Quite often we forget that when we question our students, we can actually get a lot of value and a lot of discussion points from multiple choice questions. Using multiple choice questions can actually support your students learning in many ways.
Recently during a training session at my school, it was revealed that if you scaffold and plan your multiple choice questoins, it’s possible to address how much they know. For example you can see what they know by the wording of the question: –
What are the limitations of the 8 bit ascii character set?
A) A smaller character set is available
B) You can only use a small number of symbols
C) You can only use certain languages on a computer
D) You can’t use UNICODE
Now in this question, you can see that the real answer is that technically, B and C are the correct answer BUT A is the one that we usually look for in an exam. B and C are common mistakes, our students should always acknowledge the character set. This helps us address the misconception of symbols and languages that can often occur and we have tailored our multiple choice question as a deeper discussion point. This is how effective that Multiple choice questions can be.
Grade Cam: –
I have recently been playing with a piece of software called grade cam. I love it, it allows me to do multiple choice questions with my classes. I can get them to colour in a multiple choice quiz. 
You can see from the picture on the left, that it gives you the lozenges that you can fill out. Each student fills them out and when they’re done, you can mark them together as a class.
Students can get their score from you but where it’s handy is the analysis tool. It’s free for 10 questions and it allows you to see the weaker areas in the analysis tool.
Once the students have completed their assessment, I can hold up each of the coloured sheets and the software on the computer shows me their results. It scans the page like an OMR reader and tells me the weak points.
This now means that as a teacher, I can see that most of my class got the 2nd question wrong and that I can re-evaluate my teaching in order to make sure that they have better results on their next assessment.
If you would like to try grade cam, it’s free from : gradecam.com
I have attached a TechTips sheet which will help you through the process.
Ray Chambers 