Response Devices
Overview
Response devices boost engagement by encouraging all students to answer every question. By receiving immediate, regular feedback, teachers can assess student learning and appropriately adjust instruction to meet their needs.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how an elementary school teacher uses a student response system, Plickers, to encourage whole-group participation and collect formative data on student learning. By using this tool, learners are able to focus their Attention on the question and are Motivated to respond.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how a cloud-based student response system, Socrative, allows for a variety of student interactions and for teachers to assess student learning. The flexibility of creating quiz questions beforehand or spontaneously and the gamified element of answering questions through space races are particularly effective features for usability and Motivation.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Active Learning Strategies
Creating and acting out texts or original narratives can enhance literacy for young learners, solidifying their comprehension and building Narrative Skills.
Students activate more cognitive processes by exploring and representing their understandings in visual form.
When young children draw and are encouraged to explain their drawings, they are sharpening the cognitive and motor skills involved in conventional writing.
When students explain their thinking process aloud, they recognize the strategies they use and solidify their understanding.
Visiting places connected to classroom learning provides opportunities to deepen understanding through firsthand experiences.
Free choice supports learner interests and allows more complex social interactions to develop.
Games help students visualize new information and immerse themselves in the learning process.
Imagining allows students to step back from a problem or task and think about it from multiple angles.
Reading aloud allows students to hear and practice reading and fluency skills.
Playful activities, including pretending, games, and other child-led activities, can support the development of learners' Metacognition and also inspire their narratives and writing.
Project-based learning (PBL) actively engages learners in authentic tasks designed to create products that answer a given question or solve a problem.
