As teachers, how can we make exam review fun, getting students to review months of content, using strategies that stick?
Whether you’re having students prepare for a quiz, a unit test, a provincial assessment, or you want to check in to see where they are at, learning how to review content in a meaningful and engaging way is essential.
Over the years, I’ve found that structured, student-centred review not only helps students refresh key skills, but it can help reduce test anxiety and build confidence. The more comfortable students get with reviewing material now, the better prepared they’ll be for the future.
Below are some strategies to make exam review fun, specifically for math class, that can help students feel prepared when an exam is coming up and help them build the confidence and skill they’ll need to initiate review on their own.
This week, my grade 8 students are working on exam review in math class. Every year, I give students an exam at the midpoint in the year, aligned with when our local high schools are starting their official exams. These are not official provincial exams; they are just a study tool to help lessen exam anxiety among students. In a few short months, these students will be in Grade 9 and writing official exams that will count towards a percentage of their final mark.
This means that students are reviewing 5 months of content. However, it’s not enough to tell students they need to “review what they’ve learned” because what does that mean to a student? How do they know what is important to review and what is not important?
It can feel overwhelming to students.
This is why strategies to make exam review fun are important. As teachers, we’ve spent years having to study, and it’s not always on topics that we find exciting or engaging, but it still needs to get done.
So how can we help students?
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Strategies to Make Exam Review Fun
Break it into Manageable Chunks
Reviewing months’ worth of content can feel impossible. That is why each day of the five-day week is assigned exclusively to review one strand/topic that we have covered since the beginning of the year.
You could also divide your review into daily or weekly focus areas. So for math, it could be one week spent on operations and number sense, another week spent on geometry, another on financial literacy, etc.
Students will learn that they don’t need to cram the entire first half of the year’s content into their review session immediately, and that by breaking it up into manageable chunks, they can more deeply engage with what they have learned and actually retain the information.
Let Students Take the Lead
One strategy that can make exam review fun is by having students “teach” the review lessons. With this strategy, each day a different small group of students gets to come up to the whiteboard and demonstrate to their classmates how they solved one math question pertaining to the topic of the day or week.
Not only does this strategy help students review content, but it’s a great way to build classroom community, help students collaborate with one another, and create a positive classroom culture.
Use High-Interest and Relevant Review Questions
If you’re trying to make exam review fun, don’t bring out the same worksheets students have seen over the past months. Instead, create real-world questions that are tied to student interests.
Math can sometimes feel like a vague or unimportant topic to students. You might hear them say, “Why do we need to learn this if we have phones and calculators?” But by bringing in situations that demonstrate how different topics are used in the real world, students can make a connection between what they are learning and real-life scenarios.
Learn more about teaching real-world lessons in math with this blog post: Interesting Real Life Math Lessons.
Make the Review Hands-On
Have you ever tried to review material by reading a textbook? Sometimes the material might seem so dry, or you might not have understood it enough, that you reach the end of the page and don’t remember reading anything at all.
This is why it’s important to make exam review fun through hands-on activities that can boost engagement and help students retain information.
Whiteboards are a simple but effective way to boost engagement. This is because:
- They can provide a way for quick checks for understanding
- They allow for easy error correction
- They encourage students to think on paper
Don’t have whiteboards? Use student tables and desks with dry-erase markers.
Another hands-on activity can be incorporating games, challenges, and rewards. This could be through math relay races or math bingo, or you could have students collaborate to create their own quiz that reviews topics.
For more ideas on making math more hands-on, check out this post: 10 Ways To Make Math Fun.
Get Students Moving
Sitting at a desk all day can be exhausting, so why not get students to move around? Break up long periods of learning at a desk by letting students get up, stretch, and move around the classroom.
This could be through stations, posting task cards or questions around the room, or QR code hunts where students find QR codes that uncover questions.
Not only is getting students moving a fantastic way to make exam review fun, but this type of engagement can help to increase their focus and memory.
Make it Interactive
Lastly, a great way to make exam review fun is by making it interactive. Use websites like Kahoot or Blooket to enable students to answer questions in competition with the class.
For more ideas, check out this post: Middle School Math Websites.
It’s important to remember that math review doesn’t have to mean cramming or reteaching the entire year. When you choose a structure that works and engaging activities, you can make exam review fun, productive, and a positive experience.
For more tips on how to make exam review fun, check out:
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