Saturday, November 17, 2012

Student Feedback using Poll Everywhere

It is the time of year when both teachers and students hit that lull in the road, at least on my end. With the weather changing and the holidays a month away, I have found that my middle school girls are getting more tired and having shorter attention spans than in September. This is the lull.

To see how we could change things up, and also have the girls take ownership over their actions, I decided to use the polleverywhere.com service as a warm up for a math class. The goal was to have the girls reflect on the class so far this year, what they enjoy, what they don't enjoy and also make suggestions to others as how to make things better. This 10 minute activity was very successful and created a revived classroom community that was eager for change and improvement.

Using only their lap tops, the girls were blown away with the instant feedback. They also enjoyed seeing their comments posted where everyone could see. By asking the students for suggestions and improvements, they gained some control of how they like to learn and how they want the class to run. It was also a great opportunity to have the girls reflect upon the behaviours of the class, shouting out, taking too long to transition and not completing homework and how they are affecting others. By using the text input message, the students were able to express anonymously how these actions have impacted their learning, making others aware the affect they have.

I would highly recommend others to take 10 minutes to allow your students to provide feedback to you and also to each other. This process created an "upswing" in attitude at a challenging time of year.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for this great blog post Ruth! I have tended to use polleverywhere in a content-focussed manner, so to use it as a reflection tool is very interesting. What were your questions? What were some of the responses?

    If you feel comfortable, you could post a link to their responses to demonstrate them...like this: http://www.polleverywhere.com/free_text_polls/ODM3NTEwMTg1


    Getting student feedback is one step, the next is to act on it in a meaningful way so that students can see their voices have been heard. What are your next steps with this feedback, and with this tool?

    Thanks, and I'm looking forward to seeing you on the 24th!
    garth.

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  2. Brilliant! The sign of an effective educator is the ability to notice those first signs of disengagement and quickly act on it to prevent the continual and contagious downturn. This sounds like a great way to re-engage students. Now of course they will be looking for your next creative carrot...

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  3. Ruth - www.understoodit.com has also released a few new features as well. You might want to compare.

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  4. Thanks so much for the advice! I'll look into that for our next reflection time.

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  5. Such an interesting post about a proactive measure you took when the lull hit. Where does the lull come from? Seems to me it sometimes coincides (coincides, mind you, not caused by) when our own energies are being diverted or absorbed elsewhere and it changes the dynamics.

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  6. I completely agree. I also feel that a lull can come from both the students and teacher feeling that they are not working towards the same goal. If the students are not reminded that this is not a year long journey, but one where they have a support network the joy of celebrating success and working through challenges is lost. I know that once I feel that the students and I are working as a team, the small challenges that could be made into mountains previously are reduced to their actual size. The focus is put back on the learning than the conflict that can occur when parties do not have the same goals or plans.

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