Probably hopeless: Any free sites that would let me create my own quizzes?

[Jenny in Florida]

After a decent start to the year, my son and I have fallen right back into old patterns. I give him the assignments for the week. We sit down together and make a plan for what he will accomplish each day. He doesn't keep up, because he's too busy puttering around the house and daydreaming and taking naps with the cat. I get increasingly frustrated as the days pass and he ignores my gentle reminders that time waits for no student. We start the following week with stuff left over and whole new batch of work, which he won't finish on time. When I really hold his feet to the fire, he does just enough work to get out of trouble. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

 

I should clarify that, for subjects he likes, he does just fine. It's everything else that is problematic.

 

He seems to think he's going to be able to continue pulling this nonsense and still achieve his goal of graduating in three years. He looked genuinely surprised earlier this week when I mentioned to him that I thought we needed to re-evauate that plan.

 

I had a crazy idea today, wondering how it would work to simply turn over control of his pace to him. I have the full year planned for each subject, and I suddenly wondered if it might alleviate some of my frustration and kick his butt into gear if I quit telling him what to do each week. Instead, I'd give him the list, in order, of every assignment for each class for the full year. He could then choose to work through the lists as quickly or as slowly as he wished, with the understanding that he won't finish this grade/year until he's completed everything and that, if he's not done by the official beginning of summer, he'll forfeit the possibility of signing up for any of his usual summer break activities. The plus for him would be that he's welcome to finish early, either individual courses or the whole enchilada, if he buckles down and gets to work.

 

However, I'll be honest enough to admit that I suspect this wouldn't work if he had to rely on me to grade and approve every assignment before moving on to the next thing. I get so upset about poor performance, academically, and lack of effort that I kind of lose my mind. Yes, it's a character flaw. Yes, I should work on it. And I do. But I'd also like to get this kid through high school without making him wait for me to achieve personal perfection.

 

So, does anyone know if there's a website or something that would allow me to create personalized quizzes and such for him to do based on the work I'm giving him? Something where he could select or type in answers to questions I wrote and get grades automatically? I have no budget for this, and I really want to continue using the materials and plans I already have in place. So, it would need to be something free that I could personalize.

 

Thoughts? Suggestions? Opinions about my sanity?

[regentrude]

What kind of quizzes were you thinking of? I have not seen any automated grading that would satisfy my requirements as to the complexity of the answers - no system I have come across would be able to grade anything beyond simple multiple choice.

I know that constructing math and science tests in a multiple choice format and testing the full complexity of problems requires an immense amount of work and expertise; it is much easier to design open ended questions and grade them by hand.

I can also not envision an automated system that can grade essay answers.

 

So, for what kinds of subjects did you have that in mind?

 

ETA: I sense your frustration, but I do not quite understand how doing automated quizzes will make your son do his work any more than your current system does. I understand that you want to turn the responsibility over to him and want to recuse yourself from the frustration of grading - so why not NOT grade little assignments and base his grade solely on a final exam which you them would grade by hand when he has completed his course and is ready for the test?

[Chez J]

Only thing I can think of is Quizlet.

[Jenny in Florida]

What kind of quizzes were you thinking of? I have not seen any automated grading that would satisfy my requirements as to the complexity of the answers - no system I have come across would be able to grade anything beyond simple multiple choice.

I know that constructing math and science tests in a multiple choice format and testing the full complexity of problems requires an immense amount of work and expertise; it is much easier to design open ended questions and grade them by hand.

I can also not envision an automated system that can grade essay answers.

 

So, for what kinds of subjects did you have that in mind?

 

ETA: I sense your frustration, but I do not quite understand how doing automated quizzes will make your son do his work any more than your current system does. I understand that you want to turn the responsibility over to him and want to recuse yourself from the frustration of grading - so why not NOT grade little assignments and base his grade solely on a final exam which you them would grade by hand when he has completed his course and is ready for the test?

 

I'm thinking of the daily stuff for which I've already written (or "borrowed") worksheet-type assignments. The purpose of those isn't to be complex and challenging, but really just to give us a touchstone making sure he's done the reading or whatever other work I've assigned. Essentially, this is a kid who can't be bothered to pay attention to reading anything he doesn't like unless he knows someone will check up on him. I hate that. It's disappointing. I've struggled for years to encourage him to think of schoolwork as a wonderful opportunity to open up the world for himself. Nothing changes. I have to work with what I've got.

 

I chatted with him about this today, and we agreed that there are some subjects in which I will have to remain more directly involved. We'll continue all of the reading aloud together I have planned, because I think that remains valuable. And foreign language will have to be exempt from this approach, if we decide to give it a try.

 

Anything complex, like the projects he does for history, will have to continue being graded by me, of course.

 

I've found that, on these boards, the more I explain myself to other folks, the farther away from my actual question we get. So, I'm going to ask you (and others) to just trust me when I say there are good reasons to consider this strategy. I'll admit right here that I'm not providing my son with the perfect, classical, rigorous education many of you would consider essential. Again, I have to work with what I have, including my own personality and that of my son.

[Jenny in Florida]

Only thing I can think of is Quizlet.

 

I'll add this one to my list of sites to investigate. Thanks!

[Keniki]

Quizlet was my first thought also.

 

I also wonder if it isn't time to set him up college-style. Give him the assignments and the notice "The test will be on this date ___________. It's up to you to be ready. I'm here if you have questions or need help understanding something." Then follow through.

[flyingiguana]

I thought quia was free:

http://www.quia.com/web

but now that I go there, it looks like there is a subscription price. Does that only apply if you are making up your own quiz? Because I think I can still take quizzes there, without an account.

 

Is your son using textbooks? If he is, a lot of the text book companies have sites with quizzes already made up that can be answered online and the grade sent to the teacher. If they're popular text books there may also be a lot of quizzes online at other sites that other teachers have come up with. There may be some at quia in the shared files (of which there are a lot). You might be able to save yourself the hassle of coming up with your own questions, if you could find something specific to the materials you're using.

[flyingiguana]

BTW -- I've felt like this all the time with my kids, so you're not crazy. But I've also found that they tend to learn a lot that isn't measured by my tests and things. And I can make myself nuts with trying to get them to do checklists and "finish" things. I'm coming to the conclusion that education is not about finishing "the stuff".

 

My eldest went off to college not doing nearly half of what I thought she should do. She's now one of the stellar students. Despite all the lists we had that never got finished. Despite all the talks we had about not getting things done.

 

Not that I can speak to your particular situation, of course. Just wanted to share my been there done that moment.

 

And I understand the desire for quizzes. A lot of kids will fill in tests because it's kind of fun -- and even learn a bit on the side. And then you both know you've done something.

[bobbeym]

:grouphug: I have the same problems here with DS14. I also have weekly lessons written out for the year, but turning that responsibility over to him to keep up with hasn't worked for us yet.

 

He does have quizzes and tests with our normal curric choices, but they don't do much good when he's not focusing on the daily lessons and fails the quiz. I refuse to give him a failing grade because I think that defeats the purpose of making sure he's mastering the subject.

 

So we continue to struggle slowly along with the understanding that 9th grade will be done whenever everything is completed. I have to remind myself that we're not in a race to finish by XYZ date, although I understand that might be different for you if your DS wants to graduate in 3 years.

 

I don't have any real advice to offer since I haven't yet found my own solution to the problem, but I wanted to let you know that you're not alone. And don't feel like you have to apologize or defend your choices to others. You know what works best for your kid so go with it. :D

[JanetC]

I don't think what you're asking for exists.

 

If the quizzes are just "ABCD", then an unmotivated child is going to simply try all combinations until he passes, rather than learning the material.

 

If the quizzes are more short answer or fill-in-the-blank, it's really hard to get automatic grading to work right every time.

 

You'd be better off just slurping your worksheets into a cloud repository like Google Docs, Evernote, or Dropbox, and grading them manually.

 

You're going to have to look at his work. You don't necessarily have to say, "You cannot go on to lesson 2 until I have graded lesson 1." You can say, "You may have to go back to lesson 1 if I find the work unacceptable." This might get the grading down to a couple times a week.

 

I also worry that you are going in the wrong direction here -- checking in once a week is not going well. So, to avoid the weekly fights, you're going to just check in once at the end of the year instead. Given that he cannot plan out a week's worth of work, the chances of him succeeding if you give him a year's worth of rope is pretty much nil.

 

I think you need to turn around and go the other way, much more frequent check ins instead of less. Give him less freedom to choose. We have a hybrid system at our house, where some subjects are done on a student scheduled basis from roughly 8:30 to noon. Then there is an hour lunch/recess break. From 1 to 3:30 or 4 (depending on activities we have that afternoon), it's scheduled down to the half-hour. We do music practice, chemistry, and one other thing that varies by day of the week.

 

You may need to schedule the whole day at first. A brick&mortar school student doesn't decide when to do chemistry; the school tells him it's in room 122 at 10:40 am. Some kids just can't get things done otherwise.

 

--Janet

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I have had to amp up my supervision. As I've really increased the demands this year I've had to go back to at the elbow or slightly hovering to teach them how to manage the material and overall load. Sometimes our teens need more mom not less.

 

I realize this isn't what the op was looking for.

[Julie of KY]

I would help him plan what has to be done for the week at a minimum. I then also give my kids the full year plan (or part year) and say that they can work at a faster pace. On that plan it may say, read chp. 1, answer questions, discuss with mom, take quiz. It is up to my child to come to me for discussion and quizzes if he wants to work faster. I also say, if you finish this early, I won't assign more for the year (but I expect time to be filled with something worthwhile of their choosing).