If you are a professional instructor of any kind, you are no doubt familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of smartphone use in the classroom. In contemporary classrooms, smartphones can be used equally for academic research or recreation.
But they have something else valuable to offer in a learning setting. We’d like to share a little secret about turning smartphones to your advantage in the classroom through live survey apps.
The Smartphone as an Educational Tool
Thanks to trending poll and survey technology, smartphones now have the potential to create a stronger connection between you, your students, and the material you’re teaching. It’s normal for students to become disengaged from time to time during class. Even if a lecture has great content, being a spectator isn’t always exciting.
Live survey apps, however, have the ability to personally engage students on a new level. When students understand that their voices matter in class and that they can use their devices to be heard, a new type of classroom dynamic emerges.
The Academic Advantages of Live Surveys
Imagine asking your students to take out their smartphones for the purpose of in-class participation. With browser-based online survey apps, students can easily complete polls and surveys that are relevant to classroom material.
Depending on the subject matter, live surveys can potentially play a helpful role when it comes to instruction, social dynamics, and creating a more enjoyable classroom experience.
Using Polls and Surveys During Online Courses
During online courses, instructors often can’t see their students’ faces and group conversations are more difficult to conduct. It’s difficult to tell how students feel about your course or content when you are remotely teaching.
Live survey apps can gauge student sentiment in situations where the student experience is inherently difficult to read.
Real-time polls exist that allow students to report whether they are confused, bored, in agreement, or in disagreement with the content being presented.
Polls and surveys can also collect responses or votes from students regarding the material at hand and any questions they have about the content. If an instructor has access to relevant feedback, they can continuously improve their presentation in order to provide a more responsive, interactive, and satisfying learning experience.
Unifying Students via Technology
Polls and surveys have the ability to unite students. Imagine a cohort that lacks a strong and cohesive dynamic. Introducing a cooperative activity that allows everyone to voice their opinions and view collective results can increase engagement and spark meaningful conversation.
Rather than simply sharing space and listening to instruction, students can actively participate in conversations in parallel, allowing for a more unified experience mediated by digital space.
Presenting Controversial Material
Especially if you are presenting controversial material, consider conducting occasional polls and surveys in order to bring students directly into touch with the difficult nature of the topic at hand.
Who doesn’t like to have a voice? Most people enjoy seeing who agrees or disagrees. Live surveys can help students to understand topic from a social perspective and serve to air out the sentiment of the room.
Polls and surveys are a great way to encourage emotional involvement — especially so when conducted using an engaging and familiar device like the smart phone.
Push Students’ Buttons
Overall, who doesn’t like to push buttons these days? We are surrounded by opportunities to click here or tap there in order to receive information or increase our sense of personal influence.
Young students in particular are especially accustomed to using apps to elicit responses or effects. Use this to your advantage by integrating feedback technology into your instructional approach.
Strengthen Academic Community
As an instructor, why not use smartphone and modern technology to your advantage in the classroom?
Thanks to live survey apps, smartphones don’t need to stand in between you and your ability to effectively engage your students. Strategic smartphone use has the potential to turn any classroom into a more informed, communicative, and productive community of enthusiastic learners.
At MeetingPulse, we provide real-time survey and polling software that runs from any browser, so participants never need to download an app. Anyone can easily participate using their smartphone or laptop via a short link.
MeetingPulse technology was developed with simplicity in mind and offers a wide array of customizable options to fit your instructional needs.
Contact us for more information or click on ‘Keep Me Posted’ on our blog page to receive blog updates and our free ebook.
