No Waiting: Student Response


Informs Teaching in an Instant


By Peggy Fowler MACUL Grant Recipient


Remember the times you discovered, long after class was over, that your students really did not understand a skill, a concept, or the essence of a problem? You came back the next day ready to address their difficulties and look for new evidence of understanding. What if you could determine what your students knew as you were teaching?


Many new tools can now bring fresh life to the relationship between teachers and students in the 21st


century classroom. A student


response system brought new opportunities to my classroom and, by extension, to my school in the past year.


Something was Missing


My attention to a student response system was initially sparked by a desire to fully use our new math program components. Math problems were presented in a multiple-choice format on an LCD-projector for student consideration. We discussed the answer choices in class but we could all see that something was missing. A bar graph on each pre-made slide “invited” students to give individual responses; however, we did not have the technology to make use of this feature.


Getting Started A TurningPoint® response system with response cards for each student brought excitement to my fifth-grade math classes. Once the “clickers” were in the hands of students, our class dynamic took on a new dimension. Everyone participated, even the students who were often reluctant to speak in class. If student responses did not aggregate


questioning techniques. For


multi-step problems, I showed the problem on one slide, only revealing the answer slide after students had time for work and reflection. Students used clickers to input data from mathematical activities and experiments. I used clickers to gather information on students’ work habits and confidence level.


“Everyone participated, even the students who were often reluctant to speak in class.”


around the best response, my instruction could be refocused in that moment to address their difficulties.


In addition to using pre-made materials, it was very easy to author interactive slides in a PowerPoint® format and poll the class. I quickly adapted my class openers of mental math activities or journal problems to this format. I used slides as discussion prompts, adapting types of questions I had used in the past, such as Which One Doesn’t Belong?.


Asking Better, Deeper Questions


Simple recall questions and vocabulary review slides were a good starting point, but I could see the possibilities for expanding my


MACULJOURNAL |


Ease of Paperless Assessments While students were assigned a clicker that corresponded with my records, I initially took little notice of their individual answers after class was over. I grew to appreciate the record-keeping function of the response system. Not only could I follow each child’s progress in our class activities, but I could monitor assignments and assessments without collecting papers. Celebrating Earth Day inspired me to showcase paperless assignments.


Looking Forward


Using a student response system provided new opportunities to make instructional choices and provide formative assessments in real time. Students enjoyed a compelling new way to participate in class activities. They witnessed the teacher responding to their needs in a direct and timely way.


In the new school year, I want to leverage my previous experiences to:


• further develop my questioning techniques • make better use of the reporting features for student records • integrate use into other areas of learning • create a greener classroom by featuring more paperless assignments


Peggy Fowler is a middle school math teacher at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Bloomfield Hills. She can be reached at pfowler@ashmi.org.


Winter 2010 | 31


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