Quizlet ~ A Tool for Studying Vocabulary Terms

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Quizlet is a website that provides activities designed for learning new vocabulary terms and phrases. To begin, teachers must create a profile and log into the website. Next, they can click the “Create” button on the top of the screen to begin making a new deck. (In this context, “deck” refers to the terms and their definitions.) To make a new deck, teachers must type a term (e.g., word, name, phrase, or date) in the left column and a definition, clue, or descriptor for it on the right side column. If teachers wish to add an image instead of text, they can do so by clicking the “Image” and selecting one that was preloaded into the website. When teachers are finished creating the deck, they are to click the “Create” button below. Once created, teachers can share their deck by adding it to a class, sharing a URL, adding it to a folder, or posting it to social media. For instructional purposes, it is recommended teachers choose the “Create a New Class” option and then input information for their class.  By doing so, Quizlet will automatically add the deck to the class, and teachers can access their class by clicking its name that is shown on the left side column. Teachers can then invite their students to join the class by clicking their class and choosing the “Add Members” option, which allows teachers to manually invite students via their email address or by sharing the “Automatic Join Link” to their students over email. Once students join, they will be able to access the deck and engage the terms and phrases using a variety of study strategies, games, and assessments. As students complete the different activities, teachers can monitor their progress by first choosing the class, selecting the “Members” option, and clicking on an individual student followed by the “Studied” option. At any point, teachers can add more decks by choosing the “Create” button again and repeating the process. They can also add terms to a pre-existing deck by selecting the deck and choosing the “Edit” option. If interested, teachers can click the “Quizlet” icon on the top left of the screen to browse decks made by other teachers, learn how to make image decks, and track student activity.

Please Note: The ability to make decks and have students engage them as described above is free. If teachers wish to use additional features, they may have to purchase a subscription to the website. In addition, when completing the open-ended questions, responses have to be verbatim in order for Quizlet to count them as a correct.

Classroom Applications for Quizlet

1. Before teaching a lesson or unit, teachers can identify all the vocabulary terms and phrases students are to know and build one or more decks for them. That way, during the instruction, teachers can pause at appropriate intervals and allow students to engage the terms and phrases using this website.
2. When reading a text or studying a unit, teachers can require students to keep a log of all the words they either do not know or do not deeply understand. After the reading, teachers can then require students to log into this website and build a deck related to the words they logged. They can then engage the words using the activities and assessments built into this website. Teachers can further this activity by having students share their decks with their classmates and monitoring each other’s performance.
3. Instead of creating text-based decks, teachers can create decks that present a word or term and students are required to match it to an image. To do so, teachers will have to find images already preloaded into the website.
4. Teachers can try a “Jeopardy” approach to a deck, where they offer students an answer or definition to a term and students have to state the term in response. To create this type of deck, teachers will have to add the answer or definition on the left hand column when creating the deck and term on the right.

Screenshots of Quizlet