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Educational Research

Is Learning Sweeter with Educandy?

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Ready to make learning sweeter? Give a newcomer in the game-based formative assessment toolkit a try. Educandy makes it easy to create (or adapt from those created by the community) and share digital quizzes. In this blog entry, you will see some of its features in actions. A short video step by step also appears at the end of the blog.

Before we jump into Educandy, let’s revisit relevant strategies that work.

Strategies That Work

You may already know of several relevant, high-effect-size instructional strategies. Each supports the use of quiz tools like Educandy, Kahoot, Blooket, and Quizziz. Let’s do a quick review of four relevant strategies that may apply when using these types of tools. (As a reminder, an effect size of 0.4 or higher means that the particular instructional strategy will give one full year of growth or more when used with students. An effect size of 0.8 will give two years, and an effect size of 1.2 will give three years of growth.)

  • Mnemonics (d=0.80). Mnemonic instruction works for students with learning problems. That includes those students with learning disabilities. The Visible Learning Meta X database defines mnemonics as “a practice by which students learn a significant amount of information for long-term recall by memory.” You can see the connection between rehearsal and mnemonics, right? Both are aiming for long-term recall.
  • Rehearsal (d=0.73).One fun strategy that you may have relied on before is that of rehearsal. With such a high effect size, it’s important to know that it’s more than memorization. Some consider elaborative rehearsal as  the preferred method. This approach better connects short-term learning to long-term memory by linking new information you want to learn to what you already know. Many of us have relied on the rehearsal strategy, elaborative in particular. Consider when you’ve created an image in your head or relied on a list or mnemonic.
  • Spaced vs Massed Practice (d=0.65). This powerful strategy has us space out over time the intervals when we study information. This ensures that significant learning occurs. Combined with retrieval practice, you can make long-term memory connections for new information.
  • Retrieval Practice (d=0.46). Also known as “practice testing,” this involves frequent testing. The research is in and it’s positive about “the testing effect.” Flashcards, practice problems, and writing prompts can improve learning. Learn more here.

Use Educandy to connect new information students need to learn to long-term memory. These four strategies make it possible. Let’s see how Educandy can make that happen.

Did You Know?

You can get access to a wealth of information on how strategies that work connect to digital tools. Wondering what technology to use with a particular strategy? Use the free, no-cost TCEA Strategies app on any device. Get it online at https://tceastrategies.glideapp.io.

Educandy: Make Learning Sweeter

Offering a variety of interactive elements, Educandy makes it easy for you to create:

educandy

With a guest account, you can complete these activities. For example, I jumped into a word search (what an interesting vocabulary connection):

educandy

Even when you make a mistake, Educandy gives you a hint as you can see above. I missed the “o” at the end of piccolo, a musical instrument, and it prompted me with two question marks.

You can create a free account. The process involves entering your email address (no single sign-on or OAUTH authentication yet). You then receive an email message with a link and can set your password. On the privacy side of things, only the teacher is putting their email at risk. The games offered result in a shared link that’s viewable by anyone. This means that you may not know which student is doing what, which is fine for low-risk retrieval practice. It might be more fun to get students to design their own quizzes.

Pricing and First Impressions

You can visit the Educandy website and start creating right away. Here is my quick walkthrough (six to seven minutes) of Educandy.

Educandy lacks a few of the features that its competitors offer for free. The lack of Google/Microsoft account authentication is problematic. Worse, the website and the app have elements the other lacks. If the elements are there, they may be so well-hidden as to be inaccessible. For example, premium features and pricing are available only through the app. The cost of Educandy is approximately $24 a year. Educandy does offer the ability to import tab-delimited content, but it’s not obvious.

The short version? This web and device specific app need more work. I’ll keep my eye on it for the future. No doubt, they will be making Educandy even sweeter as time goes by. For now, the candy wrapper isn’t quite ready to come off unless you have simple tastes.

Feature Image Source

Screenshot by author.

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rehearsal
Good Teaching

Rehearsal Strategy: Your Exit Ticket’s Secret Weapon

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

When you read TCEA TechNotes blog entries on exit tickets, two key reasons illustrate how every educator should be using them. Those two reasons are as a tool for reflection and as a check for understanding. In this blog entry, you will see how a high-effect size strategy informs your use of exit tickets.

Before we jump into exit tickets, let’s revisit an important strategy that guides our work. That strategy is teacher clarity, which enjoys an effect size of d=0.84 (or two years’ of growth in one school year). How do you ensure teacher clarity? You are consistent in getting your students to know the answers to the three questions below.

How Do You Start a Lesson?

When you plan your lesson, give some thought to these three questions which clarify learning intentions and success criteria for both you and the students. The questions include:

  • What am I learning? (Learning Intentions)
  • Why am I learning it? (Relevance)
  • How will I know I learned it? (Success Criteria)

When both the teacher and students have the same responses to these questions, it empowers students to self-regulate their own learning. It supports their use of three strategies relevant to self-regulation (Almarode, Visible Learning for Science):

Even better, it allows the construction of success criteria. This means that once students know how they have achieved success, they can measure their progress towards that. Teachers can aid students’ self monitoring of their path to success with feedback.

Exit tickets provide both teacher and students with information. They are a means to feedback. But they also do one other thing that’s important. We will dig into that in a moment.

Did You Know?

Get the TCEA Strategies app, a free tool that includes relevant videos, blog entries, and resources on high-effect-size strategies. Find it online at https://tceastrategies.glideapp.io

What Are Exit Tickets?

Exit tickets are “quick, ungraded assessments” that provide insight into student learning. Did my students achieve the expectations of the success criteria? In other words, student answers to “How will I know I learned it?” can be captured by exit tickets.

The value of seeing exit tickets as more than as a fast, formative assessment or reflection tool. You can use it to help students develop the conceptual understanding necessary for transfer from surface to deep learning through the use of rehearsal (effect size of d=0.73).

rehearsal strategy
source

Rehearsal Strategy Makes Exit Tickets Work

If you’re not familiar with rehearsal, it is a high-effect size strategy with an effect size of d=0.73. The Visible Learning MetaX database defines it in this way:

Rehearsal refers to mental techniques for helping us remember information. It can involve many strategies. Those can include memorizing information through repetition. Organize data at random, then repeat the information when prompted with a visual cue. Visual cues can include images, photographs or index cards.

The rehearsal strategy assists learners in consolidating new learning. As such, it is a surface learning strategy that can aid students. It does this by deepening their conceptual understanding of terminology and vocabulary. This improved grasp of vocabulary through rehearsal builds a foundation that enables learners to process the information they have learned.

You can also make a game out of rehearsal, which you can adapt for exit tickets:

  • Bean Bag Toss – Students recite information when the bean bag gets tossed to them. Then they toss to another student or back to the teacher.
  • Choral Response – Students respond as a group with rehearsed information.
  • Team Competition – Teacher asks questions requiring rehearsed information. Students answer on their own to gain points for their team. (source)

Focus on activities that build a relationship or connection between new concepts and old concepts that students have already learned. When you do this, you ensure that the new concepts stick.

TIP: Design your exit tickets to make connections between new and old concepts.

Get Started with Exit Tickets and Rehearsal Strategy

For exit tickets, be sure to read TCEA’s blog entries:

Since rehearsal includes strategies that help us remember information, combine visual cues with exit tickets or gamify it. Read more about elaborative rehearsal strategies.

Feature Image Source

Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash

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