Drawing-Driven Dumps
Cult of Pedagogy’s post, “Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You’re Not Using,” highlights the effectiveness of retrieval practice—repeatedly recalling information from memory. This active recall helps students strengthen their understanding and improve long-term retention.
One popular retrieval practice is the Brain Dump, where students write down everything they remember about a topic without looking at notes. To mix things up, I sometimes have students draw instead of write, using pictures to retrieve and communicate their knowledge. After drawing, students pair up to explain their drawings to each other.
Quizizz can be used to collect these visual brain dumps. The steps below show how to set up a Quizizz lesson where students can join and use a digital whiteboard to draw. As the teacher, I can view everyone’s drawings and highlight certain ones for the whole class. And yes, when students use a laptop trackpad, the drawings can be... charmingly rough—but deciphering those scribbles adds to the fun!
