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People learn best when they are forced to retrieve the information and concepts repeatedly over time but most people haven't learned to study in ways that do this. Consequently, it may be more effective to move from the common practice of giving a few, high-stakes tests to giving numerous low stakes quizzes to assess and improve learning.

I'm actually a big fan of pop quizzes - I think they motivate students to keep up, and provide useful diagnostic information to the teacher. However, in-class quizzes chew up valuable face-to-face time, require manual grading (which slows their utility), and as this article points out, are deeply unfair to students with some disabilities. This article suggests other ways to hold a "pop quiz" which are equally accessible to all students (and potentially provide information faster to the faculty member). Hat tip to Erin Salva for the link.

What do classes look like as you move from infrequent, high-stakes assignments and exams to frequent grading of low-stakes activities? Warnock makes a number of claims, backed up by the literature - students become more confident and motivated, there's less incentive to cheat, the dialogue between students and faculty improves. I particularly like the last half of the article, where he talks about the practical elements of increasing informal writing or quizzing in a course.

This article promotes two teaching strategies that cognitive psychology research has shown to be effective: spaced practice, which brings students back to the same topics periodically throughout a course, and retrieval practice, which uses quizzes and class discussions to reinforce study.

James Lang offers a set of strategies to get students to read the syllabus, and to actually internalize the information in it. I've recommended syllabus quizzes to many faculty members, but I'm intrigued by the way Lang suggests personalizing them with open-ended questions.

A good discussion of how on professor uses multiple choice quizzing to measure comprehension of the major concepts in the course, instead of just testing for the ability to recall facts.