By Kim Loenhart, Educational Technology Support, EDC
Fidget spinners are all over the news these days as kids adopt this new tool to deal with sensory and attention needs. Keeping the fingers busy has been promoted as a way to refocus students, provide sensory input and stimulate bored minds. While mostly in the realm of elementary and middle schools, these little toys have managed to engage students and to become the must-have gadget.
Fidget spinners have also become the locus of a debate about the need to make class more stimulating and engaging. While I have not heard about fidget spinners showing up in Carleton’s classrooms, I do hear about the need to make higher education more engaging. So what can instructors do to increase student engagement in their classes, short of handing out fidget spinners?
Student response systems (SRSs) provide a possible solution. SRSs, like Poll Everywhere, allow students to use their fingers and to play with their tech gadgets in the classroom – and that’s just a starting point. Unlike fidget spinners, Poll Everywhere demands that students consider and engage with course content to provide meaningful input. Replacing the clickers of years ago, Poll Everywhere has students use cellphones, tablets or laptops to text in responses to pre-set questions. Live responses are then grouped and can be displayed in useful visuals to enhance class discussions.
If you’re wondering how this might work in the classroom, here are just a few practical ideas for using Poll Everywhere to increase student engagement:
- Ask a content-related question every 20 minutes or so and have students respond on their phones or laptops. This technique helps you to check student understanding and re-engages students who may have gotten distracted (Trees & Jackson, Mar. 2007).
- Survey students anonymously to get feedback on controversial topics, and then use that feedback to facilitate class discussion. This approach allows students who may be shy, or who may lack confidence, to contribute their ideas without any anxiety (Trees & Jackson, Mar. 2007).
- Use Poll Everywhere to get potential test questions for exams from the students themselves. Composing questions for an exam, helps students feel like their ideas are important and their assessments are meaningful.
- Use Poll Everywhere as a way to have students assess each other’s presentations. Students may pay more attention to their peers’ presentations if they know they’re partially responsible for grading them.
- Give a short comprehension quiz on the assigned course reading at the start of class to show that the readings matter and to encourage attendance (Kay, & LeSage, Nov. 2009).
These are just some of the many ways to use Poll Everywhere in your classroom. If you’d like to learn more about using Poll Everywhere to engage students, including seeing a live demonstration of how to use the tool in your classroom, please register for the upcoming EDC workshop, Poll Everywhere: Student Response Systems and Real-Time Testing, on June 7 from 1-2:30 p.m. Bring a laptop or borrow one of ours—no fidget spinners will be provided.