Happy Thursday! I’m joining up with Erin at I’m Lovin’ Lit for her Thursday Thrown Down! This linky party is all about getting interactive with your students! You can share your ideas and strategies for anything interactive – manipulatives, group work, music, interactive whiteboards, interactive notebooks – ANYTHING that makes your lessons interactive!
These beauties are a work of art! They are guaranteed to get the most reluctant student involved in your classroom lesson. That’s right…..I’m talking about my ActivExpression Devices!
I remember the first day we got them. The kids were so giggly. So was their teacher! 🙂 The great thing about it is I see the same excitement year after year when I get these babies in their hands. The most dismal task becomes exciting and new when we use the devices.
With the ActivExpression devices students can answer in the following formats: multiple choice, true/false, likert scale, sequential order, and text entry. I use them everyday for almost everything: entering bellwork and homework, a quick checking for understanding during a lesson, mini-assessments, even as a reading log.
Surviving Sixth Grade
The students are totally engaged! 🙂
What I really love about them is the immediate feedback. We follow the EDI (Explicit Direct Instruction) model, and so we frequently “check for understanding” when reviewing skills and concepts. Once students put their answers in, I immediately know what percentage of the class knows the information we are discussing. And the best part? All the information that they put in is automatically graded and can be exported into an Excel spreadsheet with an item analysis! Boo-yah!
Specific Question Data
Individual Student Data
But we don’t have Promethean?! I can almost hear you shout. Don’t worry, there are a plethora of options for you. Have a cellphone (SMS), smartphone, laptop, desktop, or tablet? There’s Socrative and Poll Everywhere! Have a SMART board? There’s the SMART response system! There’s also the CPR IR and CPR Pulse Don’t have anything? Have them get out those whiteboards! LOL! What I do know is that the person who is doing most of the work is doing most of the learning…..with my ActivExpression devices the students are giving me just as much information as I’m giving them – if not more.
So if your school lives in a “Promethean World”, find the tech person, media specialist, or whoever handles your technology; grab a bag of ActivExpression devices and give it a try! You won’t regret it!
Until the next time,
