1. Academic Technologies
  2. Poll Everywhere
  3. Teaching with Student Response Systems

Teaching with Student Response Systems

Information on Best Practices of Polling Questions in Teaching!!

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FAQ website - Step-by-Step Instructions on Poll Everywhere

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Best Practices in Teaching and Learning

Attendance and Responses

Student Response System (Poll Everywhere) and Academic Integrity

Research Articles

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Best Practices in Teaching and Learning

  • Provide a reason for using pollling questions
  • Always provide a learning goal as part of the assessment
  • Align challenging and important questions to the student learning outcomes within your class
  • Allow for peer discussion and active learning
  • Breakup your questions throughout your course delivery
  • Provide sufficient time for discourse and responses
  • Emphasize the value of respecting ideas and other reasonings - respect
  • Through the use of polling responses, you are gathering attendance data
  • Start with a low-stake poll or current knowledge question
  • Reduce the showing of the histograms
  • Remove the use of "trick" questions
  • Use real-life scanerios/case studies/everyday examples within your questions
  • Utilize group responses for think, pair, and share exercises
  • Based on responses do re-polling if responses are widely incorrect

 

Attendance and Responses

By using polling questions in your class, you will be able to challenge students through:

  • Understanding the content through active learning
  • Seeing the purpose and flow of the content
  • Increase in participation, discussion with their peers
  • Consistent attendance
  • Assessing their content knowledge
  • Meaningful faculty-to-student interaction
  • Greater student-to-student interaction
  • Deeper student-to-content interaction
  • Fcaulty feedback (understanding the knowledge transfer)
  • Problem practice and development
  • Opportunities for anonymous responses
  • Removal of musconceptions of content
  • Think, Pair, Share responses (peer instructions)

 

Student Response System (Poll Everywhere) and Academic Integrity

 “Academic honesty and integrity are essential to the existence and growth of an academic community. Without maintenance of high standards of honesty, members of the instructional faculty are defrauded, students are unfairly treated, and society itself is poorly served. Maintaining the academic standards of honesty and integrity is ultimately the formal responsibility of the instructional faculty; and this responsibility is shared by all members of the academic community.” (University Policy 407, Code of Student Academic Integrity)

Any student found improperly using "student response system" (Poll Everywhere) in the classroom is violating UNC Charlotte’s Code of Student Academic Integrity in their improper use of “student response system” (Poll Everywhere) in the classroom. These violations include, but are not limited to, the following examples:

  • Using a classmates mobile device or account for quizzes, assignments, homework, or attendance
  • Using a classmates mobile device, their account, or your account to register for attendance without being present in the classroom
  • Using your mobile device and account for attendance and immediately leaving the classroom for the remainder of the class session
  • Not being physically present in the classroom, but answering the questions through collusion with another student who is physically present in the classroom
  • Providing Poll Everywhere answers to students (via Text, Email, Chat, or Phone) who are not physically present in the classroom

According to the Code of Student Academic Integrity, the aforementioned examples are classified as:

  • Cheating. Intentionally using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, notes, study aids or other devices in any academic exercise. This definition includes unauthorized communication of information during an academic exercise.
  • Complicity in Academic Dishonesty. Intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another to commit an act of academic dishonesty.

If it is discovered that students have engaged in such practices, the following penalties according to The Code of Student Academic Integrity may be imposed:

  1. a formal warning,
  2. a reduced grade (including "F" if undergraduate student and "U" for graduate student) for the assignment,
  3. a reduced grade (including "F" if undergraduate student and "U" for graduate student) for the entire course.

The faculty member may combine any of the above examples, depending on the severity of the infraction, or impose some other penalty appropriate to the violation. However, the maximum penalty that a faculty member may assign using the settlement form is an “F” for an undergraduate and a “U” for a graduate student.

Developed by Roy Fielding and Bret Wood, Department of Kinesiology, UNC Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223 

 

Research Articles