Microsoft Forms and Quizzes

Using Microsoft Forms to create easy and accessible Homework

Forms is one of many powerful tools included in the Office 365 package which teachers from most institutions will have access for free. It's a simple website that allows you to create quizzes or polls with a number of different customization options.

Before making a piece of work to be given to students, it is important that a quiz is created and not a form. If a form is chosen, you cannot assign any points or right/wrong answers. Forms can be used as surveys and are not graded.

Forms facilitates a few different types of questions. Each time you wish to add a question, you will need to press the 'add new' button on the lower left side of the interface. The most obvious and easy to set up is the 'Choice' question - the multiple-choice question. Here is a breakdown of how some of these work.

Choice

1 - The top box is used to write your question.

2 - The boxes below the title are used to put your multiple-choice answers.

3 - Hovering over the right-hand side of the answers will give you the opportunity to delete a particular answer or allocating the correct answer by clicking the tick.

4 - This button lets you increase the number of answers you'd like available.

5 - This number denotes the weighting of this particular question. These can differ which means that easier questions and harder questions can have different weightings.

6 - By clicking this bar, it enables the question to have multiple correct answers. This option is useful but has its limitations when it comes to marking the quizzes easily. Avoid this option if it's your first quiz.

7 - If this bar is clicked then this question has to be answered before a student can hand in the quiz.

Text - Short Answer

1 - Correct answers to the question are shown here. Students will have to spell it correctly in order for the mark to be given automatically.

2 - If there are multiple answers (or spellings) to your question, you can add more answers by pressing this button.

Text - Long Answer

1 - For long answer questions, you won't be able to provide an answer. You will need to manually check every answer in order to assign the marks awarded. These are great to check deep understanding but are time-consuming when it comes to marking.

2 - You must click this bar the change it to a 'long-answer' question rather than a 'short-answer' question. Both types of questions are accessed by initially choosing the 'Text' type of question.

Ranking

1 - When writing in the list of answers, you will have to put them in the correct order or 'ranking'. When students receive this question, the answers will be in a random order (not the correct one you have set).

2 - It's an idea to explain a bit more about the ordering in the question. Help your students understand what the top and/or the bottom of the order represents.

Rating

1 - You can choose a range of 2 - 10 levels and either numbers or stars for the symbol. It's important to specify what each number means.

2 - The points given for this question have been set to 0 because this is just to gauge how the students have felt after undertaking this.

Now that you have created a quiz for your students, it's time to share or assign it to them. Click the big 'Share' button in the top right of the page. A link is automatically generated and you can copy this to hand out to your students. You could even shorten this link to make it easier for you to include the link in textbooks for example. It also gives you the option to generate a QR code, embed, or send in an email. The most efficient way to distribute any quizzes is through Microsoft Teams. Teams is also included in the Office 365 package with Forms. I hope to create a post about Teams in the future to help you set up individual teams and share any work with your students.

I hope these brief descriptions help you to understand some of the great features within Forms, to create the perfect quiz for your students.