Knowledge Quiz

A whole-class structure in teams of four, with a whiteboard sheet and a marker per team. Every question is a round of two steps: the question is on the screen, the team confers for half a minute and writes one answer big on the board; then all boards go up at once on one signal, the answer appears on the screen and you tap the teams that had it — one point per team. Beforehand you form the teams; after the last question two closing steps follow: the score large on the screen, and then a look back at the questions at most half the teams got right. The difference from an ordinary quiz lies in two things: every team answers every question, and the conferring comes before the answer.

One question takes 75 seconds with the default times: 30 seconds to confer and write, 45 seconds for boards up, the answer and the points. Eight questions are therefore ten minutes, plus a minute for the teams beforehand, a minute for the result and a minute and a half for the look-back: fourteen minutes. Whoever prepares the structure sets the time per step — and the player does not advance automatically by default, so the boards go up on your signal, not on the clock.

Eight to twelve questions is the measure: enough to cover the material, few enough to keep the energy up. Teams of four work best — enough to confer, small enough that everyone thinks along — and the player counts from two to eight teams, so a class of 28 is seven teams. With six per team, three confer and three watch.

No, but they are the handiest: one sheet and one marker per team, and after every question the board is clean again with one wipe. Have every team write its team number big in the corner of the board — with eight boards in the air you then see at a glance which team you are tapping. Without sheets, an A4 sheet with a thick marker works just as well (a fresh sheet after every question), or a plastic sleeve with a sheet inside and a dry-wipe marker — that is a whiteboard sheet. The basic kit describes how to make them in an evening; after that they last a year. What does not work is calling out or hands up: then the fastest team answers and the rest watch.

One short question with exactly one short, checkable answer that fits on a board: a concept, a number, a name, a date, a word in the other language. No open questions (they do not fit in thirty seconds) and no questions you can look up in thirty seconds. Order them from easy to hard, so every team scores in the first rounds. Type them in the preparation one per line as "question = answer"; the player splits on the last equals sign, so "What is 7 × 8 = 56" just works. Stuck? Ask Microsoft Copilot: "Write 8 quiz questions about [topic] for students aged [age], increasing in difficulty, each with a short unambiguous answer that fits on a whiteboard. One question per line, in the form: question = answer. No numbering." Paste the answer into the Questions field — every line becomes a question. If you work with the editor, its own prompt sits next to that field: it returns four options per question and the letter of the right one, in the shape the editor asks for.

Yes. In the preparation, next to the questions field, you pick the editor: per question you type options A to D and tick the right one. The options appear as tiles under the question on the screen, and the team writes the letter on the board. The rest runs the same — confer, boards up, answer, points. Open questions can go in the editor too; the lines are just faster to type and paste. The AI tip next to the field follows your choice: for the editor the prompt asks for four options per question and the letter of the right answer, so the answer fits the box it lands in.

After showing the answer you tap on the screen the numbers of the teams that had it; each gets one point. No bonus for speed, no deduction for a mistake — that keeps the conferring alive. During the questions the score sits small next to the clock, after the last question large as the closing step; via the live link the teams see the same score on their own screen. The score belongs to today: it is not saved with a preparation, every quiz starts at zero. If you want no score on the screen, set the result to zero seconds — the look-back after it is a step of its own and stays.

After the score the player puts the questions at most half the teams got right back on the screen — the hardest at the top, with the answer and with "n of m teams right" beside it. At most four, because more than that you cannot read out in a minute and a half. Only questions whose answer you actually revealed count: a question you skipped says nothing about the class. If more than half the teams had every question, the step says so — then the quiz was too easy for this class, and that is information too. Explain nothing here yet: one sentence from a team that did know is enough, the rest is tomorrow's lesson. If you would rather keep track of the hard questions yourself, set the step to zero seconds.

Both let a team confer first, but the answer comes out differently. In Numbered Minds one number is drawn after the conferring, and that student answers for the team — so everyone has to be able to explain it, including whoever just heard it. In the Knowledge Quiz the team answers as a whole on a board, at the same time as all the other teams, and a score counts. Rule of thumb: Numbered Minds when you want every member to understand; the Knowledge Quiz when you want to see in ten minutes where the class stands, with pace and a score.

In the Movement Quiz the class walks around and students quiz each other in changing pairs with cards: many conversations, no score, nobody sees the whole. The Knowledge Quiz is seated, works in fixed teams, and has the whole class answer every question at the same time on one screen — you see per question how many teams had it. Choose the Movement Quiz for practice and energy, the Knowledge Quiz to check and revise with an outcome you can see.

Three things carry the structure. One: the conferring. Walk round in the first rounds and ask "do all four of you agree?" — a team where one student writes straight away is an individual quiz with an audience. Two: the signal. All boards up at once, then let them hang a moment so the class sees where the teams differ, and only then the answer. Three: the points. You decide when in doubt, half right does not exist, and on a mistake several teams made one sentence of explanation is enough — the rest is tomorrow's explanation. Keep the applause short and the losing light at the end: a minute, not an award ceremony.

Yes, with one change to the board: share your screen, put the teams in breakout rooms or let them confer in their team's chat, and have every team post its answer in the shared chat at the same time on your signal — that is the online version of boards up. Then show the answer and tap the teams. The live link lets every team see the question and the score on its own screen as well.

The Knowledge Quiz belongs to the family of cooperative structures in which teams answer simultaneously and visibly; the team answer on a mini whiteboard was described in the literature by Spencer Kagan, and the idea behind it — that on every question you want to see an answer from every student, not from three raised hands — was worked out by Dylan Wiliam as the core of formative assessment in the classroom. Why the conferring, the simultaneous answer and the light score work exactly as they do, we checked against Uncommon Sense Teaching by Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky and Terrence Sejnowski.