Using Socrative for Immediate Feedback

I’ve used a variety of interactive quizzing tools, such as Poll Everywhere and Kahoot. For virtual synchronous classes, I have found that Socrative works best.

From the website:

How Socrative works from a teacher’s point of view:

Watch the answers to every student’s quiz populate your screen in real time, or create exit tickets to gather feedback on today’s lesson. Socrative offers valuable insights and time-saving features so teachers can better assess the needs of their classrooms.

How Socrative works from a student’s point of view:

Instead of watching the clock, students will be actively engaged in fun activities that involve the entire class in collaborative learning, like the popular Space Race quiz. Socrative helps teachers discover where students need a little more guidance, so gaps in understanding can be found and addressed when they come up.

Although there is a Pro (paid) version for HIgher Education, I use the basic (free!) version for K-12, which has enough features for me. It stores information from each session, which is really important if you are using class participation as a grade and/or need to demonstrate engagement to higher-ups. It also helps me during my planning to make sure I have ways to assess during class.

Here are some examples of how I use Socrative in my classes:

Focus Questions

At the beginning of class, post a short answer question on Socrative. You can give them the question in advance, even. Usually, I use this as a test of their understanding of the reading due that day. It could also be a quick poll to set up the lesson. I recently centered a class around the census. The focus question could ask them “what information does the census gather?” as a way to measure their knowledge before you begin the lecture.

Knowledge Check

I try not to lecture for more than 15 minutes, but some topics need more explanation and I go longer. In that case, I tell them they will have a quiz after the lecture. That keeps them motivated to listen and pay attention. I use the multiple-choice format and about 5 questions to do this. If I’m going to show a video that’s more than five minutes long, I also use a multiple-choice quiz to check their understanding.

Exit Ticket

The exit ticket feature asks the students:

How well did you understand today’s material? (Multiple Choice)

What did you learn today? (Open Response)

Please answer your teacher’s question (Your opportunity to ask and capture any question you’d like)

I write the third question on my PowerPoint when I’m planning so I don’t have to think about it during class. This is my go-to for the second day of class (when I have two classes per week).

Other Things I Would Like to Try

Jigsaw - I love doing Jigsaw discussions in my face to face classes but I haven’t figured out how to do it in a virtual setting. I plan to try the tips in this blog post to try it out.

Students As Instructors - The ideas here aren’t practical for my situation but there are ways to scale it. I can assign a student or pairs to develop questions for their peers and I can put those into Socrative quizzes. It’s great to give students ownership whenever possible!