Make Your Own Questions
Writing a good question forces you to judge what matters. Have students build low-stakes quizzes and flashcards from their own notes, so the tool supports retrieval they have authored.
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The strategy, as published
Exactly as it appears on the card
Part of Digital Cognition in 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.
Why you might use it
The problem it may help with
Writing a good question is harder than answering one, and that is the value. To build a quiz from your own notes you must judge which ideas carry the topic, what is likely to be asked, and what a fair test of it looks like: monitoring decisions, all of them.
The tool then supports retrieval the pupil has authored, rather than serving up someone else's judgement of what counts.
What it might look like
One version of it, in a classroom
Pupils turn their notes on a topic into ten flashcards. The constraint does the teaching: each card front must be answerable without giving the answer away, which forces decisions about what the essential knowledge actually is. The finished deck then drives their retrieval practice for the weeks that follow.
Try it
A way to begin
End a topic with "write five questions a classmate should be able to answer", then swap and answer. Authoring and retrieval in one move, no technology required to start.
What to notice
Reading what happens
- Questions that only target the easiest facts. That is a judgement gap, and it is teachable: show what a probing question looks like and let them revise their own.
- Whether question quality improves once pupils have seen good models.
Things to think about
Before and while you use it
- The authoring is where the thinking happens. A downloaded deck has had all the deciding done already, which is precisely the part the pupil needed to do.
- Swapping questions buys a second benefit: answering a peer's questions is another retrieval pass, from a different angle.
Technology second
Where technology fits
A flashcard or low-stakes quiz tool approved in your setting will happily manage the practice: storing the deck, shuffling the order, resurfacing cards over time. What it must not manage is the writing of the questions. Keep the authoring with the pupil and let the tool carry the admin; that division is the strand's rule about scaffolds applied to a quiz app.
The wider thinking
Where the evidence sits
Winne's account of self-regulated studying underpins this: deciding what to ask yourself is itself a monitoring judgement, made before a single answer is attempted. The card’s attribution stands as published: Winne.
The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Metacognition & Self-Regulation.
Keep exploring
Where next?
Back to this strategy in 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation, across to what you're trying to improve, or into all 144 at once.
Want to take this further?
Support is available
Pedagogy First gives you a starting point. If you want support exploring how approaches like this can work across your school, trust or professional learning programme, that work is available.