Classroom Response Systems
- Sections
Polling systems and clickers foster interactive, responsive classrooms via live polling and Q&A during class. These softwares capture student responses and instantly tallies and produces a visualization of the results.
Mentimeter
What is Mentimeter?
Mentimeter is an online polling tool that allows faculty to create presentations (similar to PowerPoint Presentations) that are interactive and allow students to answer questions and polls anonymously using any device. The number of participants is unlimited.
What can I do with Mentimeter?
Mentimeter offers a range of question and content slide types which instructors can use (in class and remotely) to actively engage students. These slide types include multiple choice, open-ended, ranking, Q&A, word cloud, and media, along many others. Mentimeter generates live results for polls, which instructors can access for analysis and sharing with students and/or colleagues.
Some use cases for this tool:
- Group discussions
- Icebreaker activities
- Informative assessment to assess background knowledge and understanding
- Course material revisions
- Concept visualization and representation
- Holding Q&A sessions post presentation/lecture
- Competing/gaming activities
How do I try Mentimeter for my courses?
Using their Georgetown NetID account, faculty can sign up and create a free Mentimeter account by visiting www.mentimeter.com. There is no limit on the number of presentations or number of students in the free version. If interested in using Mentimeter frequently throughout your course, please reach out to cndls@georgetown.edu for a consultation to set up a Pro account, which provides various additional features.
Poll Everywhere
What is Poll Everywhere?
Poll Everywhere is a web-based polling tool that faculty can use in or outside the classroom to engage students. It offers instructors more question types than traditional clicker devices and allows students to respond to polls with their mobile device or computer.
What can I do with Poll Everywhere?
Poll Everywhere features a variety of question types--including multiple choice, word cloud, open response, image map, and up- and down-voting--which instructors can use to help engage students in active learning, both in and out of the classroom. They can also use the tool to quiz, poll, or survey students outside of class.
Examples of ways faculty can use Poll Everywhere with their students:
- Reviewing content using multiple choice questions
- Gauging students' understanding of new concepts and points of confusion
- Identifying an element on an image
- Collecting data points on graph
- Receiving anonymous feedback via open-ended responses
- Conducting an icebreaker activity using a word cloud
Read about the experiences of Georgetown faculty who participated in the Poll Everywhere pilot.
Patrick Johnson - Engaging Students with Polling : : Transcript
How do I try Poll Everywhere for my courses?
Faculty can create a free basic account at www.polleverywhere.com that can be used to poll up to 40 students at a time. For larger classes, faculty can purchase an instructor license with additional features and the ability to poll up to 700 respondents. Alternatively, they can have students purchase an individual license. If you would like to discuss ways to use Poll Everywhere in your course, please contact cndls@georgetown.edu to request a consultation.
Clickers
What are clickers?
Clickers are handheld devices used to select an answer choice for a question. Clickers typically allow one-button responses (e.g. true/false, or A/B/C/D/E). Clickers foster interactive, responsive classrooms via live polling. The clicker software captures student responses and instantly tallies and produces a visualization of the results.
Why use clickers?
Clickers foster a participatory culture, even in large lecture classes. Every student who uses a clicker is actively participating in class―even shy or introverted students who may be reticent to raise their hand or speak up. In addition, students enjoy seeing the answers of others. The results of a clicker poll may give rise to a lively debate, making the classroom into a more dynamic, inclusive learning community. The instant results that clickers provide give professors immediate feedback about the level of students' understanding. This feedback helps instructors adjust their lessons to students' real-time needs. If the clicker data show that students do not understand a topic, then the instructor can spend more time on that topic; if the students demonstrate understanding, the instructor can move on.
What can I do with clickers?
Engage large lecture classes
Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J., Associate Professor in the Department of Government, uses clickers to engage students, keeping them constantly involved during his large lecture classes. He explains that in a 200-student lecture, only a few students will get a chance raise their hands and speak. With clickers, however, he can make sure that every student participates multiple times during each class session. Professor Carnes uses clickers to poll students on their opinions and also to check on their knowledge of content. He explains that, as a teacher, he finds it most helpful when students get things wrong. Watch Professor Carnes in the video below discuss how clickers help him work toward the Jesuit ideal of a shared responsibility for learning.
Demonstrate difficult concepts
Associate Professor of Biology Matthew Hamilton uses clickers to demonstrate genetic drift, a complex and abstract concept that can be difficult for students to understand. After learning about genetic drift by discussing a classic experiment with fruit flies, students carry out a similar experiment as a class by flipping coins and reporting their results with clickers. Students can immediately see how their own results demonstrate the concept of genetic drift. Professor Hamilton notices that when it comes to difficult concepts, it is extremely helpful for students to be able to experience and model data for themselves using clickers.
Enhance language learning development
Ellen Johnson, a beginning Spanish instructor at Georgetown, designed a study to see how well clickers work in beginning language classrooms. Her study found that after using clickers to practice the tricky distinction between the Spanish verbs ser and estar, students showed significant learning gains. She also found that students felt extremely positive about using clickers to learn this concept; they found the process effective, motivating, and fun.
Facilitate peer instruction
An important way that clickers help students learn is by enabling peer instruction, a strategy promoted by Harvard University physics professor Eric Mazur. To use clickers for peer instruction, the instructor first polls the class using clickers. If a large number of students get the answer wrong, or if the class is divided, the instructor will ask students to turn to their neighbors and try to justify their answers. After students have discussed their answers with others, the instructor polls the class again on the same question. Usually, on this second round, many more students choose the correct answer. In this technique, clickers help students learn from and engage with one another instead of learning only from the professor. To learn more about peer instruction, read this discussion of teaching with clickers on the National Education Association website.
Matt Carnes about Clickers : : Transcript
How do I get started with clickers?
Learn how to use clickers for your course by requesting a consultation from CNDLS.
