19 Apr 2013
New Functionality • Video

New Features: Images and Gradable Short Answer

Greetings Socrative Community!

 

We’re super excited to be providing you the opportunity to ADD IMAGES to your quizzes and CREATE GRADABLE SHORT ANSWER questions.

In order to unlock these new features please complete this

Teacher Profile - Click Here 

Your responses will help us continue to focus our development resources on the most impactful functionality.

Click here to watch a video on how to:

Add Images to MC and Short Answer Questions

Create Gradable Short Answer Questions


 ENJOY!


We’re a small team of educators and engineers focused on building classroom tools to improve the classroom experience for you and your students.

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09 Apr 2013
Ideas • Video • Visible Thinking Routines

Just in Time! – Thinking Routines Templates

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

While putting the “final touches” on a lesson plan, I was struck with a decision about the class ending activity. I know students will have questions and concerns about the readings and projects.  I wanted the freedom and flexibility to choose the culminating activity in the moment.  What could I do?

I imported all 3 thinking routines into Socrative, and then allowed myself to choose the culminating activity in the moment.  It was a very freeing feeling to know I was prepared for a great class, and still able to be responsive to the day’s flow and demands.

 

Here are the 3 Thinking Routines – Import the template using the SOC #s or click on the Thinking Routine to download the Socrative import template.  Then import it to your own room! (How-To Video on Importing/Creating Activities)

Thinking Routine: I Used to Think…, But Now I think…   SOC-17616

Purpose: “This routine helps students to reflect on their thinking about a topic or issue and explore how and why that thinking has changed. It can be useful in consolidating new learning as students identify their new understandings, opinions, and beliefs. By examining and explaining how and why their thinking has changed, students are developing their reasoning abilities and recognizing cause and effect relationships.”  (Project Zero)

 

Thinking Routine: 1 Better, 1 Puzzle    SOC-265526

Purpose: This routine helps students reflect on their growth in understanding of a topic or issue and then reflect on an area which is still puzzling or confusing.

 

Thinking Routine: Connect, Extend, Challenge   SOC-90334

Purpose: “A routine for connecting new ideas to prior knowledge” (Project Zero)

 

So in the end, we used the 1 Better, 1 Puzzle routine.  It fit our needs in the moment and was only a click away.  Later in the evening after reviewing the excel report, I gained many insights into the levels of understanding and could follow up with students on an individual basis before the next class.

Who knows, next class we could choose a different routine, the same, or none at all…but we’re prepared.

Enjoy!

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26 Mar 2013
Ideas • Visible Thinking Routines

EVIDENTIAL REASONING: Visible Thinking Routine

 

What Makes You Say That?

As you know, Socrative is a tool that reports what your students know. However, did you know that Socrative can also provide information on how your students are thinking?

For example, after a science lesson, a teacher may use a Socrative quiz to ask, “Will a penny, with a density of 2g/ml float in water?” Based upon the student responses, the teacher will be able to see who responded correctly.

Then, she may ask, “Please explain your answer to question 1″.

Here’s where another component of student thinking comes in.  Based upon this second round of responses, the teacher will be able to see how her students understand (or misunderstand) the concept of density. Using Socrative will allow her to target any remaining misunderstandings in her ongoing instruction.

This type of teaching is based upon research on student thinking at Harvard’s Project Zero. It encourages students to share and explain their perspectives by asking,

  • What’s going on?
  • What do you see?
  • What do you know?
  • What makes you say that?

Because the basic questions in this routine are flexible, it is useful when looking at objects such as works of art or historical artifacts, but it can also be used to explore a poem, make scientific observations and hypothesis, or investigate more conceptual ideas.  The routine can be adapted for use with almost any subject and may also be useful for gathering information on students’ general concepts when introducing a new topic.  Striking a good balance of Socrative inputted text and classroom discussion will produce the best outcomes and engage students in multiple ways.

Socrative Solution

By blending with Socrative there is an opportunity for all students to have their thoughts and ideas made visible.  As always, this could be done anonymously or associative depending on which best aids in participation and student expression.  Either way, students will be on their way to achieving the 21st century skill of critical thinking and problem solving.  

Short Response

Have students generate a list of observations by each inputting one into Socrative – What’s going on? What do you see or know?

  • Project the responses and ask the class “What makes you say that?”.
  • Motivate students to think from multiple perspectives and supply evidence for responses other than their own.
  • Make note of key language and high quality responses

Make an observation and then have all students use Socrative to provide support evidence.

  • Discuss as a class paying special attention to what makes a good explanation.
  • Repeat

Have students identify an observation and provide evidence in one Socrative entry.

  • Discuss as a class and highlight target language.
  • Use the voting feature and have students select the best entry.

Quiz

Multiple Choice

  • Design questions to build basic skills and scaffold evidence-based reasoning.
  • Discuss correct selections as a class and highlight target language and characteristics of a stellar answer.
  • May be best as an introductory activity.

Short Response

  • Have students make multiple comments and for each one provide support evidence.
  • Discuss as a class and note best practices.

In the beginning you will have to prompt students to explain why and often model the process. However, over time students may begin to automatically support their interpretations with evidence without even being asked, and eventually students will begin to internalize the routine.

Extensions:

Create a Rubric – Based on student comments and class discussions, collaboratively form the basis of a rubric to measure evidential reasoning.

Make a Chart – Keep an ongoing list of quality responses and make special note of sentence starters and key language.  Hang on the classroom wall or as a googledoc.

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06 Mar 2013
Collaborative • Ideas

The 5Ws and H – Structure for Uncovering Truths

reporters

 

 

The infamous 5Ws and H have been an integral part of journalism, storytelling and an uncountable number of TV police dramas, (Law and Order being the best, of course).  

 

 

 

 

 

Additionally, for years this structure has been helping students ask targeted questions as they dig deeper into factual information and uncover truths.  In the 21st century, this routine is more versatile and as important as ever.  It’s at the core of problem solving in the office place, evaluating what’s what in cyberspace, and identifying causal relationships.

Whether an ELL teacher or a physics teacher, you’ll encounter numerous opportunities to cultivate your students’ abilities to mine for information, make sense of it, and then arrive at conclusions.  So let’s support the development and acquisition of these cross-disciplinary skills through whole class discussion, practice and guided examples.

 

Build Understanding as a Class – Implementation Ideas

 

Use the Short Response and Multiple Choice features to ask questions of the whole class and deconstruct each W and H together. Have students respond in complete sentences and then collaboratively decide which answers are the best and discuss why. 

Use the Short Response Voting Feature to narrow the class’ choices and focus on reasoning. Ask students why they like their choices and identify the key criteria in a student defined rubric.  Continue the discussion into the other components of the routine.  

Create 2 to 3 question Quizzes for post reading assignments, experiments and research. Ask for different components of the routine each time as you put the 6 pieces together over time.  These can be either multiple choice, short response or a combination of the two. Have students work in small groups or pairs and discuss their choices.

Design a 5Ws and H quiz for easy and frequent use to check understanding and create discussion.

 

Reminder: How to make your own “Quiz” activity

1. Create Activity within Socrative

Log into t.socrative.com -> Click “Manage Quizzes” -> “Create a Quiz”).

Design the Quiz and select Save

The Quiz will now be available in your drop down menu.

Select Enable Sharing to generate a SOC # for the new Quiz

Share the SOC # with your community

 

Add Quizzes to the Community Library

 

Share the SOC #s with your colleagues, on your PLNs and Twitter!!!

 

 

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01 Mar 2013
Friends • Ideas

AlwaysPrepped – A Great Partner

Screen Shot 2013-03-01 at 9.31.08 AM
We’re super excited about our free partnership with the great team at AlwaysPrepped. 

6 reasons to join AlwaysPrepped

  1. All your Socrative activity results will be viewable in one location.
  2. Organize the results by student or activity.
  3. See Khan Academy, Engrade, NWEA & Jumprope data there as well.
  4. It will save you time.
  5. New features are coming every week!
  6. They have an awesome Blog.

VIDEO  - The AlwaysPrepped and Socrative connection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AlwaysPrepped – Join Here!

 

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05 Feb 2013
Ideas • Visible Thinking Routines

Making Thinking Visible – Headlines Routine


Project Zero, an educational research group at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, has been working to enhance student learning, thinking and creativity since the 1960s. Founded by the philosopher Nelson Goodman it’s impacted global education and been guided by such education luminaries as Howard Gardner and David Perkins.

Utilizing it’s core concepts and adding a dash of Socrative will bolster student reflection, critical thinking, and creativity while developing independent learners for the 21st century.

 

Let’s Dig In!

What are Visible Thinking Routines?

At the core of Visible Thinking are practices that help make thinking visible:Thinking Routines loosely guide learners’ thought processes and encourage active processing. They are short, easy-to-learn mini-strategies that extend and deepen students’ thinking and become part of the fabric of everyday classroom life. (pzweb.harvard.edu)

Visible Thinking Routine 1 – HEADLINES 

This routine draws on the idea of newspaper-type headlines as a vehicle for summing up and capturing the essence of an event, idea, concept, topic, etc.

Activity Flow with Socrative

  • Identify a subject matter topic in which students will gather a fair amount of new information or opinions about it.
  • Communicate to students before the activity that they will be asked to write a newspaper headline capturing and summing up the essence of the materials.
  • Work through the lesson and then activate the Socrative Short Response feature.
  • Ask students this core question:

If you were to write a headline for this topic or issue right now that captured the most important aspect that should be remembered, what would that headline be?

  • Students should individually reflect on the task and then discuss in pairs or small groups.
  • Have each group co-construct a headline and enter it into Socrative.
  • Make the headlines visible for the whole class and have students read aloud their contribution.
  • Initiate Socrative’s Short Response voting option.
  • Task pairs to review all of the headlines and vote on which one best captures the essence of the material.  Have them be prepared to discuss why.
  • Hold a full class discussion in which students reflect on their summarization process and support their choices.

Extension: Revisit the headlines in future classes and discuss potential changes as more information is uncovered.



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02 Jan 2013
Ideas

Students as Questioners – Bloom’s Taxonomy

“An educated person today is someone who knows the right question to ask.”

Recently, I’ve been repeating this Ernest Boyer quote to myself.  It encapsulates so much in so few words. Many Socrative posts have focused on how teachers can foster discussions and help facilitate problem based thinking, inquiry and the surfacing of main ideas. Consequently, through modeling and drawing student attention to your questions, they are aware of how and why you are asking particular questions.

It’s time to pass the baton to the students and develop their abilities to ask the high quality questions.

Let’s call on our friend Benjamin Bloom for support.  

Bloom’s revised taxonomy is a great asset for making explicit your motivations behind classroom activities, assignments and discussion starters.  Furthermore, it helps build a common language and structure within your classroom.  As history has shown, this well-known, widely applied scheme filled a void and provided educators with one of the first systematic classifications of the processes of thinking and learning. The cumulative hierarchical framework consisting of six categories each requiring achievement of the prior skill or ability before the next, more complex one, remains easy to understand.

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
Remembering Retrieving, recognizing, reproducing and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory
Understanding Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining
Applying Carrying out or using a procedure through executing or implementing
Analyzing Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing
Evaluating Marking judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing
Creating Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing

Developing an Understanding of Bloom’s Taxonomy

Socrative Solution: Utilize Short Response (SR), Multiple Choice (MC) and True/False (TF)

Socrative easily allows everyone in your class to ask and answer the questions!

These activities are not designed to be completed in one day or week.  While you are exploring various topics throughout the semester you can initiate these ideas to help build your students’ questioning skills and cognitive abilities.  Don’t forget to answer the questions!

  • Provide an overview of the taxonomy with examples from your classroom.  Make explicit the categories you are exploring.
  • Have students duplicate or reproduce the question in their own words.  Discuss the questions and evaluate them as a class.  (SR, vote, TF)
  • Ask questions at various cognitive levels and have students identify or classify the level.  Students should then justify their reasoning.(SR)
  • Create Multiple Choice questions based on the 6 levels and have students identify and select.  Review the results as a class and further explore the levels that are causing the most difficulty. (MC)
  • In small groups, have students compare and contrast multiple questions.  Foster class discussions in which students begin to support and defend their claims. (SR)
  • Have students create their own questions for the class.  Motivate them to use varying levels.  Analyze and critique the questions as a class. (SR, TF)

*These can be done anonymously*

 

Performances of Understanding – Question Skills in Action

Student Designed Entrance Ticket

Organize your class into pairs and assign each group a week in the fall term.  For the first few weeks of the year have discussions about the entrance ticket questions and make clear your daily goals.  Meet each week with 1 pair and make them aware of what material will be explored the upcoming week.  Ask students to design a 3-question entrance ticket for Thursday or Friday of that week.

Review questions with your students, explore their goals for the questions and finalize the questions. Create and run the entrance ticket.  Make the results visible by projecting the excel data report.  Discuss the results as a class and the effectiveness of the questions.  Where would they fit on Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Finally, task pairs to submit a reflection on the experience.

Post Presentation Questions

Assign students the task of creating 3+ questions based on their presentations.  The questions should represent multiple levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.  Review the questions with each group and analyze why they are asking various questions.  Let students explain their reasoning and support their questions.  Be sure to include this component in the presentation rubric to highlight its importance. It’s often helpful to have students submit answers to their own questions.  Finally, in the post project reflection have students explore whether they would revise their questions?  Why?

Great resources for further exploration

Northern Illinois University

The University of Georgia

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18 Dec 2012
Ideas

Create Virtual Time Capsules in 2013

In third grade, my classmates and I brought a wide range of items to school that signified the time in which we were living.  There was a black Sony walkman with padded headphones, a GI Joe figure, a Hartford Courant newspaper, a copy of Shel Silverstein’s poem “Messy Room” and a video cassette of Goonies. Yes, 1986 was a glorious time. At the end of the school year we all stood around a big hole behind school and buried our keepsakes so that they might be unearthed by a future generation.

My daydreaming about this fond memory sparked an idea.

Weekly VIRTUAL Time Capules

The process of selecting an item to put in a class time capsule helps students to form an idea of the overarching thought or feeling of the time, it necessitates decision-making and it creates an indelible memory (as my experience at Martin Elementary did!)

Let’s not limit ourselves to the creation of physical capsules. Therefore, I suggest we make virtual time capsules that will capture our students’ main ideas at the end of each week or each unit. This will enable them to conceptualize their learning, reflect on their growth and even predict what might be on the horizon.

How?
  1. Design a Time Capsule Quiz to save each student’s weekly choices.
  2. Create an Example for modeling purposes and discuss your answers with your students.  Ask students to offer suggestions and personal anecdotes about the questions.
  3. Initiate the activity at the end of each week or unit.
  4. Post all the weekly reports to your class website, blog, wiki, dropbox folder or print them out and hang them on your wall.
  5. Revisit the Time Capsule periodically throughout the term so students can reflect on their growth, make connections and have some laughs.

Suggested Questions

  • What is the headline of this week? 
  • What are two new ideas/concepts you learned this week?
  • In your opinion, what was the most exciting thing you learned this week?
  • What was the most challenging activity this week?
  • What do you predict will happen next week?
  • What song, youtube clip or game did you especially enjoy this week?
  • What happened in the news this week?

You could use the Short Answer functionality to brainstorm questions and then vote on the ones to be included in the Time Capsule Quiz

Add Photos, Videos and more

Urge students to provide you with photos, audio clips, video clips and any other form of expression that further encapsulates that week. 

Have Fun!

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11 Dec 2012
Collaborative • Ideas

Space Race vs. Other Schools!

Space Race 2

We all know the fun of having a Space Race in your own class.

 

How about:

A Space Race against other classes within your school?

A Space Race against classes in the US?

A Space race against classes all over the world?

 

It’s quite simple! Here’s how:

1. Identify your competition and pick a date and time for the showdown!

Tip: Find other teachers within your PLN to Race

2. Co-construct an assessment and create it in Socrative

Tip: Enable sharing so each teacher can also import a copy using a SOC-#

                                                                                                        3. Choose a screen sharing site

Tip: Here are two great free options (Click on them to learn more)

            or          

4. Login in to your Socrative Account and the screen sharing site

5. Share your Socrative room number and screen sharing link

Tip: All classrooms can now view your Socrative screen in their own schools!

                                                                                                          6. Have classrooms login in with 1 or more device

Tip: 10 possible rockets across all classrooms

7. Select Space Race, Quiz and the number of teams

Tip: Choose a time limit if you want the furthest to win and not the fastest

8. GO!!!!!!!!! 

Tip: Email the report to your colleagues and/or project it live on the screen!

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15 Nov 2012
Ideas

Exit Tickets: Check-In on the Way Out – Updated

The precious minutes of class are quickly ticking away, as always, you have another class directly afterwards and activities all afternoon.  Looking for an efficient way to gather end of class feedback and have it corrected and organized for you?

Exit Tickets are your solution!

An Exit Ticket is a quick check exercise that takes place in the last five minutes of your class.  With Socrative, you can take advantage of our Exit Ticket template, or design your own Exit Ticket activity prior to class.  Either way, you won’t end up with a pile of uncorrected paper slips that stare at you all afternoon.   You’ll get a report that you can use to tailor that night’s homework assignment or clear up a misconception. 

So what can you capture?

Exit Tickets provide you an opportunity to take a snap shot of students’:

  • Current understanding of key concepts
  • Feelings about their understanding, i.e. critical evaluation of their own learning
  • Lingering questions
  • Preference for methods of content delivery, eg group discovery, videos, teacher led presentation
  • Requests for support exercises
  • Attitude towards class
What does our Template Capture? – 4 questions
  1. Please enter your last name, first name (ex. West, Michael):
  2. How well did you understand today’s material? (Multiple Choice)
  3. What did you learn today? (Open Response)
  4. Please solve the problem on the board (Your opportunity to ask and capture any question you’d like)
Want to Design Your Own Exit Ticket Template?

If you want to make your own Exit Ticket template just design it as a Quiz and save it as an Exit Ticket.

How?

  • Log into t.socrative.com -> Click “Manage Quiz” -> “Create Quiz”.
  • Name the “Quiz” (e.g. Exit Ticket May 12)
  • Design your Template 
  • Save 
  • The “Quiz” will now be available on your Teacher Dashboard under Start Quiz
  • Execute it as Student Paced or Teacher Paced

What Next?

  • Adjust your following day’s lesson
  • Form study groups
  • Differentiate homework assignments
  • Design a new Entrance Ticket

These are a just a few ways to use the data to support your progress towards increased student understanding.  With Socrative all your students’ information will be gathered and presented to you in easy to interpret and understand formats.


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