Quiz-Quiz-Trade: Ways of Getting Students Out of Their Seats

My new school’s lessons are usually 80 minutes long. I think I shall try to get students out of their seats (at least) once each lesson – otherwise it is too long for them to be sitting. I also think it’s too long for me to plan in a single block. I can’t imagine any lesson where we work on the same thing for 80 minutes. My attention span isn’t that long and I can’t imagine any teenager’s is either.

Thus begins this series of posts on ways to get students out of their seats. Quiz-quiz-trade was an activity I learned about in Kagan Cooperative Learning (a brilliant book, by the way, which I thoroughly recommend). I have used quiz-quiz-trade regularly for years and adapted it in a few ways.

Preparation:
Print out some cards with questions on them. These could be taken from a textbook, revision sheet, made up by you, or made up by students.
Cut them up.

Activity:
Give one card to each student. While they are still sitting down, ask them to work through the question and verify that they know the correct answer.
Ask students to get out of their seats and meet someone new. Student A quizzes B, then student B quizzes A. They thank each other, then swap cards and move on to meet someone else.
After several trades, each student has met many other students and has also answered many questions.

Works Well With…
1. Questions that aren’t too long to solve. Or let students take mini whiteboards with them (pictured above).
2. Worksheet or textbook questions that you think are too boring as a worksheet. Just cut the sheet into strips and hand the questions out. Make sure you have enough for each student to get one.
3. Revising for exams. Use past papers cut into questions.

Adaptions:
1. Before quiz-quiz-trade, ask students to make up questions to demonstrate their understanding of a topic. Then you can use this questions for quiz-quiz-trade, either immediately or later.
2. You can print the answers on the back (for safety!).

What are some ways you get students out of their seats?

Check back next week for the next post in the Out of Their Seats series.