Improvised in-class poll with zero prep time
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Course area: |
Chinese language |
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Level: |
CEFR A2 |
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Technology used: |
Improvise Function in JazzQuiz on Moodle (LMO) |
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Target skill(s): |
Listening, Reading, Writing |
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Activity length: |
5 minutes |
Contributed by Yao Wu, MLC SoL
| In-class polls are useful for gauging the immediate understanding and response of each student. A number of platforms are available for this purpose; however, they often require teachers to pre-set the questions which can be labor-intensive. “JazzQuiz’’ lets the teacher run a preplanned quiz, but with the power of improvisation. Several improvised questions are included, which allows you to quickly ask a multiple-choice or short-answer question during the quiz. You can also start a vote on the students' responses. After the session, you can review the responses for each question (even repolls). You can also download reports for attendance or responses in the CSV. Plugin link here. |
Aims:
To evaluate the understanding of each student in-class using improvised questions for reviewing, polling, warming up etc.
Set-ups:
Select JazzQuiz via adding an activity on the LMO page. The same one activity can be used unlimited times throughout the semester. Teachers only need to give each session a different name when launching, and then select 'improvise'.
Procedure:
For reviewing grammar:
When teaching a new grammar structure, such as “把”, teachers often provide various examples and call on a few students to apply its usage. However, it’s hard to gauge the understanding of every student in class. In addition, it’s difficult for teachers to predict all possible errors from students.
With improvising, teachers can perform several actions in class, and ask students to submit sentences describing these actions using the new grammar. As a result, teachers can have an overall view of students’ comprehension and provide customized follow-up feedback.
For typical errors, teachers can also use the voting feature which highlights two responses among all sentences received. This provides a focused analysis on students' self-constructed responses, which is both engaging and effective.
Alternatives:
For pre-prepared in-class quizzes, Kahoot or Poll Everywhere are more attractive with their design of energetic music and bright colors design.
Additional information:
In addition to a quick 5-min activity during the seminar, improvised JazzQuizzes can also be used to conduct longer in-class quizzes based on printed resources, such as textbook exercises or exam papers from past semesters. Students can submit their answers via cell phone while referring to the printed materials. Teachers can make sure all students submit their answers, and provide instant feedback without the heavy workload of digitalizing quizzes. (In-class quizzes are not to be confused with out-of-class exercises, for which effort is necessary for digitalizing materials with automated feedback.)