Do You Really Know What Your Students Are Thinking?

When you stand at the front of the room and look out at the sea of eager faces, do you really know what they are thinking? Are you confident that each and every student understood the lesson you just presented?

Sure, there will always be those students who are quite eager to tell you everything they know and are willing to put their hand up and participate in a class discussion.

But what about the one over there? Where? In the back row--your student who is quite happy to talk to you in a one-on-one situation, but will never put their hand up and ask a question or volunteer an opinion.

What are they thinking? Did they understand the lesson?

How do you know?

In the pre-technological era, we simply asked students to put their hand up. Sometimes we asked for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down gesture to indicate their level of comfort with the concepts.

And then the Digital Age arrived!

The next greatest discovery? Clickers!!! A Student Response System that used little hand-held devices that students could use to indicate their responses in a safe environment.

But I always had issues with the clickers—the software wasn’t loaded on my computer; the batteries were dead; the little red light was flashing….okay, who didn’t return their clicker!?!?!

Now, we have alternatives. Better alternatives!!

When you get a minute, take some time to check out and use one of the following Student Response Systems—they are all free, web based and use computers or hand-held devices to allow students to submit their responses.

It’s cool. It’s easy. And my students loved it…even the quiet kid in the back corner who hasn’t said much all semester.

Polleverywhere.com

• Instant Audience Feedback via text message, web page or Twitter
• Multiple Choice Questions or Free Response
• Can be downloaded into your PPT presentation
• Free account for educators

Socrative

• Instant Audience Feedback via webpage and personal ‘class’ code.
• Ask MC questions; T/F questions; Short Answer questions with audience feedback.
• Create online quizzes that students complete online. Results are then marked and emailed to you in an .xls spreadsheet.
• Digital Exit Cards!!!
• Free for educators.

Soap Box

• Social Q & A—students can post questions and vote for questions to increase their importance.
• Confusion Barometer—students can cleanly indicate if they get it, or don’t.
• Classroom Polling—instant audience feedback using smart phones or the web!

Thanks to Richard Byrne at FreeTech4Teachers for opening my eyes to these new gadgets!