Game On! How I Use 'Wayground' for Retrieval Practice
Updated: Sep 10
There are not many activities that make a class quite as alert as the sudden appearance of a leaderboard.
My own use of AI in the classroom started with Wayground, formerly Quizizz.
Add some bright colours, music and a little friendly competition, and even a short retrieval quiz can generate a surprising amount of enthusiasm.
Wayground offers far more than I have explored so far, but I mainly use it to create quizzes and flashcards. These are simple functions, but they have become genuinely useful parts of my classroom routine.
Creating quizzes from my own teaching resources
Wayground has a large bank of quizzes created by other users, which teachers can browse and adapt. That can be useful when time is short, but I usually want a quiz to match the exact content, terminology and specification I have been covering with a particular class.
For that reason, I tend to upload PDFs of my own teaching material. Wayground uses AI to generate a quiz from the content, and I can choose how many questions I want it to create. I can then edit those questions, add my own or ask the AI to generate more.
This is considerably faster than creating a complete quiz from a blank page and helps keep the questions grounded in material the students have actually encountered.
Finished quizzes can also be organised into folders, making it easy to build a bank by subject, class or topic and find them again later.
Why I still edit the questions
Although Wayground saves me time, I rarely use an AI-generated quiz without making some changes.
Sometimes the correct answer is glaringly obvious because the other options are not plausible. Students may choose it simply because they recognise a familiar word or phrase rather than because they have properly recalled or understood the content. A high score can then give a misleading impression of what they know.
I usually replace weak options with more convincing distractors, or, as I often think of them, a few red herrings.
Ideally, these reflect likely misconceptions or mistakes highlighted in examiner reports. That makes students think more carefully and gives me much more useful information about their understanding.
As a teacher of GCSE and A-level courses following CCEA specifications, I also check that the key terminology and level of detail are appropriate.
AI can create the basic structure quickly, but it does not know my students, the explanations I have used in class or the misconceptions I want to uncover.
That part still belongs to the teacher.
From quizzes to flashcards
Wayground can use a completed quiz to generate a related set of flashcards. This gives students another way to revisit the same material before attempting the quiz.
There is something to bear in mind, however. Because the flashcards are generated from the quiz, they can effectively give students the answers.
That is not necessarily a problem. Learning the correct information is, after all, the point. But it can reduce the challenge if the wording is too similar.
I sometimes reword the flashcards, add a little more detail or broaden the content so students are learning the topic rather than simply memorising the exact answer to each question.
More than multiple choice
Wayground offers several question types, including:
multiple-choice
multi-select
true or false
fill in the blanks
open-ended responses
matching
reordering
categorising
For a science teacher, that opens up possibilities such as matching key terms with definitions, categorising elements, compounds and mixtures, reordering stages in a biological process or using multi-select questions where more than one statement is correct.
Where it fits into my lessons
I often use Wayground at the beginning of a lesson for a short burst of retrieval practice. It helps students bring previous learning back to mind and gives me a quick indication of what has, or has not, been retained.
It can work equally well at the end of a lesson as an exit ticket. A short quiz may highlight something that needs to be revisited next time.
Why students enjoy it
Wayground is bright, colourful and gamified. There is music, immediate feedback and, when students play together, a leaderboard.
A quiz can be completed individually, or the whole class can join the same live activity using a link or QR code.
My students love the competition with their peers. Even students who may be reluctant to contribute verbally can become very invested in their score and position on the leaderboard.
The game element is useful, but it is not the only benefit. I can quickly identify questions that have caused difficulty and use them as a starting point for further teaching.
It is important that speed and competition do not become more important than thinking. Sometimes I pause after a question to discuss why an answer is correct or why a tempting alternative is wrong.
Used this way, the quiz becomes more than a game. It becomes part of the teaching.
Building a revision bank
During the year, I paste links to quizzes and their accompanying flashcards into OneNote.
When students are preparing for a summative assessment, I gather the relevant links into a revision folder or add them to a revision tracker.
This means that small retrieval activities created throughout a topic gradually become an organised bank of revision material. A resource created for five or ten minutes of classroom retrieval can later be reused for independent revision.
Students can then pick and mix from the bank depending on what they need to revisit.
This reuse is one of the features I value most. I am not simply creating a quiz for one lesson and forgetting about it. The resources accumulate over time.
On the version I use, my Wayground bank has now grown to 204 revision resources, covering Science and Home Economics from Year 8 through to Year 14.
YouTube and mobile features
Wayground can also generate a quiz from a YouTube video. I can paste in a YouTube link or find a suitable video and use AI to create questions based on its content.
Questions can also be inserted at different points in the video so students have to stop, think and respond rather than simply watch from beginning to end.
The mobile app offers another useful shortcut. A teacher can photograph a worksheet or page of text and use the image to generate a quiz.
I would stick to material I have created myself or have permission to use. Photographing a page from a textbook or commercial resource does not automatically give permission to upload and process it.
Features I have not fully explored
I have mainly used Wayground for retrieval practice and revision, but it also offers class, assignment and reporting features.
Teachers can create classes and access information such as scores, accuracy, completion and performance on individual questions. Some assignment, scheduling, integration and reporting features depend on the subscription being used.
I have not explored these tools as extensively as the quiz and flashcard features, so they are not yet a major part of my own routine.
My verdict
This is not a comprehensive review of Wayground. It is an account of the parts I actually use.
For me, its value lies in how easily I can turn my own teaching material into retrieval activities, adapt those activities for a particular class and gradually build them into a bank of revision resources.
My students enjoy the colour, music, gamification and competition. I value the speed, organisation and flexibility.
It is not quite a case of pressing “generate” and putting the kettle on. The questions, answers and flashcards still need checking, repairing and adapting.
But once that teacher input is added, Wayground makes regular retrieval practice easier for me to build into lessons and more enjoyable for my students.
Have you used Wayground in your classroom? I would love to hear which features you use most and how your students have responded. Share your experiences and ideas in the comments.
Disclosure: I have no affiliation with Wayground. This post is simply an honest reflection on the features I have used in my own classroom and found useful. Features and subscription options may change over time.
