'Tis the season for midterms! Students have just come out of a long week of midterms. I saw students have to do review sheet after review sheet. In our own classes, there were even two parts to each review. Students groaned every time they saw these reviews, and were unmotivated to actually complete the reviews, even though it's for their own benefit. The exams took place in the middle of a unit we had already started. After the exams were over, I need to design yet another review activity for the unit we were in the midst of covering. Needless to say, I didn't want to bore the students with yet another review sheet, so I racked my brains for an interesting activity that will help students review the material, and that they will actually enjoy doing. That's where Socrative comes in!
Socrative has a Space Race feature that allows a teacher to turn an online assessment into a fun, competitive race. I can design an online assessment that includes all the review questions I want the students to answer. There are several reasons why I think Socrative is a perfect fit for this occasion. The idea of doing an online activity that students can access both from their phones or from school computers makes it logistically easier than other technological routes. In addition, each team of students will have a different colored spaceship, with all the teams' progress being projected at the front of the class. The competitive aspect will hopefully increase students' motivation to actually do the activity. At the same time, the progress is represented only by color, so by giving each group their color quietly, each teams' progress become anonymous. Another feature is that as a teacher, I can program Socrative to give students immediate feedback of whether the question was answered correctly or not, and give them an explanation. This allows teams to pace themselves in the activity, and gives them the option of reading the explanation, which would help them with upcoming questions. This type of activity maintains a safe learning environment, that is differentiated according to students' skill level.
Some limitations include the fact that I will have to adjust my questions to fit the format that Socrative uses. I can only ask multiple choice, true/false and short answer questions. The students must also be motivated enough to actually read the question instead of just answering randomly, an to read the explanations if they are to be beneficial to them. However, I believe these are small issues compared to the number of potential benefits that Socratve offers. It provides an opportunity for students to review material in a fun, interesting way that encourages self-assessment of their skill level with respect to their peers, while being in a safe learning environment. The teacher can access students' answers to get insight into students' understanding, and identify if there is a specific concept that the class is struggling with, or if a particular group of students is struggling with a concept. All in all, I believe that running a review activity using Space Race on Socrative will be a change of pace for the students that they will appreciate, while still providing the necessary academic benefits.
