Hand Signals
Description
By using hand signals you are asking your students to indicate the level of understanding with the help of their fingers.
How it works
Hand signals can be used in different ways:
- High five
Ask your students to show to what extent they understand a certain part of the lesson by raising their fingers. Use a scale of one to five here (5 = I understand it and I can explain it; 4 = I understand it but I cannot explain it: 3 = I am beginning to understand but I would like to make more exercises; 2 = I am beginning to understand but I need further explanation; 1 = I have lost track).
- Thumbs up/thumbs down:
Students indicate their knowledge of certain concepts by using their thumb. Thumbs up = I know much about this; thumbs down = I know little about this; Thumb to the side = I know a bit about this.
Tips
- To create sufficient safety, you could initially ask your students to give their hand signal at their chest. This way students can see less clear which students did or did not understand the subject matter.
- As the teacher, observe well which students show doubt when they give their hand signals. Perhaps ask the question individually why students changed their minds.
- In order to determine to what extent students estimated themselves correctly, you can ask a student that indicated to understand a concept well to explain that concept one more time to the entire group. Alternatively, you could ask this question to a student who had difficulty with this concept.
- Take notes afterwards of which students indicated to be able to do an exercise well or less well.
Survey
Description
By using a survey you are collecting information from all of your students in a short time. This can be done on paper or by using digital software. In both cases, responses from all students are gathered in the Blackboard learning environment to get a better understanding of their answers.
How it works
Ask a question to the class: this can be a short question that requires thinking as well as a more complex question in which students need to do something themselves (read, look something up, translate, …) to be able to answer.
- On paper: each student writes their answer on a post-it note and sticks this in the Blackboard learning environment in the appropriate position. The way of grouping is up to you: word cloud, mind map, columns, …
- Digitally: each student gives their answer through a link you show in the Blackboard learning environment. The student then needs a smartphone, laptop or tablet with internet access. The way of projecting differs in different tools. Sometimes answer will be grouped with each other, other times all answer will be seen as correct and will all be shown accordingly.
Tips
- Many digital tools have a free version. In most cases it is in no way an added value to purchase the paid version.
- Often it is meaningful and fun to let students take these surveys as small groups, though in order to get valuable insight in the learning or thinking process of your students, a survey is best taken individually.
Examples
Signal Cards
Description
A signal card can be used by students to indicate to the teacher (or to a fellow student) what they think of something. This can be a sign of agreement or disapproval or a signal about how something was experienced. The signal card contains numbers or characters (emojis) that represent a certain experience. Signal cards are also used in online learning environments (example from Blackboard Collaborate below).
How it works
- Ask the class a question to find out how your students experienced something. It is not about the learning gain that was achieved, but more about the experience of students.
- Students indicate their experience by selecting or pointing at the correct signal card:
Signal card numbers: ① ② ③ ④ ⑤
Signal card emojis: 😊 😐 ☹️
Tips
Take a photo of the class holding the signal cards. Use the photo when preparing your next lesson, for example to group students.
Instead of using signal cards with numbers, students can raise their hands and show their appreciation holding up a number of fingers.
You can replace signal cards with emojis with the “Facebook thumb” (like / like a bit / dislike) or you can make like / dislike signs.
Examples
After a lesson that involved corner work, the teacher wants to know how students experienced this. The signal card that the students have contains three smileys (smiling, neutral, sad).
The teacher asks the class three questions:
(1) How did you like the collaboration in your group?
(2) What did you think of the difficulty of the assignment?
(3) Are you satisfied with the result of your assignment?
This information will help the teacher to plan the next lesson. For example, if it turns out that some students are not at all satisfied with their results, the teacher can address the group in question personally and make time in the next lesson to discuss the assignment.
Question and Answer
Description
Question and answer is a technique where the teacher asks a question and the students answer together.
How it works
There are different ways to use this technique:
- Reporting back: after doing exercises autonomously, the students give their answer out loud together.
- Repeating learning content: students have to think back on answers or information that has been given earlier during the lesson.
- Problem-solving: give an exercise for the whole group and ask students to answer together immediately.
Tips
- To be effective, you have to be sure that all students answer at the same time. Agree on a specific word (e.g. "class", "everyone", "one, two...") or sign (e.g. when the teacher raises their hand) to indicate when they have to answer.
- Beware: this method contains a few risks. There will be students who will try to hide, who will give an incorrect answer without you noticing. You have to stay alert all the time.
- Make sure that you apply this technique to questions you can be certain about that everybody knows the answer. When all students answer the question correctly, they will be stimulated. When students answer differently, there will be confusion.
- Ask your students to write down the questions that they could not answer in their portfolio.
Examples
- Reporting back:
- 'Give me the answer of exercise one, on three: one, two...'
- 'When I raise my hand, you all say together at the same time the first main point of the news item that you have heard.'
- Repeating learning content:
- Teacher: 'We've just discussed it, how do you say "kruispunt" in English?' - Students: 'crossroads'.
- Problem-solving:
- 'As a group give the answer to the following exercise: "Nous (aller) ... à la mer si nous avions pu profiter d'une promotion."'
- 'Vous allez écouter une conversation téléphonique entre Danielle et Louis. Après la première écoute, dites en groupe qui téléphone à qui.'
Portable whiteboards
Description
A portable whiteboard is a plastic-coated piece of paper on which students can write down their answer to a question with a marker. Afterwards, this can be erased.
How it works
- Ask a question to the class: this can be a short question that requires thinking as well as a more complex question in which students need to do something themselves (read, look something up, translate, …) to be able to answer.
- Each student writes down their individual answer on the whiteboard.
- In a next phase, you build on these answer that were given. This can be done by:
- Making students compare their answers with each other (in pair, groups of three or four).
- Showing or explaining a model answer and making students compare their answer with this one.
- Asking explicitly why a student chose for a particular answer. This way you gain a better view on the thought process of your students.
Tips
- Make a plastic-coated version of a piece of paper with a red and green side as a whiteboard. This way, students can indicate whether they gave a right or wrong answer on the question by raising either the red or green side after correcting.
- In the case of shorter exercises, you can ask students to raise their answer to see who gave a right or wrong answer.
- Prepare enough whiteboard markers and cleaning cloths to make sure students can erase their answer fluently without staining clothing.
- Combine making whiteboards with other tasks or tools that need to be plastic-coated to save time. For example, a signalling card (right: green/wrong: red) can be a portable whiteboard at the same time.
Examples
- The French teacher taught on the ‘accord du participe passé’ Afterwards, they project five exercises. Students solve these and write down their answers on a whiteboard. Afterwards, they compare their answers with each other and discuss about what was wrong. Finally, the teacher projects the correct answers. Students that have less than four correct answers will receive an explanation of the (basic) theory once more. The remaining students will receive more difficult exercises now.
Alternative: the exercises are shown one by one, students write down, exchange and erase their answers for each exercise.
- The English teacher would like to check how much the students know of a proper text structure. The teacher gives a pair of students a text that has been cut into different numbered pieces on a subject of their choosing.
- Through discussion the students need to organise the pieces of text in the correct order. After a few minutes the results are discussed in class. The students have a whiteboard per pair. When the teacher asks: “What is the first paragraph of the text?” students write down the correct number and raise the whiteboard. This process is repeated until all paragraphs of the text have been covered.