Transform Your Classroom Into A Game Show with Student Response Systems

What if class was like a game show where the teacher was the host and the students were contestants vying for the coveted prize of knowledge. That’s what learning is like for the fifth graders at PS 189 in Manhattan. Last year as part of the “Partnering with Our Digital Natives” grant, 5th grade teachers Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Terribile (his collaborative team teacher) attended professional development where they received a class set of student response systems which ultimately transformed the teaching and learning in their classrooms. Today unlike most classes studying main idea, as you enter the classrooms of these teachers it’s not unusual to hear students cheering for one another as they find out the correct answer after voting with their student response systems. When questions are answered wrong, this is not seen as a mistake, but rather an opportunity to learn more about the topic they are studying. Unlike game shows however, there are no winners or losers, only learners.

Here’s how they used the devices to transform their classrooms into a game show.

Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Terribile use the materials they’ve always used in the classroom but the clickers enable them to get everyone involved. Rather than giving one student the chance to respond to a question, every student’s answer is heard, all participate, and all are held accountable.

Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Terribile’s Class
Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Terribile gave test prep an update. Traditionally test prep consists of teachers handing tests out to students who quietly sit at their desks completing their tests and turn it back to the teacher. These are not fun times for students OR teachers. Fast forward to Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Terribile’s 21st century classroom and you see something very different. Quiet. Phew! Their kids are wooting, hollering and finding out instantly if they have a test answer correct. Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Terribile don't spend time at night grading and assessing his kids. He finds out right then and there who understands the question and who doesn’t and then guess what? They discuss the thinking that went into the right and wrong answers, really making meaning of what they did. Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Terribile instantly know if his class is ready to move on and is able to address and pinpoint issues as they occur. Because testing companies are stuck in the past and they make bigger profits using outdated paper tests, the teachers also provide students with practice on capturing their answers on paper as well while also using student response systems.

After class Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Terribile don’t have to waste his time grading papers. Instead they move right to analyzing the data to drive his future instruction. They can create groups focusing on areas of need and provide individualized support and practice for students in need. The results and support can easily be shared with students and their parents.

Mr. Rodriguez’s Class
Upon entering Mr Rodriguez’s class you’ll realize he teaches in a uniquely innovative way that at first outsiders can’t wrap their heads around. He truly embodies the 21st century game show host environment. You know what I mean. He talks both to his audience (students) and to the magic game show announcers and co-hosts. Think in a talk show when the host says,“Okay, Peter, tell them what they’ve won!” Or, “To help you in answering this question, we’ve brought in this expert on Gorillas. Ms. Goodall?” ...whose head magically appears in an animated box as she brings you to the Congo.

It’s fast paced. Everyone is involved and there are really cool interactive elements only available to a talk show host with a multi-million dollar budget. Right? Buzz. Wrong! Mr. Rodriguez literally embeds the use of the student response system with the interactive software from a program that his school has purchased called Compass Learning which creates curriculum and assessment solutions that motivate today’s students to engage, think & learn with fun, interactive, research-based instruction that appeals to students. Compass has already done all the work creating interactive animations that get students excited about learning. Mr. Rodriguez has set up his clickers so they correspond to the questions asked in the animations. The animated characters speak to the class. Mr. Rodriguez prompts the class to respond with their clickers, and instantly the class and Mr. Rodriguez know who understands the task at hand and who does not. Just as in Mr. Kennedy’s class, there’s as much learning when exploring the thinking behind the wrong answers and discussing how to get to the correct result as there is when discussing the correct answer.

While Compass Learning is designed as a program for individualized learning for students, using it in this way takes the experience from a solitary to a collaborative experience. While the lessons are interactive and engaging it’s much more fun for students to make meaning with their peers than it is for a student sitting alone with earbuds going through a lesson. Additionally, the connections and conversations that ensue are powerful. Mr. Rodriguez enjoys being able to assess and teach into students needs real time and he has built a culture of trust in his classroom with expectations that students will also work to teach their peers.

Mr. Rodriguez enjoys starting units with a lively whole class lesson using Compass Learning and student response systems. After that the class may go deeper in the content on their own at their own pace. Instructing this way has the side benefit of being a good option in a school that doesn’t have 1:1 access to technology. When the students don’t have access to a lab or laptop carts, they can still engage with the material and when they do have access they can explore on their own.

A suggestion Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Terribile have for student response system providers and curriculum providers like Compass Learning and Teaching Matters who produces their Writing Matters curriculum is that they create assessments using student response systems. This would enable teachers to spend more time working with their students. The nice thing though is, once the lessons are created with Clicker software they can be shared, used for other classes, and recycled for the next year.

If given the choice of going to class or playing games we know what the typical student would answer. With student response systems, students and teachers get the best of both worlds with a tool that can transform any class into a game show while helping students to think, discuss, and make meaning of their learning.

Note: If you’re in a school without student response systems, you can still transform your classroom into a game show without having to purchase the costly devices using computers cell phones, and/or iPod Touches along with Poll Everywhere which provides educators with the ability to capture student responses for free.

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Do The IWBs or Clickers You (want to) Own REALLY Help Meet Learning Goals?

The reason I don’t use interactive white boards or clickers is because I use technologies that will help me with productivity or help my students meet their learning goals in faster/better/or never previously possible ways. These items don’t help me do that so I don’t use them. If you are considering an IWB or clicker purchase, these questions should be considered and answered by school staff before you invest your money in such a purchase.

Just because a school has extra funds to spend on technology doesn’t mean it is always better to do so. Here are two stories of effective teachers who had tech imposed upon them that they didn’t want (story 1) or need (story 2) as a result of these questions not being addressed.

Story One - Literacy
An excellent literacy teacher in a one-to-one middle school loved her tablet and projector and exquisitely modeled writing during her mini lessons using her equipment. She demonstrated 21st century writing using a laptop with all the features that writers use. For instance in her modeling she’d show her students how she would type, cut, paste, right click, not slow down thinking with spelling errors the computer identifies, get synonym suggestions and dictionary definitions. She may get a bunch of text down first then chunk and place it where it belongs. She sat facing her students at eye level during instruction engaged in deep discussion. Her back was never to them.

None of this is done more effectively in a writing classroom with an IWB yet this teacher’s supervisor had a school full of em and she wanted them used. It didn’t matter that her students were writing with keyboards, not pens or that the teacher wanted to face or class or that the teacher felt modeling meant using the keyboard real writers use. The administration had lots of expensive boards and she wanted them used. The teacher left the school the next year.

Story Two - Unnecessary Purchase of Clickers
In story two a one-to-one school which extra funds succumbed to an IWBs companies sales advice that the next step for a school that had an IWB for every teacher and laptops for each student was to purchase clickers. The school was even covered by a news channel for the great work they were doing. Ugh. in the clip the teacher was up at her IWB and the students were at their desks with laptops and clickers. As I watched the news clip my heart sank. They were fooled by a salesman and had just wasted $2400 per class. They could have done exactly what they were doing with the clickers with the laptops every student had, or if the school didn’t ban cell phones, they could have used those.

What would I have recommended a school with extra cash to spend on tech do? Well, it’s what I’ve done with the educators and students with whom I work. Have a tech day and bring in a multitude of vendors from smart pens to iTouches, to flip video cameras etc. Have the teachers and students together explore this equipment and discuss ways these items can innovate instruction. Have teachers and students write proposals for the technology that can help them meet their learning goals. Provide the equipment for teachers with the agreement that they will publish what they are doing so others can learn. See http://innovatemyclass.org for an example of what this might look like.

But, how’s one to know?
Administrators need not turn to vendors for purchasing decisions. Instead turn to your staff and students and invite them to think, “What are my learning goals and what are the tools necessary to achieve them?” Do not turn to vendors for the answer. There are many innovative educators that can help guide purchasing decisions virtually or face-to-face. You can find them by reading blogs and developing a personal network for learning available in places like Facebook, Twitter, and Classroom 2.0. And, if you don’t have that yet, you can always start here, with me, The Innovative Educator.

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A Cheap and Easy Student Response System for Students with Access to Computers

Student response systems are a powerful 21st century tool that really provides educators with an insight into the minds of their students in ways never before possible with such ease and efficiency. Readers of this blog and those who've been to presentations or classes I teach are familiar with my favorite system Poll Everywhere. What I love about the site is that it lets you create and administer polls via cell phone texting so there is no additionally technology required. However, in cases where all students/participants have access to computers, QuickieQ might be a better option.

QuickieQ (www.quickieq.com) offers a polling and assessment system that was built by a teacher for a teachers and has many features that educators might want. First off, QuickieQ seems to offer a wider variety of question types than Poll Everywhere, such as multiple choice, true/false, yes/no, short answer, fill in the blank, essay, ranking, sorting, “check all that apply” with an optional “other” text field, and numerical. QuickieQ also has a confidence indicator that allows the responder to designate how confident they are in their answer. This would make for some great classroom discussions and really allow educators to get a virtual peak into the minds of their students.

QuickieQ allows you to assign point vales to each of the questions and will autoscore multiple choice, yes/no, true/false, short answer, fill in the blank, and numerical questions. The instructor can manual score all question types. Scores can be reported to the responder automatically at the end of a question set. According to the QuickieQ creator a soon-to-be-released update will allow the instructor to email results with comments to the responders.

Another highlight of QuickieQ is its ability to be used without a pre-made question list. With QuickieQ you can create questions easily and quickly during a live session. This would come in handy during a classroom discussion, where the conversation and students may dictate the questions being asked. When using question lists, the instructor can designate the pace that the questions are asked. For example, one teacher I heard of uses QuickieQ in an AP English class, asking one question at a time and stopping to discuss the responses after each question is asked.

Other educator friendly features of QuickieQ include: no student accounts to manage, question list sharing, simple URLs to share with responders, iPod Touch/iPhone formatting, and that it seems easy to learn and simple to operate. QuickieQ has a special, low-cost price for educators and runs $21 per teacher per year for a 35-responder license. QuickieQ is web-only at this time, so there is no SMS option.

At the low cost of $21 per year this is an effective an affordable option for classes where students have one to one access to laptops at home or school. In cases where students don't have access to computers, Polleverywhere or student response systems are a better option.

If QuickieQ seems right for you, watch this video to learn how to get started.

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The Why, What, and How of Getting the Benefits of Student Response Systems without the Cost or Equipment

Many innovative educators are familiar with student response systems (SRS) a.k.a. clickers. Common brands are eInstruction, Sentio, TurningPoint, Activote. The systems run about $2500 - $4000 (depending on various options selected) for a class set and allow educators to track student learning, engage an entire class as they collect real-time responses from students, and enables them to quickly assess understanding and achievement. While I believe these are valuable instructional tools, I’m not convinced they are the best tool to accomplish these goals in all situations.

Here’s why.
As an active participant using such devices I have witnessed that the distribution, collection, and maintenance of devices is a bit cumbersome. I have also observed that even tech-savvy, innovative educators have enlisted others to support their use. They've needed help from a specialist to engage in using the software to upload questions, maneuvering from one question to the next and sharing the answers.

I have also found when answering questions, typing on a phone-like keypad without a letter on each button makes submitting a response rather cumbersome. Most recently I was disappointed that my slowness in doing so resulted in my answer being omitted. Additionally, the clickers just don’t look like the technology I am used to using in my real life. They seem like artificial or manufactured constructs that I can’t imagine incorporating into everyday instruction. While I have been interested in this technology it has just seemed like an add on rather than a practice I would incorporate into my daily routine. There is also new software that has to be installed and requires a bit of a learning curve. While I am guessing there may be some innovative educators that have seamlessly incorporated these devices into the classroom, I have yet to see this for myself. In fact, sadly, I think I know of about a half dozen schools where a tech savvy teacher or coach has ordered these devices and they remain in an unopened or once opened box in a locked closet (shhh-don’t tell).

For mobile computing professional like me who want to present and operate mobiley the idea of traveling with 32 clickers is unappealing. So, while I love the functionality, the practicality of passing out clickers, configuring voting software, and lugging around bags full of difficult to use keypads has not seemed feasible. Fortunately, I have discovered ways to use everyday tools for free while still being able to harness the power these systems offer without needing either the equipment, software, or funding.

Here’s what they are.
I have found three tools that provide a similar function as student response systems and do so for free and with technologies many of us already have access to inside and/or outside of school. Furthermore they do not require downloading or learning how to use software. They are Google Spreadsheets and Forms, Twitter, and Poll Everywhere. All can be used with no cost, no software, and without the purchase of equipment for those with access to either cell phones or laptops.

Here is how to use them.

Twitter

Twitter is perfect if you want to know what your audience is thinking, feeling, or seeing. No software to download and all your audience needs is a cell phone or laptop to contribute. Simply go to www.twitter.com and set up an

account. You can Tweet from your phone by entering your number at http://twitter.com/devices. When exploring a particular topic, you need to select a short tag (an approximately 6 letters or less searchable word or acronym) and then have your audience’s tweets include that tag (i.e. Marta Valle High School might be MVHS). They can contribute using a laptop or through text on their phone. You can capture the Tweets in any number of forms. The easiest is to do a simple Twitter search for the tag. You can click here to see what the Tweets from a recent conference look like. Of course one of the more famous tags that made Twitter popular was IranElection.

Google Spreadsheets

Do you want to poll your audience? Do you want to do a pre and post assessment? Google spreadsheets is your answer. Recently I used Google Spreadsheets to poll school leaders about what name we should select for our learning network. After they Tweeted their nominations from their laptops or cells, I placed their nominations on the Google spreadsheet and then placed their names across the top of the spreadsheet. They each had 5 votes to use to select their top choices. I set up the spreadsheet to record their choices and had their results captured in a chart on a separate tab so they could instantly see the results which I projected. You can see what it looked like here. This was done without any equipment beyond their laptops.

Of note is the fact that not every person voting needed their own polling device. Participants had 24 hours to vote. They could have voted any time they had access to a computer and accommodations were set up for those who could not vote in advance because they didn’t have access to the internet. We spent 10 minutes the next day where I projected results. A few participants were recorders who captured responses for those who had yet to vote or for those who wanted to change their vote.

Google forms is another free and effective option to capture responses from your audience. Not only does Google forms look nice, it also easily allows you to capture participant results without participants being able to see what other respondents have answered. Here is a sample of a form I used at the same conference to capture conference reflections. It can also be used effectively for assessment with students.

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is a great tool that can be used by anyone who knows someone with a laptop or a cell phone they can send a text message from. For educators in schools without laptops and where phones are banned, this can still be a powerful tool that students can use outside of school by students who have their own phone or laptop or have family, friends or a public facility with a phone or laptop they can use. Futhermore Poll Everywhere is free for people who need to collect 30 or fewer responses per poll, and for schools who have not made Adequate Yearly Progress.

To use poll everywhere the teacher sets up an account at which they’ll be assigned a number or url for participants to send their answers. Within the message students enter the code corresponding to their response. This looks similar to what you see on popular shows such as American Idol. Without any additional equipment or need to download software within seconds educators will have student responses. Another nice feature is that it doesn't matter what device your students are using as text message, web, and smartphone responses can be instantly combined.

If knowing what your students are thinking is important to you and you are not able to invest in student response systems Twitter, Google Spreadsheets and Forms, and Poll Everywhere are few alternatives well worth investigating.

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