those exact questions for your spaced review starter next Tuesday. It completely shifts the classroom dynamic You move from a culture of I made the quiz now prove to me you listened to we are making our learning visible together It is a shift from compliance to active cognition It really is. It puts the cognitive heavy lifting right back on the desk of the learner. That is our quick take for today. I'm Renata Salas. And I'm Colin Whitfield. We will see you next time.