Adding Quizzes to Courses in Circle

Circle has introduced a new feature that allows creators to add quizzes to their courses, enhancing the learning experience and engagement within their community. This writeup will guide you through how to use the quiz feature, what it can do, and some areas where it can improve based on the content from my recent video.

How to Use Quizzes in Circle Courses

Step 1: Access Your Course

  1. Log In to Circle: Start by logging into your Circle account.
  2. Navigate to Your Course: Go to the course where you want to add a quiz.

Step 2: Create a Quiz

  1. Edit the Course: Click on the course to enter the editing mode.
  2. Add a Quiz: Click on the “Add New” button, which now offers the option to add a new lesson or a quiz. Select the quiz option.
  3. Name the Quiz: Enter a name for your quiz, such as “Test Quiz,” and click the Edit button to proceed.

Step 3: Configure Quiz Settings

  1. Settings: In the quiz settings, you can enable comments, set a passing grade, and decide whether to hide answers on the result page.
    • Enable Comments: Allow or disallow comments on the quiz.
    • Passing Grade: Set a required passing grade (e.g., 70%) for students to proceed to the next lesson.
    • Hide Answers: Optionally hide the correct answers on the results page.
  2. Build the Quiz: Add questions to the quiz. There are two types of questions available: single answer and multiple answer.
    • Single Answer: Only one correct answer.
    • Multiple Answer: Multiple correct answers.
  3. Add Images: You can upload images for your questions. Circle recommends a size of 1468×536 pixels. If the image does not fit, it will require cropping.

Step 4: Publish Your Quiz

  1. Review and Save: Once you’ve added all questions and configured the settings, save the quiz.
  2. View the Quiz: Preview the quiz to see how it appears to students.

Areas for Improvement

Limited Question Types

Currently, Circle only supports single-answer and multi-answer question types. Expanding this to include free response or fill-in-the-blank questions would not only enhance the quizzes themselves, but also provide for additional use cases for the quizzes. For example, gathering testimonials or feedback within a “quiz” inside of a course.

Description Limitations

The quiz description field is very basic and does not support advanced text formatting or multimedia embeds. Allowing richer content here could improve the ability to set context and provide instructions. I would like to add videos to the top of the quiz like I would in a normal text lesson inside of a course.

User Interface

The current quiz interface presents all questions on one screen. A more polished interface that allows one question per screen with navigation controls could make the quiz-taking experience more user-friendly.

Integration with Workflows

An exciting potential improvement is integrating quiz results with Circle’s workflows. For example, passing a quiz could automatically unlock new content or grant access to different parts of the community, providing an incentive for students to perform well.

Conclusion

The new quiz feature in Circle is a welcome addition that enhances the functionality of courses within the platform. While the feature is already useful for engaging students and tracking their progress, there is room for improvement. Thankfully, all of the areas of improvement that I have identified are relatively easy and most are simple extensions of existing features. I suspect most of these are already something that Circle is working on.