Educators can use polling to get a quick read of student comprehension in order to build strategic groups, provide focused support when needed, and also obtain a snapshot of the need of the “virtual room.” Polling can be used for content mastery as well as understanding students’ social-emotional needs. Polls can be formal or informal to really understand each student’s needs and levels of mastery.
Purposeful Polling
APPROXIMATE TIMING: 5-10 MINUTES
Key drivers around effective learning:
The Feature:
As the host, teachers can also download a full report of the poll questions so they can see what answer each student chose.
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During the Zoom session, click on Polls and select the poll to launch.
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All students will get a pop up that asks them to answer the question(s).
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As students answer the questions, teachers are able to see the live results of which percentage of students selected each answer.
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Teachers decide when to end the poll by clicking End Poll. Teachers can also share the results with the class.
The polling feature allows teachers to embed polls that students answer throughout a Zoom session. Polls can be made during the session or made ahead of time and launched during the session.
The Implementation
Checking for students’ understanding throughout a lesson is critical to make sure that students are mastering the content and for teachers to provide the appropriate support and adjustments to help students achieve mastery. In order to strategically implement Purposeful Polling it is helpful to:
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Review the lesson plan and see where there are times throughout the lesson to pause and gauge students’ understanding.
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Write the questions ahead of time so they are ready to launch during class. Although in-the-moment polls can also be helpful, but likely take more time to launch.
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Intersperse polls throughout the lesson. This is a great way to engage students throughout a virtual class.
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After sharing a poll, share the results with the class and use that to spark a discussion. Ask a student who chose an answer to explain why they chose it and have
others agree or disagree with the student. Students can choose to do this in the chat
box or by raising their hand to share their response orally. -
Reflect on the data. If teachers notice that a significant portion of students are getting the incorrect answer, they can use that as a moment to pause and reteach. Teachers also are able to download the results of the polls and see what responses each student chose. If there are a small number of students who have the incorrect answer, teachers can save this information and pull these students for a breakout room for remediation and/or provide them materials and activities to complete that address their misunderstanding.
Polls can also be used to check in on the social-emotional state of students by developing a poll asking how students are feeling (sample responses include focused, distracted, happy, sad, bored). Teachers can use this poll throughout class several times to get a sense of the mood of the class and to adjust as needed. Teachers can also use these results to reach out to specific students who express consistent negative moods to check in with them and/or connect them to resources like a guidance counselor.
Developed with The Learning Accelerator
