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New tech tools promote personalization and large-group discussions

Craig Jones discovered out the difficulty of providing personalized learning to a large class when he taught science at a Los Angeles USD middle school. With 10 lab stations set up across the classroom—each with its own objectives—monitoring each students’ learning was virtually impossible.

Jones sought to solve the problem. After leaving the district, he helped develop Formative—a student response system launched in 2015 that allows teachers to watch, on their computers, how each student responds to questions on mobile devices.

Two decades ago, most student response systems were simple clickers— devices that could record and display answers to multiple-choice or yes-no questions, and little else. But now, many systems let students enter free-form responses to questions. Teachers can see those responses as they are entered, and can provide immediate feedback.

Immediate, personalized input, especially following an assessment, can provide the equivalent to eight months of extra learning for students in the school year, according to a 2014 study from the Educational Endowment Foundation.

Student response systems generally come in two forms: device-based, where students use clickers to enter their answers; and app-based, where students record responses on their phones or school-issued tablets or laptops.

But other considerations include the method by which teachers prepare their questions and view responses, and whether the response system links to existing curricular content and a district’s LMS or assessment database. We describe them here.

Clicker-based systems

The latest clickers produce live results for teachers as students respond to questions, without requiring students to use other devices such as laptops and phones.

Specifically, the West New York School District in New Jersey uses Promethean’s Activote, a small, egg-shaped device that has six choices labeled A to F that can be used for various question types, such as true/false, multiple-choice or polling the classroom.

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