Senteo Clickers, the SMARTBoard & EQAO
With EQAO (Education Quality and Accountability Office) right around the corner, what better way to practice the multiple choice questions from last year then on the SMARTBoard.
Take it one step further. By creating clicker questions from last year’s multiple choice, you can easily determine which strands your students need help in and which they excel in, by exporting the results into graphs.
Not only can you determine who got what right / wrong in a matter of seconds, you can show the results to the class and have them determine which questions were done poorly, just by looking at the bar graph.
The one issue I have is time. You cannot move onto the next question until everyone is done with the previous question. Some students require more time and might feel pressured to asnwer, giving inaccurate results. I would suggest leaving the question up for a period while they are practicing something else at their seats. The clicker question can be answered anytime in that period. Have the slower students start first. There are many ways to help this issue, i’m sure you are thinking of a few now.
The point is, EQAO practice should be fun. These kids are already terrified of a standardized test. Bring in the technology, graph the results, have debates over split views on open response questions. The possibilities seem endless to me.
I’ve been thinking some more about these clicker. Sometimes I have students do peer evaluation of presentations made in class (drama / LA / history, etc). In the past, I had students write down the names of the group members, and record the mark. Then, I (or a student volunteer) would have to go through the marks to figure out what the peer evaluation mark was worth.
Couldn’t you use a class set of clickers as a way to automate the peer evaluation record-keeping? A student presents, all of the students vote in level 1, 2, 3, or 4. The mark shows up on the computer. Next presenter.
You could have the students on anonymous mode, or alternatively you could have them log in so you could keep the students from giving their friends perfect scores. (You wouldn’t have to display how the students voted on the SMART board.)
What do you think? Would it work?
What a quick way to determine the mean / median results. Lets say you have 27 students. You would make one “How is the student doing” Senteo question and clone that page 26 more times. When a student is ready to present, have him/her sign the page with their “How am i doing” Senteo question so you can identify results and match them to presentations. You must have a question per student as to not overwrite any results. Great idea, i’ve never used them for peer evaluation but will certainly try it!
We were talking about this in our staff room today. You wouldn’t even need a data projector or smart board to display the results. You could simply tell the students when to vote and check that it’s working on your teacher computer. That way there’s some confidentiality with marks.
I’d be curious to know how it goes. $2000 is a lot, but if it goes well, I’d invest in the technology. Is there a limit to how many multiple choice answers you could enter? For example, could you set up one letter per student and when you’re voting for student of the month awards, students could vote electronically?
You can enter numerical values as results so have them vote based on student ID number. Each student would have a numerical login already. So if John Smith’s ID is 16 to login to Senteo, students could enter 26 to vote for John Smith for the monthly award. The student list and ID numbers would be something you already have created and readily accessible to show during voting time.
Re: Issue over students not being able to move on until the previous question is done. Students can move on to the next question. When you create the question set, you insert a title page and that groups the questions together (also allows you to set additional options). Or as you add a new question, it will prompt you to group or not to group. When I do a clicker set as a test rather than as a concept-by-concept diagnostic, I print out the test and hand it out to either your quick worker or the student that needs the print-out as scaffolding. The other benefit to this grouped question set is that the students can scroll up and down through their answers in review. Funny how summer vacation frees up time for PD eh?