Running Head: Quizlet Critique Dougan

Multimedia Product Critique Paper #1: Quizlet Critique

Michael Dougan

Coastal Carolina University

Quizlet Critique Dougan

Multimedia Product Critique Paper #1: Quizlet Critique

In today’s society, students are constantly surrounded by technology; some good and

some bad. Many students have a higher level of expertise at using technology than many of their

teachers. Since this is the background to education, it becomes the teacher’s job to incorporate

technology into their classroom and make sure that the resources they are pulling are sufficient.

Depending on the curriculum being taught in the classroom, teachers could find resources that

are already made or they might have to create something themselves. One such example of a

teacher made resource is Quizlet (​https://quizlet.com/​).

Quizlet is primarily used as a website that helps students in practicing and acquiring

vocabulary. There is an application for mobile devices, but the application is not as user friendly

and it restricts the types of activities the students can do. All teachers need to sign up for Quizlet

is an email address and from there they have the ability to use Quizlet however they like in their

classroom. Upon signing up for an account, teachers will see that there is a free and two paid

versions. The paid versions of Quizlet coast $1.67 for Plus and $3.00 for Teacher a month, which

is worth it. Each tier of membership on Quizlet has their own perks Quizlet, Quizlet Plus and

Quizlet Teacher. For the purposes of this paper, the Quizlet Teacher subscription will be the

basis of the information. are as follows: Quizlet Teacher allows the teacher to add a few more

details into their vocabulary sets, such as recording their own voice and adding pictures, as well

as showing student progress as they work on the various tasks that are offered, which cannot be

done in the other options. as seen in figure one.

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Figure 1: Student Progress

Once the teachers have their accounts created and they set up their classes they have two

options for how they can add vocabulary sets for the students to study. The first option is simply

creating a vocabulary set from scratch. All the teacher would need for this is a list of vocabulary

words and definitions that they can input into Quizlet for the set. Once all of this information is

entered, the teacher can then add an image to go along with the term and also record their voice

saying the terms and definitions. The alternative method for teachers adding vocabulary sets to

their classroom is to simply search already created sets and add one that matches their interest. If

a teacher searches for a vocabulary set, they can still copy it and edit it so that it meets the

teachers expectations for what the students are supposed to be doing.

Teachers can sync their Quizlet class to their Google classroom or provide students with

a link to join the class. After the students join the class they will see whatever vocabulary sets are

added to the class. Students will have seven options for activities that they can use to practice

their vocabulary acquisition. Since the teacher has the paid account, the teacher can begin

monitoring the student’s progress as they work their way through the vocabulary set.
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Figure 2: Teacher Page With Activities

Quizlet also allows the teacher to print hard copies of many activities so the can be used with

their class as a whole, such as flashcards and test.

Figure two shows the teacher page that shows the activities the students could do as well

as one extra activity that the teacher can direct as a class. The activities the students can do as

follows:

● Learn - vocabulary repetition. Students need to progress through different levels until a

level of mastery is met.

● Flashcards - digital version of traditional flashcards.

● Write - student is given the definition and needs to type the vocabulary term.

● Spell - the term is said to the students and they need to type it in. If the teacher records

their voice, it will be heard instead of the computer voice.

● Test - students can create their own test with a variety of question types.

● Match - digital version of traditional match game.

● Gravity - game where the students need to type in the term or definition before an

asteroid hits the planet.

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● Live - team game where the students need to correctly select the desired vocabulary word

in succession until the game is over.

As a multimedia tool, Quizlet does help enhance the students ability to acquire

vocabulary. Mayer stated that “people learn more deeply from words and pictures, rather than

from words alone,” which is exactly what Quizlet allows. Quizlet takes the words and actually

allows the teacher to create a vocabulary set with pictures and even their own voice to

compliment the material, which gives it potential to be a beneficial resource, pictured in figure

three. In addition to adding the enhancing features to the vocabulary set, Quizlet turns the terms

into interesting activities that make it entertaining for the students, such as gravity and live.

Unfortunately for Quizlet, this is as positive as it gets for this multimedia resource.

Figure 3: Creating a Vocabulary Set

Since Quizlet is really created, or curated, by the teacher it is unlike many other

multimedia resources in education. The quality of the material in a vocabulary set in Quizlet may

be up to par and the teacher may have high expectations and procedures for using Quizlet in their

classroom, but it may not be enough for students. At its face value, Quizlet is not much more
Quizlet Critique Dougan

than memorization. As Ausubel (1961, 1963b) and Ausubel et al (1978) stated about rote

learning, “the learner has made no real connection between what was already known… and what

was memorized stands as an arbitrary piece of information in isolation” because Quizlet alone

does not connect information to what the students know or they are learning. All of the different

types of activities that Quizlet offers students, at most, offer students opportunities to regurgitate

information that was just shown to them. Students would be able to show ‘mastery’ on these

activities and then still have no real understanding of any of the material.

By itself, Quizlet is an adequate multimedia resource in instruction due to its design but is

poor in instruction as it does not do much more than promote memorization. It is the job of the

teacher to make sure that if Quizlet is used in the classroom that they are building from it.

Quizlet can and should be a useful starting point when new content is being introduced. This

allows the students to become familiar with the terms and maybe develop a basic understanding

of the information they are about to learn in class. Following that, the teacher will cover the

material, using a different multimedia tool, and probably not refer back to Quizlet, unless they

have too. One strategy many teachers do is that they print off the flashcards or even questions

from the test activity and turn them into a Kagan structure. In doing so, students are still

benefiting from the quality of the multimedia aspect of this activity and in using a Kagan

structure, they are taking the cognitive level from memorization to a deeper, longer term of

memory.
Quizlet Critique Dougan

Bibliography

Driscoll, M. (2005). Meaningful learning and schema theory. ​Psychology of Learning for

Instruction (3rd ed.) ​(pp. 115-116)​. B

​ oston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Mayer, R.E. & Pilegard C. (2014) Principles for managing essential processing in multimedia

learning: segmenting, pre-training, and modality principles. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), ​The

Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning.​ (pp. 43). New York: Cambridge.

Quizlet (n.d.). Simple Tools for Learning Anything. Retrieved February 16, 2019.

https://quizlet.com/