Spring back-to-school season is in full force – students are energized with holiday spirit and everyone is readjusting to the daily routine. As a new semester begins and you reflect on the last one, you may be wondering: how can I improve the learning experience for my students for 2020? Poll Everywhere’s various education tools are a great addition to any class. Here are four ways to use Poll Everywhere in your classroom.
Participant Registration
From old-fashioned attendance sheets to clickers, tracking attendance is frustrating but a necessary part of every class. With Poll Everywhere, you can ask multiple choice questions to double as participation and attendance. To track attendance, require students to register as participants before each poll. Students can register using any identifiable information you choose, such as name, email, or student ID. When administering a poll on certain paid plans, limit it to registered participants only. This requires students to sign-in before accessing the poll and enables you to reliably track attendance. Keep in mind, Poll Everywhere isn’t fool proof, but we do have tips on how to accurately track attendance.
Grading
Pop quizzes are an easy way to gauge students’ comprehension. This back-to-school season, use Poll Everywhere’s multiple-choice or clickable image poll types to test your students. When administering a poll, assign one answer as correct and reveal the right answer live. With students register as participants, teachers can view the number of correct responses and average response time. The system automatically records the students’ grades and the entire class can see how well they answered a question. Teachers can review the material the students were stuck on and download the Gradebook report to see how the entire class fared.
Gradebook Report
After taking attendance and giving pop quizzes, teachers can access a downloadable gradebook report. The gradebook is an all-in-one report that shows each student’s responses to every poll. Each report offers an executive summary, response pivot table, and gradebook that provides key performance insight, helping teachers better understand where their students are doing well and areas that need improvement.
LMS integration
You have the records, a streamlined gradebook, but now you have to manually input all of that data into your school’s learning management system(LMS). With Poll Everywhere’s university- and department-wide plans, various LMS such as Canvas and Blackboard are supported. Two key benefits of the LMS integration are the following:
- Import roster: instead of manually importing spreadsheets or having each student self-register, importing your class roster from your LMS automatically creates a participant account for each student.
- Export grades: As mentioned above, you can download a gradebook report of your class’s performance. You can export those grades directly to your LMS.
As distracting as it may be, smartphones can streamline the way you take attendance and improve student engagement. Recapture your student’s attention by learning more about Poll Everywhere’s K-12 and Higher Education plans and see how you can create an interactive learning environment for your students this back-to-school season.