Use the “Questions Variations” feature

If a question is easily memorizable, consider using the Question Variations feature on Podsie. Question Variations are similar versions of the original Base Question that Podsie will show to students during their Personal Deck studies.

When a Question DOES NOT have Variations, that same Question will be shown to the student each time it is due for review in the student’s Personal Deck. However, if a Question DOES have Variations, then either the Question or one of its Variations will be shown to the student whenever it is due for review.

Take this example:

In this case, the original “Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?” question would show up in the assignment, but then in subsequent Personal Deck reviews, Podsie will choose either the Base Question or one of its Variations, prioritized in the following order:

For some topics, it may be difficult to write questions that students cannot just memorize. For example, let's say that you had the following question:

In the question above, you might be trying to test whether or not students know how to perform 2-digit multiplication. However, students may just end up memorizing that "544" is the correct answer, without actually understanding 2-digit multiplication. In these situations, you want to take advantage of the Question Variations feature.

Here's how to create a Question Variation. After you've created a question, open that question by clicking on it:

Then, click on the pencil icon to edit the question:

In the edit view, you can add as many variations to the question as you'd like:

For example, let's say that I add "22 x 15 = ?" as a question variation to the original "17 x 32 = ?" question:

This means that whenever it's time for the student to review "17 x 32 = ?" in their Personal Deck, the Personal Deck will randomly pull one of the question variations instead of just showing "17 x 32 = ?" every single time. With question variations, questions can assess a students' underlying understanding rather than their ability to memorize an answer.

Question Variations are useful beyond just math problems! Consider this example:

Here, the variation can help prevent students from simply memorizing the word "second", and instead test whether the students actually know what Newton's second law is.