Hello again, and welcome to the 2024-2025 school year! I haven’t sent out a newsletter for a while, so I wanted to update you on all of the new features that have been added to PhysQuiz.net:
- *NEW* One-at-a-time question mode!
- *NEW* Continuous questions mode for all quizzes!
- Lots of other *NEW* features – dark mode, assignment tags, sig fig explanations
- Site licenses for 2024-2025 school year
- Bug fixes and other improvements
*NEW* One-at-a-time question mode!
Back in December, I received a great suggestion from Malcolm to create a new quiz mode that would only show one question at a time based on feedback he was getting from his students who felt stressed when they saw all of the questions at once. I’ve been teaching for 26 years and have also noticed an increase in anxiety triggers in my own students, so I figured out how to add a new “One question at a time” mode to all of the quizzes on the site!
When you’re creating an assignment, choose this option at the bottom of the form:
Then, when students take the quiz, the questions will look something like this:
The “Grade It!” button only appears on the last question to prevent students from clicking it too early (thanks, Matthew!), but if you activate the “Save progress” option, that button will still show up on every question (thanks, Yvonne!).
Currently, this option is only available to teachers and students at schools with active site licenses. Thanks again to all of the teachers who helped me figure out how to make this new feature happen! I’m hoping that it helps students focus on the problem in front of them instead of worrying about how many they still have left to complete.
*NEW* Continuous questions mode!
I’ve also added a new “Continuous” mode that will generate unlimited questions for your students, one at a time, and provide immediate feedback after each question. The Dashboard will keep track of their total score and append each question and response to their results so you can review them. Here’s an example from the Significant Figures Quiz that also demonstrates the new “Dark mode” feature:
One benefit of Continuous mode is that you can set a threshold on the assignment so that students will still have to answer enough questions correctly in order to complete the assignment but they get as many tries as they need in order to do it. I’m hoping that this decreases student anxiety and gives them more encouragement to try without worrying about getting questions wrong (shout-out to my fellow Phil Schlechty fans – you know who you are!) I plan on using this new feature in my own classes this upcoming school year for in-class practice and formative assessment.
Continuous mode can be activated on any assignment by selecting it under “Number of items” when you create or edit an assignment in the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard:
It’s also available on all quizzes on ChemQuiz.net! I’ve activated Continuous mode on the Significant Figures Quiz for everyone who wants to try it out. Please note that Continuous mode disables a few assignment features such as limiting attempts and saving progress (since it already saves each question), and it’s not available for exams. Let me know what you think of the new feature, and thanks to Jason, Don and Malcolm for the suggestions and inspiration!
Lots of other *NEW* features!
I’ve also added a number of other new features to PhysQuiz.net that I hope you and your students will like! Here’s a quick rundown:
- dark mode† available on all quizzes and the Dashboard (see above)
- explanations for sig fig problems† (also see above)
- assignment tags*† for better organization (see below)
- view saved student progress*† on an assignment in the Dashboard before it’s submitted
FYI new features that are marked with an asterisk (*) are only available to schools with an active PhysQuiz.net Dashboard site license; new features that are marked with a dagger (†) are also available on ChemQuiz.net.
Bug fixes & other improvements
Besides Continuous mode, the biggest update this summer was invisible, because I spent a LOT of time preparing the site for a major upgrade of PHP, the web server software that powers everything on PhysQuiz.net and ChemQuiz.net! This should make the website run faster and more securely. Unfortunately, the upgrade broke a few Dashboard features when I performed the upgrade in early July, but I’ve tracked down a lot of them thanks to teachers who were using the site over the summer and reached out when something wasn’t working properly.
Everywhere
- new feature: “Dark mode” (thanks to my son for the suggestion!)
Dashboard – these features and bug fixes also apply to ChemQuiz.net
- new feature: added an expiring progress alert for students at the top of the Dashboard
- new feature: added class and tag filter menus to improve assignment organization (thanks, Matthew!)
- new feature: added ability to change the order in which assignments are displayed in the student Dashboard (thanks, Don!)
- improvement: allow teachers to limit the number of attempts to a specific number (e.g., 3) instead of just “yes” or “no” (thanks, Yana!)
- improvement: export results CSV in format for Canvas (thanks, John, Matthew and Malcolm!)
- improvement: added link to renew site license on “Your School” page
- improvement: added an alert about “require login” and “save progress” options (thanks, Nate!)
- improvement: changed Dashboard page titles in web browsers for more accurate bookmarking
- improvement: can now view student progress on an assignment even though it hasn’t been turned in yet (thanks, Vilma & Danielle!)
- bug fix: assignments for “All Classes” weren’t showing up on the Assignments page for colleagues (thanks, Bill!)
- bug fix: overriding a student answer that was marked as “incorrect” would sometimes count for multiple points (thanks, Jason!)
- bug fix: PHP notices were showing up in the production version of the Dashboard (thanks again, Jason!)
- bug fix: user accounts created with malformed usernames couldn’t see the Dashboard (thanks, Stephanie!)
- bug fix: trying to create an exam led to a “Column ‘quizID’ cannot be null” error (thanks, John, Matthew and Nick!)
- bug fix: using the bulk actions menu without selecting assignments first gave a MySQL error (thanks, Yvonne!)
- bug fix: teachers could create student accounts that weren’t email addresses through CSV roster import (thanks, Stephanie!)
- bug fix: CSV results export wasn’t working after PHP upgrade (thanks, Corey!)
- bug fix: displaying student deletion confirmation form would cause Dashboard to crash due to incorrectly formatted count() function (thanks, Jason!)
- bug fix: “Time to Complete” in student result details was off by 5 hours (thanks, Nick!)
- bug fix: most recent results were not showing up due to a miscalculation in the number of Results pages
- bug fix: student usernames would not show up across the Dashboard if student did not have a first & last name saved in the Dashboard
- bug fix: an error in a mysql statement prevented teachers from changing a student’s password
Exams
- improvement: updated exam page language for inactive exams
- bug fix: an exam section would be inaccessible to students if they previously completed the assignment that section was based on and “Allow multiple attempts” was turned off (thanks, Cynthia!)
- bug fix: “Save Progress” button was displaying in exams even when the setting was off (thanks, Yvonne!)
- new feature: option for students to see one question at a time (thanks, Malcolm!)
- improvement: tweaked the design of answer pages on all quizzes so they have similar column widths
- improvement: students were accidentally hitting the “Grade It!” button when they meant to go on to the next question in “one at a time” mode, so the button was moved to the last question (thanks, Matthew!)
- improvement: Presentation mode is now available to everyone on all quizzes
- improvement: custom assignment names are now displayed in web browser tab title
- bug fix: students were sometimes being prompted to finish an assignment for “All Classes” that was from a different teacher at their school (thanks, Lauren and Maggie!)
- bug fix: word wrap was not working in “one at a time” mode (thanks again, Matthew!)
- bug fix: “Save Progress” button was not displaying in “one at a time” mode (thanks, Yvonne!)
- bug fix: decimal values with multiple zeros after the decimal point sometimes had the distance from the decimal calculated incorrectly
- bug fix: fixed color on answer button in presentation mode
- bug fix: “Submit” button to start quizzes was missing for users who weren’t logged in (thanks, Pamela!)
- bug fix: “0” answers were incorrectly being interpreted as “no answer” instead of zero
- bug fix: table cells for quiz questions were swapped
- bug fix: values for an individual resistor in parallel resistor problems were being calculated incorrectly (thanks, Clare!)
Friction & Inclined Planes Quiz
- bug fix: given value for applied force was missing in word problems when solving for acceleration (thanks, Rob!)
- bug fix: table cells for quiz questions were swapped
- bug fix: reactions with double beta decay mode would cause the quiz to crash when generating multiple choice options
- bug fix: test code was being displayed when it should have been removed (thanks, Matthew!)
- bug fix: blank answers were being graded using the last values entered by the student instead of being automatically marked wrong
- bug fix: maxima and minima values in multiple choice options were not integers
- bug fix: fixed wording on a problem involving a horizontally launched projectile (thanks, John!)
- new feature: added explanations (solutions) for counting and arithmetic problems
- improvement: added parentheses around scientific notation values in math problems (thanks, Tony!)
Other improvements
- improvement: tweaked site security settings so that a school is less likely to be accidentally blocked by the firewall (thanks, Debbie!)
- bug fix: results database table hadn’t been updated with new columns, causing issues for recently created schools (thanks, Sharon!)
- bug fix: creating users through CSV import wasn’t working due to a backend conflict with WooCommerce and an older version of PHP (thanks, Corey!)
- bug fixes: many code updates and improvements necessitated by server software upgrade this summer
I keep track of every issue or suggestion that’s sent in, but some bugs take a while to track down and fix, and new features can be challenging to add, so I appreciate your patience and understanding. PhysQuiz.net has improved significantly thanks to all the teachers and students who have sent in reports, so please keep sending them in!
Site licenses for the 2024-2025 school year
Speaking of site licenses – thank you to everyone who has purchased or renewed their school’s site license for the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard for the 2024-2025 school year! Site licenses help me pay for the web hosting and software I use to write the quizzes, and it keeps the website ad-free.
If you’d like to purchase a 12-month PhysQuiz.net site license or renew your existing license, you can pay in one of the following ways:
- credit card through Square (the most popular option)
- school purchase order (contact me for a sales quote – I’m also happy to fill out any paperwork required by your institution or state, and I’m now an officially registered business in New Jersey, too! 😂)
- personal check
- CashApp, PayPal, Venmo or Zelle at chris@physquiz.net
Additional schools in the same district can purchase an add-on license for 50% off at just US$35 per school. If you also teach chemistry or you have a colleague who does, you can bundle a site license for the ChemQuiz.net Dashboard for just US$35 more! Please contact me if you have any questions about how to purchase a site license.
Site licenses also help me offer the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard for free to public schools across the United States with high rates of poverty. If you teach in a high poverty public school or school district (at least 50% of your students on free/reduced lunch or designated “economically disadvantaged”), please send me a link to the supporting documentation and you’ll get a free site license for the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard forever (ChemQuiz.net, too!).
Help me share PhysQuiz.net with the world!
If you like using PhysQuiz.net, there are three quick and easy things that you can do to help me promote the site!
- Add your school to the list of supporters on the About page! Simply go to the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard, click on “Your Info” in the top menu bar, activate the box next to “Display School on PhysQuiz.net“, and click the “Update Your Info” button.
- Tell another Physics teacher about PhysQuiz.net and encourage them to try out the Dashboard!
- Follow @PhysQuizDotNet on X (formerly Twitter) and share my updates with your fellow Physics teachers!
Thanks for supporting PhysQuiz.net! For those of you in North America, I hope that you have a great start to this school year. Please reach out to me via the Contact form or at chris@physquiz.net if you have any questions or concerns. Take care!
-Chris
