Using Socrative to Connect the Learning and Develop Understanding

I have been using Socrative for two years. For the most part this has primarily been to Turn Students into Teachers by getting them to make quizzes and then test each other using them, this was primarily a type of plenary for the end of the lesson. However, I have recently developed my use of this app to use it more at the start of the lesson and to show progression in the students' understanding.

This blog post features both an explanation from me and a video to show the activity I am describing taking place.

My GCSE class complete a source question

For the last couple of months I have being using the short answer function on Socrative. This allows students to respond to a question and then vote on the responses showing which answer they feel to be the best. Recently, during the revision season I have developed this further using Socrative to both connect the learning and allow the students to develop their understanding.

Are you surprised by this source?

At the start of the lesson I have projected a source up on to the board along with a question and asked the students to answer the question using Socrative (see the picture). Individually they complete the question. I have found that this has engaged the students as soon as they have entered the room and got the lesson started very quickly. Whilst they are completing this activity I can set up the rest of the lesson or take the register.

I then ask the students to submit their answers to Socrative. Some of the students write their answers in their notes app as Socrative can be a bit clumsy and it is easy to send your answer in before you are ready to.

Once all the entries have been submitted I then send the entries back to the students using the app. Once they have received entries from the whole class the students then have two tasks to complete:

1. Make a list of the points you have not included: the students have to look through the other entries from the rest of the class and note down the points that others have made that they have not. This acts as a kind of mini-plenary as the students have to reflect on their own responses and work out how to improve them. For some it might be simply facts and figures that they have missed out on. For others it may be more of a style issue. 
2. Vote for the three best answers: Socrative allows the students to vote on the best answers (to vote more than once simply ask the students to log out and back into the app). My current GCSE class have been especially good it picking out the best responses. The votes are sent back to my iPad / PC. The entries are completely anonymous so the students are forced to judge the quality of the answer and can't just vote for their mates.

To finish the activity I ask students, at random, to explain a point that they have picked up from looking at other students' responses. In the video below you can hear Lucas explain how he would improve his answer based on what he has read from his peers. This is obviously another mini-plenary as it allows the students to explain how they would improve their answer. This alternatively can be done as a Kagan style activity in pairs.

Finally, I read out the answers that got the most votes and the winners stand up. We have no idea who they will be. This is always a good moment as the students know it was the quality of their answer that got them the votes. You would expect that it is the same students who would get the votes but this is not my experience as a real mix of students end up winning.

Below is a video documenting what happened on one occasion when we did this activity:

 

Reflections

• This activity really gets the lesson going as the students are working straight away and is good for  pace. 
• It can be used as both a starter to connect the learning or as an activity in its own right depending on the context of the topic. In this case as it was revision I used it as a starter and something to get the students thinking about teenagers in the 1960s which developed in the rest of the lesson.
• The anonymous nature of the activity is great as it makes the students work do the talking.
• The students enjoy it and are always engaged by it, I hope that this came across in the video.
• It allows the students to develop their ideas in a supportive way. I am not just looking for the best answers but I am also looking for the students who can explain how they would improve their work.
• It is a great tool for both revision and practicing exam technique.

The students really enjoy this activity, they enjoy seeing whose work is the winner and they are able to explain how they would improve their own work showing both progress and a developing understanding of the topic/skill.

Below are the thoughts of some of my GCSE students:

Closing the Gap - Personalising Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time (DIRT) to Improve Exam Performance

For a number of years I have been setting aside DIRT after I have marked an assessment. This time has allowed students to re-write / re-draft their answers to show that they have understood the targets that I have set and can now apply those targets and improve their work.

I have struggled to make the experience truly personal though. Yes, I have always set targets that are specific to that student and allowed a variable amount of time so that students working at different rates can complete their improvements. But I don't believe that this has been as personalised as it could have been I also believe that the process has been too reliant on me as a teacher. Having done the marking the focus should be on the students, not me, to improve their work.

With this aim in mind I marked a set of GCSE history mock papers. I have 20 students in the class. There were six questions on the mock. All were based around source analysis. There were not any direct marks for students knowledge. The topic was Britain 1945-75. The focus was the growth of the teenager. The students would have a two hour lesson to complete their DIRT. Their final exam was 5 days away.

As I marked the paper I simply placed a mark, and nothing more, on the vast majority of responses. That said I noted down on my mark scheme specific students who had really struggled with each question to guide me in the lesson. I wanted the students to take responsibility for their targets and their improvements.

At the start of the lesson I emailed the students the links to the two clips below. These clips are created by me using an app called ExplainEverything. This app allows you to talk over a PowerPoint/Keynote and makes a video for you.

 

Also at the start of the lesson I handed back the mock exam papers. I asked the students to look through their paper and identify which questions they had struggled most on. I asked them to rank their questions in order of priority with the ones that they found the hardest at the top.

Once the rank order of questions was established we got into the main part of the lesson. 

The stamp I use for point 5

1. I asked the students to watch the part of the video that applied to the question they had identified as the one that they had struggled the most with. 
2. Once they had watched this part of the video I asked them to write out a suitable target that would allow them to improve their answer. 
3. The students then had to check this target with me. In most cases this appeared as simply a rubber stamping exercise but in asking the students to articulate the problem and solution to me I was getting them to reinforce their understanding. This conversation acted as a mini-plenary.  Obviously, some of the students required more support, especially the ones I had previously identified, and I spent more time working with these students.
4. Then the students re-wrote / redrafted their answer to show that they had understood how to improve it.
5. The students checked their answers briefly with me. If I was happy then I stamped the answer if not I could offer further guidance. Again this process acted as a mini-plenary.
6. The students began the process again on the next question within their rank order.

 Literacy Focus
This lesson coincided with a literacy walkthrough at my school. Question six on the exam is an essay which the students can achieve an additional three marks for spelling and grammar. On this question I provided a literacy target as well as a mark and asked the students to ensure that their improvements (point 5) allowed them to show that they had acted on this literacy target. Working in this way allowed the students to showcase the progress that they had made on both the wider exam and on their literacy.

My class work independently on improving their work (DIRT)

 Reflections

• It was personal: Each student's work in the lesson was different. After rank ordering the answers based on the marks the scored the students were able to personalise their journey through the lesson.
• I felt like I was at two places at once: I was able to be the teacher, on the screens via the iPads, and be a offer 1:1 support to the students when they needed it. This meant that the students were more on task because they were getting support from me in different ways at the same time.
• The mini-plenaries ensured I could measure progress: I feel that we are always been asked to measure progress. The fact that I was able to check both the students targets and the improvements they had made to their work allowed me to know how much individual progress was being made.
• It was student led and independent: I really felt like the activity was student led as they chose their route through the lesson, my job was to provide resources and support. Once I had provided the resources (the videos and the marks on their exams) the students were able to work independently through parts 1-3 and 4.
• It was well placed in the year: my GCSE class had done a lot of this type of thing before and it really showed. Although this lesson was a step further (in being more student led) the students saw it as a natural extension to their work and assessment.
• The students were engaged: this might have been because of the immediacy of the exam but I would like to think that it was, at least in part, down to the activity.

One students redraft of part of one question

Results
All of the students made progress in the lesson and all produced at least two rewrites of their answers. Obviously, the proof will be in the pudding on results day, and it will be hard to tell how much this lesson contributed, but judging by the atmosphere in the room and the quality of the student work the personalised DIRT was successful.

The fact that this lesson was so close to the real exam I was expecting the students to ask about learning content but the fact that they didn't shows that they understand how important these type of activities are to improving performance.

DIRT isn't a new concept for me and has formed part of my lessons for a number of years. The videos the students were using were made two years ago. That said delivering the lesson in such a personalised way felt like a breakthrough as it allowed the students the ability to really tailor the DIRT to their specific needs.