You Need Quick Checks in Your Classroom!

Why do I Use Multiple-Choice Quick Checks?

As teachers, we feel pressure from so many different sources.  Whether it’s grading papers. Increasing our students’ standardized test scores. Improving student engagement in our classrooms. Getting our students to take more personal responsibility for their grades. And don’t forget productive data collection and analysis. If you are like me you are trying to find a balance with your school life and personal life.  Time always seems to be in such short supply! I bet you are nodding your head YES to all of this right now right. Trust me I totally feel your pain and those same pressures every day too. I want to help you solve those problems today, with multiple choice quick checks.

Please let me share with you something that I use in my classroom that will address all of these issues! It sounds amazing, right? If you are like me then you want to know what would help take the pressure off of you. We all want to enjoy time with your students, and still leave room for your personal life. The secret is multiple choice quick check assessments!  These have saved my sanity over the last year! I’ve been using these multiple choice quick checks for about six months in my classroom. I love them so much!

You see, I’ve used different assessments over the past 5 years that are wonderful, but they took forever  to grade. When grading anywhere from 60-75 assessments depending on the number of students I have each year; it was incredibly difficult to grade ten short answer questions from an average 65 kids.  That is about 650 questions to grade for just 1 assessment! Oh my word. It was a ton of grading, and we know nobody has time for that! It would easily take me at least 1-2 hours just to get the assessments graded. That did not include time to look at the data to determine student needs.  With only a forty minute planning period it was impossible to get it done in that time. So of course I had to bring them home to get them graded, which cut into the time I was spending with my husband and son. I had to find a solution to this problem. That is when I decided I needed to create something to solve the problem but still give me lots of valuable data about my students.  Enter the creation of a simple multiple choice quick check assessment.

What are Multiple Choice Quick Checks?

You may be asking yourself, what is a multiple choice quick check assessment?  Well, it is a ten question multiple choice assessment that I give to my students. I use the multiple choice quick checks a couple of different ways.  I’ll be giving you some ideas on how you can use them in your classroom too! Here are a few ways you can use these in your classroom: pre/post assessments, data collection, test prep, and small group math instruction.

Quick Checks Are a Time  Saver

One of the biggest reasons I decided to start creating multiple choice quick check assessments for my classroom was to save time.  I needed something that was quick to grade but still rigorous enough to assess students knowledge. Multiple choice quick checks are only 1-page front and back which saves on time and copies. There are ten multiple choice questions that are highly engaging and rigorous. I could quickly grade all of the assessments in about 15 minutes! It was such a game changer for me!

Another time saving tip I have for you is Grade Cam.  If you don’t know what Grade Cam is you totally need to.  It is an internet based computer program that will allow you to create multiple choice, true/false, or even fill in the blank answer sheets.  You can then enter your key into the program and by using a document camera, iPad, or even you cell phone, grade students work in a matter of seconds!  It is amazing. Using Grade Cam I am able to grade the multiple choice quick checks in about 5 minutes. In addition to grading the assessments quickly I can also import them into my online grade book with the touch of a button. Talk about a huge time saver. My school district provides this for teachers, but you can check out a free  60 day trial here. There are other apps that will do similar things as well such as Zipgrade in the app store for free.

Increase Standardized Test Scores

I decided to design the multiple choice quick checks similar to our state assessment to better prepare students for those challenging multiple choice questions and a few of the basic math computation questions that students are timed on.  This gives them several opportunities to practice great test taking strategies while still giving you that much need data for grades. My students need as many opportunities as possible to practice good test-taking strategies. Since the questions are multiple choice you could also have them practice eliminating answer choices that don’t make sense as they complete the quick checks.

Small Group Instruction

Since I assess students prior knowledge before beginning a new unit and then again at the end to determine their learning growth.  These quick checks were able to quickly assess what my students were struggling with so I knew which area I needed to plan to focus on.  This is also a great way to determine strategy groups. With the multiple choice quick check results you can quickly see who needs lots of extra care and guidance, who just needs a little extra help, and who you need to push to extend their learning.  The goal as a teacher is to meet your students at their level, using these quick checks you are able to do just that with specialized instruction. Since students are working on their instructional level they will be more engaged with the lesson.

Student Data Analysis

About five years ago I discovered Robert Marzano’s book The Art and Science of Teaching.  After reading his book I came to understand the significance of students tracking their own data in order to motivate them to perform better in school and become more engaged with their learning. I decided that I didn’t need to be the only person studying my students data. They need to be studying it also.  So I give my students a data tracking form to graph their pre-assessment scores. Students graph their pre-assessment quick check results at the beginning of a unit and then again at the end of a unit. This is a great visual representation of their progress.

Quick Checks Increased Student  Responsibility

It also helps to push some of the responsibility back to my students for their grades.  Grab a free data tracking form here. With the understanding of their prior knowledge they are able to see how their hard work during the unit impacts their personal learning growth.  Not only will your students be taking more ownership of their academic learning but they will actually begin tracking and collecting their own data as well.  It’s a win, win for all.

Quick Checks Increased Student Engagement

 A really interesting thing that I’ve noticed since adding the student data tracking forms is an increase in student engagement.  Students take more ownership of their grades by participating more in class. The simple act of knowing that they struggled on the multiple choice quick check assessment and graphing those results allows them to make better decisions about their class participation.  They ask more questions during class and take better notes. They also work much harder on their post-assessments so they can see their growth. Since they graph their pre and post assessments they get to see how much of an impact their effort in class has made.

If you’d like to have more time, have students be more engaged in class, have students be more accountable for their learning, and have students do their own data analysis, or help to increase standardized test scores I’ve got you covered.  Click here to check out my multiple choice quick check assessments. I have 4th and 5th-grade math assessments available today.

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