New Technology to Boost Engagement and Improve Assessment!

"My competitive students love to play games. When I am able to turn my teaching or assessments into game form, my students are highly engaged, they laugh out loud, they enjoy the process of learning. I teach English to 120 Juniors and Seniors at an urban high school in California. Most of my stude..." more»

"My competitive students love to play games. When I am able to turn my teaching or assessments into game form, my students are highly engaged, they laugh out loud, they enjoy the process of learning. I teach English to 120 Juniors and Seniors at an urban high school in California. Most of my students are far behind grade level when they come to my class in September. Because they read and write at elementary levels, 11th and 12th grade English can be a big frustration for them.

I am continually challenged to find ways to turn the curriculum and assessments into games and competitions to engage my students and spark the excitement and joy that accelerates learning.

Recently I visited a nearby (although much more affluent) school in which the teacher was using an amazing new technology that I believe will make a huge difference in my classroom. It's called a SENTEO Interactive Response System. Basically, every student uses a handheld device to respond to questions that are projected up on the screen. This system is awesome for a number of reasons: a) each student has to respond individually and can't peek at anyone else's answers; b) the whole class can immediately look at a graph of the whole classes responses; c) because each student enters a unique pin number, after class I can look and see how each student answered each question - it's all already graded; d) finally, and perhaps most importantly, it feels like a game to the students. It makes the learning fun. I plan to use the SENTEO throughout class - at the beginning of class as a review of what we did previously, to check for understanding in the middle of class and to record where each student is at the end of the period. It's also a really helpful way for students to respond anonymously to questions like, "How much more practice do you think you need to master this skill?"

Having new technology in the class like this will support my students' learning by letting me assess quickly and accurately without spending time outside of class that I could be devoting to one-on-one student tutoring; will keep my students highly engaged and excited about learning; and will help me swiftly provide more instruction at precisely the points where my students most need it. To help close the achievement gap, we need to begin to give the best resources to the students who need them most! hide»