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,
These look great. We had something similar but our set is wayyy out of date at this point. 🙁 Oh well, maybe we’ll have some money to spare this year. 🙂
~Brandee
Creating Lifelong Learners
These are so fun! I need to use these more in my classroom. I’m your newest follower on Bloglovin!
Jennifer
Mrs. Laffin’s Laughings
I use them EVERY SINGLE DAY! Sometimes the kids desks look so cluttered with the devices, net books, whatever we’re reading, and their stuff! lol… When I tell them to clear their desks they look at me funny because all the stuff on their desks is mine!
Thanks for following!
Carla
We have ActivBoards (which I love), but we got the clickers that only have MC answers. I would love to have the expressions! So cool! You know how you have some tool/activity/technique to use that is really great, but you forget to use it. My clickers are that for me. Your post reminded me to get them out this year and use them! Thanks!
Erin
Definitely! Sometimes it gets overwhelming when we have so much to do, but this is my #1 priority because I hate grading papers! Lol
Thanks for stopping by!
Carla
I am sooo with you sister! I’ve got a set of Smart Response clickers that I use virtually EVERY.DAY. I could not even imagine teaching anymore without the ability to instantly have itemized data for any objective assessment. I love the fact that after a multiple choice test or quiz (ESPECIALLY comprehension) my students can see what they missed IMMEDIATELY and work out in their minds why they missed it while they still remember why they put that answer. A day or two later, having a test returned and seeing what they missed just isn’t the same thing. I also love how it frees up my time from grading multiple choice type assessments and allows me more time to grade constructed response and essay answers. I could not live without my clickers! 🙂 Erin
I’m Lovin Lit
So you see why I love them, right? We also have some great conversations as to why they got the answer right or wrong…right away! It allows me to immediately clear up misconceptions. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
Carla
Great post! I love the ActivExpression Devices! About 1/2 of my middle schoolers have smart phones, but the others do not yet. I hear what you are saying about having them use CPS clickers or whiteboards, etc. I just don’t want to single them out though. I think it would have to be an all of nothing in my class. The thing I don’t like about the CPS clickers is the time to set-up a quiz/poll/test, etc. I work from home on lesson plans a lot rather than staying at school early or late and I would just be concerned about the time it takes to do these. I sometimes feel like our plates are so full already. I probably just need to get in the habit of using it more this year and trying to budget a good amount of time to do this. 🙂
~Amy
http://middleschoolminions.blogspot.com
I totally understand what you’re saying. I do a lot of work at school and then go home and work some more! The great thing about creating the flipcharts and embedding the questions is that once it’s done – it’s done! I may have to do a little tweaking from year to year, but the majority of the work remains the same! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
Carla