Increase engagement with PollEverywhere

Keywords: PollEverywhere; éngagement;

Brief description

IPE of Trade is a large, lectures-only course with about 200 students. Polleverywhere is one of several tools that I am trying out in order to make the lectures more interactive. 

To use Poll Everywhere in class, the polls have to be prepared beforehand. The University of Groningen currently has an institutional subscription and UG users can easily login at https://www.polleverywhere.com/ with their university login credentials (no need to create a new account). With the software one can create a variety of polls (e.g. multiple choice, word cloud, open-answer, etc.), which students can complete during the lectures, with the results being displayed in real-time on the screen. 

I used it in two ways:

1. To tease students’ interest and increase attention levels, I asked the audience a few multiple choice questions at the start of lectures about (perhaps surprising) facts and puzzles that were going to be “resolved” in the subsequent lecture.
2. To generate some more interaction in large-group lectures, I also designed a few short activities that they were asked to work on in pairs. Students were asked to discuss certain questions with their neighbor for a few minutes and then express their answer or point of view via the app.

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Overall, my experience using the software was positive. It did help to activate students and most of them thought the activities were fun. However, the software can also be distracting (not least by encouraging students to take out their phones during class). In my experience, the software works best if it is used sparingly and in a targeted manner.

Group size

Large group of about 200 students

Length of the activity

Several short activities of 1-2 minutes

Difficulty level

[On a scale of 1-5 (1= very easy, 5 = a lot of preparation)]
2=easy

Preparation

The polls have to be created before class in your Poll Everywhere account. While thinking through appropriate questions may require some reflection time, creating the polls themselves is very easy. Normally it didn’t take me more than a few minutes.

Advantages

Can be useful to activate students in large-group setting and get input from everyone in the room.

Challenges

Using the tool requires students to use their mobile phones or laptops, which can be distracting (for themselves and the lecturer).

Furthermore, it is important to be prepared to use the software in class. I would strongly recommend already logging in to the Poll Everywhere account before the class begins (since you have to log in with your university IT credentials it requires two-step authentication, which you probably don’t want to complete in front of a large audience). The software also offers a Powerpoint ‘plug-in’, but this didn’t (yet) work for me. Instead, I logged in to my Poll Everywhere account in a different browser just before the class and switched from Powerpoint to that browser when it was time for the activity (mind that this may work more easily when using your personal laptop with HDMI rather than the desktop PC in the lecture hall, which may require several log-ins etc.).

A final challenge is that open-answer questions could potentially lead audience members to type offensive words or sentences, which will then appear on the screen in class. Fortunately this didn’t happen in my lectures, but it is a risk that one should keep in mind, especially when using open-answer polls.

Targeted Learning outcomes

• N/A

The software can improve student engagement in large-group lectures. It does not meaningfully reduce workload, but it also doesn’t create a lot of extra work.

Additional tools/material/resources

The UG currently has an institutional subscription to PollEverywhere. You can log in with your RUG university, but need to activate your account. See the Edusupport article below.

Additional information

Edusupport article

Polleverywhere (company website)