Live answers during the lesson

Use it to see how the class is thinking before you move on: which idea most students share, which misconception keeps coming back, how far apart their measurements are. It works for any question in a live presentation. Open questions show the class’s own words; choice and number questions show how the answers are spread.

1. Present the lesson and start the presentation.

2. On the question, click Results. The window lists every answer submitted so far, and new ones appear the moment students submit them.

3. Switch between views with the icons above the answers.

• Text answers: a list, cards and a word cloud. Words given more often are drawn larger.

• Choice answers: a list, a chart of how many chose each option, and an analytics view.

• Number answers: a list, cards and an analytics view, where you choose Mean, Median or Std dev and show the answers as a Histogram or Individual dots.

Names are hidden at first. Show names reveals who gave which answer; Hide names hides them again.

Students answer on their own devices as usual and do not see the Results window. To show the class the same view, turn on Share results. A banner tells you that results are being shared with students; turn the switch off to stop.

The answers stay with the presentation. Open it later from Presentations to go through them at your own pace: its session summary leads to Results and to Grading.

• Ask questions with a short answer, such as one word or one number. The word cloud and the analytics view are most useful when answers can be compared.

• Answers are compared word for word, so “Sun” and “sunlight” count as different answers. Read the list as well as the cloud.

• Keep names hidden while the results are on the board, so students answer for themselves rather than for the audience.

• A wide spread of measurements is a good starting point for talking about measurement error.