Quizizz's newly-launched accommodation profiles are designed to be inclusive.
When Quizizz co-founder and CEO Ankit Gupta was in school, he was but one of 50 students in his classroom. The textbook was the only resource his teacher had at their disposal to facilitate learning. This lack of engagement left Gupta dispirited and unenthused about learning.
As adults, Gupta and co-founder Deepak Joy Cheenath felt similarly unenthusiastic about learning. The pair was tutoring students in remedial math in Bangalore, India and noticed their tutees were feeling the same way. The only difference was, the advent of social media made it that much harder to compete with the kids’ attention. These experiences, however dismal, gave Gupta and Cheenath a view of the proverbial silver lining: it motivated them to bootstrap their own solution for making learning more fun for students and teachers.
Enter Quizizz.
The company, founded in 2015, leverages—what else?—artificial intelligence to create teaching materials that, according to Quizizz’s website, is “relevant for every student.” Quizizz boasts its products are “loved” in more than 150 countries with 93% of teachers reporting they can “easily and quickly personalize content” using Quizizz. In an accessibility context, Quizizz touts itself as being accessible by adhering to Universal Design Language frameworks and supporting assistive technologies such as audio responses, translation and much more.
“We saw a need for something that would spark the excitement we longed for as kids. We started trying new ideas with our tutor students and quickly realized what actually worked in the classroom and what captured students’ attention,” Gupta said of why he and Cheenath started Quizizz. “Over time, our platform has grown beyond a tool to keep students engaged into a robust solution offering assessments, lessons and passages, and interactive video. We empower educators to create and deliver instruction that’s relevant for every student, including students in need of accommodations or differentiation.”
According to Gupta, what makes Quizizz special lies in the ability for teachers to quickly and efficiently create personalized materials for students. This is done using powerful AI technology and done so in a manner that, Gupta told me, doesn’t “sacrifice rigor.” He shared an anecdote of a Southern California high school teacher using Quizizz to help her students prepare for their advanced placement, or AP, exams. With Quizizz, Gupta said, she can turn her existing materials into assessments in mere minutes. The software then instantly analyzes the data and surfaces the areas in which students need improvement.
“Quizizz provides [the teacher] with relevant resources to help her students get to mastery from there,” Gupta said. “[This eliminates] hours of prep across the entire process, from original material creation and assessment delivery to data analysis and intervention.”
My conversation with Gupta coincided with Quizizz’s recent announcement that it would be introducing so-called “accommodation profiles” to further facilitate learning. In a press release published earlier this month, Quizizz called these profiles a “first-of-its-kind tool” which helps teachers “[unlock] differentiation at scale for educators and school districts.” Educators, the company said, are able to utilize accommodation profiles to “meet students’ wide array of learning needs quicker and easier than ever before.” Quizizz notes accommodation profiles are able to build lessons which are accessible and, crucially from a legal perspective, are fully compliant with IEPs and 504 plans.
More pointedly for accessibility, Quizizz wrote in its press release that accommodation profiles help students “feel included and have equitable learning experiences and teachers can seamlessly incorporate these accommodations without adding hours of customization for every lesson,” adding that as ed tech plays an ever-burgeoning role in everyday learning, it’s imperative to ensure such technology is accessible to all.
Calling it a “huge step forward” for ed tech, Gupta was effusive in his praise for accommodation profiles, saying Quizizz is “so proud” to launch them and promote “scaffolding at scale for educators and school districts.” Gupta noted 15% of students enrolled in public schools received special education services, including early intervention for preschoolers, in the 2021–22 academic year. What’s more, he noted the pandemic has had profound effects on learning; Gupta said “nearly half” of all students in the 2022–23 year are performing below grade level in at least one subject. Finally, Gupta mentioned there are 5 million English learners across the United States whom, he said, “could benefit from additional tools to level the playing field.”
“As a student engagement platform, we aim to remove barriers that keep students from learning and participating in class,” Gupta said.
He added: “For the many teachers leveraging technology every day in their classroom, it’s a great challenge and time commitment to create the appropriate accommodations that meet each student’s needs in the classroom. Quizizz accommodation profiles increase equity for the students who need it and [improve] success for students who don’t by simply providing more ways to understand information and show what they know.”
When asked about feedback on Quizizz, Gupta relayed yet another story. He told me a district on Long Island in New York was one of the first to gain access to the new accommodation profiles. Their experience thus far, he said, has been “powerful.” Everyone, from librarians to teachers at all grade levels, have been able to “seamlessly [layer] accommodations” into their lessons and more. School staff has offered “plentiful” feedback to Gupta and team, noting special education students who require adaptations are becoming more encouraged and more engaged in the learning process. Gupta described this type of positive feedback “exactly” the kind of reception Quizizz was hoping for, adding the team is “thrilled” to see accommodation profiles already “creating an impact [in classrooms] and fulfilling our vision.”
Looking towards the future, Gupta expressed optimism. He said modern teachers have a wealth of materials with which to build their curriculum, but creating it takes time and energy most don’t have. Quizizz wants to help “bridge this gap” by giving teachers more agency in the classroom.
In the short-term future, Gupta said Quizizz will be expanding support for English language learners by allowing teachers to adjust learning speeds and question difficulty based on performance “in the coming weeks.” As for the longer term, Gupta said his company envisions a world in which “no matter what a teacher wants to teach, they have the tools to make that lesson memorable for every learner they support.”
“Ultimately, our mission is to empower educators to motivate every student in the world—which we aim to achieve by listening to educators and building with relentless urgency,” he said.
