A Quiz With No Questions

Written by Gemma Hackman, Learning Technologist within the Learning and Teaching Academy.

It’s a cold, grey Monday morning when a chance encounter sparks an idea. Coffee in hand, wrapped up against the drizzle, I find myself chatting in the middle of the street, one of those casual conversations that wanders through everything and nothing. Eventually, we land on that age old challenge: how on earth do we get students to engage in the classroom?

We talked about the familiar reality many educators face, the wall of silence. You might get two or three confident voices, but the majority stay quiet, tucked safely behind that invisible barrier. Of course, there are the obvious strategies: planned questions, structured activities, prepared polls. But the lecturer in front of me isn’t the rigid, pre‑planned type. They’re a spark of energy, brilliant, enthusiastic, spontaneous. A pre‑made question deck would only box them in.

And that’s where my roadside lightbulb moment happened.

What if we could create live quizzes… with no questions at all?

The idea is beautifully simple, one blank Mentimeter slide.

Using a single, persistent QR code on your PowerPoint slides, one that stays the same throughout a whole session, you can ask any question, at any moment, without preparing a thing in advance. As you teach, you simply pose your spontaneous question, invite students to scan the code, and watch their responses appear anonymously in real time. No hands up, no pressure, no wall of silence.

With a quick keyboard shortcut (Alt + Tab), you can jump from your PowerPoint straight into Mentimeter, explore the students’ answers, discuss the reasoning behind them, and then clear the results with one click before jumping back into your slides. Seamless, fluid, and totally in tune with how some lecturers naturally teach.

And this is where one of my favourite parts of being a Learning Technologist comes in, finding the right tool for the right situation and the right person. Matching technology not just to a task, but to someone’s style, their strengths, and the way they naturally teach, that’s when everything truely works together.

But the real magic happens at the end.

You can ask students what they’re struggling with, which key terms they want clarified, or which concepts need revisiting. Their anonymous contributions can then be downloaded as a spreadsheet, an instant, authentic snapshot of learner needs.

From there, it gets even easier, drop the list into Copilot to generate definitions, and then format the output for tools like Quizlet which can be embedded directly into our VLE (virtual learning environment). Within minutes, you’ve created revision games and study aids based entirely on what your students said they needed.

All from a quiz with no questions.

Sometimes my best ideas come from grey Monday mornings, a warm coffee, and a conversation at the side of the road.

Want to try it out or learn more?

If you’d like to explore this idea, try it out for yourself, or chat about how to turn your own teaching quirks into digital solutions, get in touch with a Digital Education Specialist. We love helping people match the right tools to the right ideas and bringing those ideas to life. Contact us at [email protected]