Final Fantasy X Quiz One

[rynling]

This was last week's quiz in my video game class:

(1) What sport does Tidus play?

(2) Who are the first people Tidus encounters after he leaves Zanarkand?

(3) What is the name of the island where Tidus eventually washes up?

(4) What does Yuna become after she completes her trial in the island temple?

(5) What do you think is the main visual motif of Final Fantasy X?

(6) How would you describe Tidus's attitude regarding his father?

*

Almost everyone got the answer to the third question wrong. What I learned from this is that I need to be careful about proper nouns. Even if a word is written and repeated multiple times in the game, the students may not remember and internalize it until we've discussed it in class.

Although there are multiple possible answers to the fifth question, about half of the students got it "wrong" because they didn't understand what I meant by "visual motif." One of the students asked me to explain what the term means during the quiz, and I did my best, but this last-minute impromptu mini-lecture was apparently not effective. I need to remember that, when it comes to the majority of undergraduates, they're really starting from zero.

The students suggested that I write multiple-choice questions, but I'm not interested in testing passive knowledge. Because I have to print everything out at home, I'm also not too terribly interested in writing quizzes that take up more than the front side of one sheet of paper. There is an art to constructing quizzes, and I suppose I'll have to figure it out as I go along.

Comments

[flonnebonne]

(1) Blitzball!

(2) Rikku and the Pussycats (I think we don't actually know her name at this point though?)

(3) Besaid

(4) L33t!

(5) water water everywhere

(6) resentful as hell

If I've accidentally made a quiz too hard, I might turn one of the questions into a bonus question. I often have bonus questions to begin with, because students like them and it lets me put on some harder material. I prefer to err on the side of too hard and then act like a nice person when I give bonus haha. That way the smarter kids at least have something to do.

If I have vocab on there that I expect most of them don't know, I put a definition, and maybe an example too. Some kids can't read and apply definitions, but meh, they need to learn.

Do you have to end up with a nice curve in your gradebook by the end of the semester? I've always thought that kind of thing would be really stressful.

[rynling]

I don't really have a lot of oversight in terms of grading, and my ideal scenario is that every kid in the class gets an A. I'm not out to stress the students out or trip them up; I just want to give them a clear incentive to pay attention and do the work. I really like the idea of bonus questions. I'm going to try it out on the next quiz, definitely. Thank you so much for the advice!

[flonnebonne]

You sound so much nicer and hard working than pretty much all of my profs in university! Glad to hear the system isn't forcing you to penalize your students.

Something I've been doing lately with tests (not quizzes--too much work) is making the questions hard but giving students a chance to do corrections after. Those who do all their corrections (and they have to explain the corrections, not just write the correct answer) can receive up to x bonus marks. I usually give them class time to do it--it helps them get to know each other when they talk to their classmates to find out the right answer. Might be more of a high school thing though.

Also, I've also been getting my older, more capable students to do some of their own teaching (not presenting) and having them make their own quiz and test questions and create games and stuff. It ties in with their project work. We'll see how it goes!