Saturday, April 1, 2017

Student Response Systems: See what your students know!

Integrating interactive student response systems in t he classroom, provides an engaging and collaborative opportunity for students and the assessment of their learning. A few of these student response systems include the following: Kahoot, Socreative, Poll Everywhere, Quiz Socket, Google Docs, Plickers, Nearpod, and Clickers. These response systems allow all of the students in the classroom to engage and participate in the lesson, and for the students to receive instant feedback on their learning. Kahoot allows you to create your own assessment or use one of the pre-made assessments. This program is free and can be used on computers, smart phones, iPads, or other brands of tablets. Kahoot can be used in the classroom as a pre-assessment or as a post assessment. This response system saves all of the data collected on your assessments. This means that the teacher can see the academic growth made throughout a unit by using an assessment both before and after it is taught, and the academic growth throughout the whole year. Kahoot can be implemented across all areas of the curriculum taught in the classroom and for any grade level. Socrative allows groups to work together as the teacher assigns quizzes to the students. This app can also be used with all areas of the curriculum in the classroom. Plickers is one student response system that does not require the use of devises. So if your school is not a 1:1 school or has a lack of technology devices, then this is a great response system to use and it still has the same perks of the other ones. The way that this one does not use devices, is that the students hold up cards that resemble QR codes. The students will have a card for choices a, b, c, and d. They will then hold up the card that they believe signifies the correct answer. The teacher will then use a QR scanner to do a quick scan of the classroom. The teacher’s device will then record the data taken from each student, to show the amount of students that picked each answer choice. Poll Everywhere offer several assessment tool options to cater to any teacher’s needs. These options include multiple choice, true/false, free response, and a poll option. Teachers can incorporate this by having a pre/post assessment, seeing the background knowledge that is represented in the class, and by serving as students’ morning work. The usage of student response systems in the classroom, creates a more comfortable assessment and feedback environment for all students, and this is why I think that they should be used in all classrooms. Those students that tend to be a little shy when speaking up in the classroom, can greatly benefit from student response systems being implemented within the instruction. These student response apps and websites allow students to participate in answering questions within the instruction, and allow them to not be afraid of being wrong or what other students will think about their response. These opportunities also allow the students to become really engaged and interested in the assessment portion of the instruction. Student response systems can be used with any subject and with any grade level. They save the data from the assessments and get the students actively involved in their learning. I will definitely be using these student response systems in my classroom to assess my students before, during, and after the content is delivered. My students will be able to be creative when answering free response or open ended type questions, they will be able to use critical thinking when taking these types of assessments, and they will be able to collaborate and communicate with other students while working on group assessment tasks. 

This link includes seven student response systems that will work with all devices. So whether your school is an Apple school or a Google school, these should all work great for your classroom! Some of these include Kahoot, Mentimeter, and Poll Everywhere.

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