Google Form Quizzes
So if you're like me, you've heard a lot about Google forms, but you haven't even tried to look into it. Who has time to learn a new technology right? Well there's no time like the present, and like most things with Google, it's easier than you think.
Because I would always rather watch someone do something rather than read about it I started off my journey by watching this super helpful video by the YouTuber Technologyguru. I included the video below because, honestly, he does a great job explaining while keeping you engaged.
Because I am studying to be a teacher, I wanted to focus this experiment on using Google Forms to make self grading quizzes. When I first heard the Technologyguru say that you can use these forms to make quizzes that automatically grade themselves I was super excited. While it is an amazing tool, I also think it is a little limited. Even still, it will definitely save me a lot of time collecting data so that I can spend more time designing lesson plans.
My first step when making my quiz was choosing a blank new document. I then went onto the settings, changed it to a quiz, and set the background. For me it is always easier to deal with aesthetics at the beginning rather than the end so that I don't forget. Also, I want my quiz to look nice so that students have an easier time engaging with it. In a world of constant marketing, I think it's important teachers take a little time to market their class to their students.
Once that was done I started working on my questions. Google Forms is so easy because when you hover your mouse over any button it tells you what it does. It is also a very forgiving program. I made a lot of mistakes setting this up, but there is always a way to change settings, and delete problem questions at any time.
The image above shows what the form looks like when you are editing a question. The far left of the three buttons in the top right of the screen is supposed to be like an artist palette. That's where you can choose the colors and theming of the quiz. The middle button is suppose to look like an eye and allows you to preview your quiz. (This can be especially nice when you get muddled and confused like I do.) The button on the right looks like a gear and is settings. This is where you can go to change your form to a quiz. When you turn a normal Google form into a quiz you enable yourself to assign points to questions, create an answer key, and automize grading (kind of). You can do this by clicking the quizzes tab and click the slider next to "make this a quiz". Under the general tab it allow you to require sign ins and only allow one response per person. I did not do this for my quiz because I didn't want all my friends to have to respond to my quiz with their gmail accounts, but for students it would be important so they can't take the quiz unlimited times. It also allows you to identify unique students when grading. Under presentation tab you can also set the form to randomize question order. Be warned though, this will not work if you have pictures or videos pertaining to a question. Pictures and videos are not attached to questions in your form.
To build your quiz you will need the toolbar on the right. That toolbar should scan up and down with your computer screen, or be at the bottom of your screen on your phone (if you are working on your phone because you forgot to charge your computer). The top button with the plus sign adds a question. More on that in a minute. If you want to add a picture or video you can push the square button with mountains at the bottom (pictures) or the square with a play arrow in the middle (video). Google will guide you through the process of uploading. Pictures can be dragged and dropped or uploaded from your computer. Videos can be linked directly from You Tube, or found with a normal URL.
At the top of each question, picture, or video there is a box of six dots. This is just there as a place to "grab" that question or picture so you can move it before or after other questions.
To add questions click on the plus icon on the toolbar to the right. If you already have a few questions in place you might have to scroll up and down to find the question. Click on the words "Question 1" to add your question. Each new question is automatically multiple choice. You can click the arrow next to the multiple choice option to reveal the different types of question. The three middle options which I checked (multiple choice, drop down, and checkboxes) are the three types of questions which will work for a self-grading quiz. They will give full points or none for right or wrong answers. I don't love dichotomous grading like that because student learning is more of a spectrum, but it's still useful for quickly gathering a general picture of understanding. Grading options are also available for short answer and paragraph, but the students have to type in the exact words you do in order to get points. The wonderful thing about this system is that all the grades can be manually manipulated after the fact, but it kind of defeats the purpose of a self-grading quiz. All the other options (Linear scale - Time) have no ability to set a key and no automatic grading.
Once you have chosen your type of question you can add answer selections by clicking add option. You can also allow an "other" category to any question as well. At the bottom right of every question is a slider to make an answer to that question required for submission. The three stacked dots next to that allow a few more options like randomizing the order of responses. It also allows you to add a description below the text of your question. In my quiz I used this to add a hint.
When you click the word answer key you stop editing the question and are just editing the answer key. In the top right you can add the number of points for the question. Just click on the correct answer and it will turn green to indicate the key has been set. When in the answer key you can also add feedback for right and wrong answers.
Below is a link to my quiz so you can take it and see how it turned out for yourself.
Random Science Quiz
In order to view responses all you need to is click the word responses to the right of the word Questions. After you send out your quiz you will have a number to the right indicating how many people have responded. There are three ways to view your data. The summary page gives a lot of good first glance summary tools. My favorite is the one you can see at the bottom "frequently missed questions". To view each individual's response by question click question. This is especially useful if you have a quiz that is mostly self grading, but has one short answer question that you need to address yourself (as mine did). You can also click individual to see each student's answer to each question. As I said before, you can manually change each grade by clicking on the number, editing it, and then pressing the save button that pops up. If you forget to save a grade before leaving a page the form will warn you that you haven't saved yet.
When you want to end the quiz just click the slider next to accepting responses and it will stop accepting responses. The green square allows you to export the data to google sheets so that it can be manipulated further, or you can add the data to an existing sheets document if that's where you're storing your grades. The three stacked dots
to the right of the green square give you a lot more options for your data. You can download the data to a .csv which can be viewed through Microsoft Excel (my favorite program of all time), print all of your responses or delete responses. Additionally, you can The form can also be set to send you an email every time a new response is submitted so you can keep on top of the grading as the responses come in (providing your students don't all submit responses 5 minutes before the due date).
Overall I think this is a very powerful tool for teachers. It cannot replace in depth assessment of student abilities, but it can help facilitate it. These quizzes can also help teachers get a quick idea of where their students are so they can spend more time making informed lesson plans and less time at the Scantron machine.
Because I would always rather watch someone do something rather than read about it I started off my journey by watching this super helpful video by the YouTuber Technologyguru. I included the video below because, honestly, he does a great job explaining while keeping you engaged.
My first step when making my quiz was choosing a blank new document. I then went onto the settings, changed it to a quiz, and set the background. For me it is always easier to deal with aesthetics at the beginning rather than the end so that I don't forget. Also, I want my quiz to look nice so that students have an easier time engaging with it. In a world of constant marketing, I think it's important teachers take a little time to market their class to their students.
Once that was done I started working on my questions. Google Forms is so easy because when you hover your mouse over any button it tells you what it does. It is also a very forgiving program. I made a lot of mistakes setting this up, but there is always a way to change settings, and delete problem questions at any time.
Building the Quiz
Below is a picture of my quiz. I highlighted some of the important buttons and describe them below.
To build your quiz you will need the toolbar on the right. That toolbar should scan up and down with your computer screen, or be at the bottom of your screen on your phone (if you are working on your phone because you forgot to charge your computer). The top button with the plus sign adds a question. More on that in a minute. If you want to add a picture or video you can push the square button with mountains at the bottom (pictures) or the square with a play arrow in the middle (video). Google will guide you through the process of uploading. Pictures can be dragged and dropped or uploaded from your computer. Videos can be linked directly from You Tube, or found with a normal URL.
At the top of each question, picture, or video there is a box of six dots. This is just there as a place to "grab" that question or picture so you can move it before or after other questions.
To add questions click on the plus icon on the toolbar to the right. If you already have a few questions in place you might have to scroll up and down to find the question. Click on the words "Question 1" to add your question. Each new question is automatically multiple choice. You can click the arrow next to the multiple choice option to reveal the different types of question. The three middle options which I checked (multiple choice, drop down, and checkboxes) are the three types of questions which will work for a self-grading quiz. They will give full points or none for right or wrong answers. I don't love dichotomous grading like that because student learning is more of a spectrum, but it's still useful for quickly gathering a general picture of understanding. Grading options are also available for short answer and paragraph, but the students have to type in the exact words you do in order to get points. The wonderful thing about this system is that all the grades can be manually manipulated after the fact, but it kind of defeats the purpose of a self-grading quiz. All the other options (Linear scale - Time) have no ability to set a key and no automatic grading.
Once you have chosen your type of question you can add answer selections by clicking add option. You can also allow an "other" category to any question as well. At the bottom right of every question is a slider to make an answer to that question required for submission. The three stacked dots next to that allow a few more options like randomizing the order of responses. It also allows you to add a description below the text of your question. In my quiz I used this to add a hint.
When you click the word answer key you stop editing the question and are just editing the answer key. In the top right you can add the number of points for the question. Just click on the correct answer and it will turn green to indicate the key has been set. When in the answer key you can also add feedback for right and wrong answers.
Below is a link to my quiz so you can take it and see how it turned out for yourself.
Random Science Quiz
Viewing Responses
To collect and view responses you will need to hit the send button. This will automatically lead you to send the quiz in an e-mail. If you chose to do this do NOT click the button that says "include form in email". I tried this and all it did was show the form in my email on my phone, but I couldn't submit it. If you want to add the quiz to a website there is an oval with a line through it. This will lead you to a URL link to your quiz. Even after you send out your quiz you can still edit it. This allows you to correct things on the quiz without having to take it down.
(yes, I can see that the quiz I set up was clearly too hard)
When you want to end the quiz just click the slider next to accepting responses and it will stop accepting responses. The green square allows you to export the data to google sheets so that it can be manipulated further, or you can add the data to an existing sheets document if that's where you're storing your grades. The three stacked dots
to the right of the green square give you a lot more options for your data. You can download the data to a .csv which can be viewed through Microsoft Excel (my favorite program of all time), print all of your responses or delete responses. Additionally, you can The form can also be set to send you an email every time a new response is submitted so you can keep on top of the grading as the responses come in (providing your students don't all submit responses 5 minutes before the due date).
Overall I think this is a very powerful tool for teachers. It cannot replace in depth assessment of student abilities, but it can help facilitate it. These quizzes can also help teachers get a quick idea of where their students are so they can spend more time making informed lesson plans and less time at the Scantron machine.
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