Polling is a great tool for your voice to be heard in your community. How we think and feel about a topic is important and your opinion matters. As a professor, the students in your classroom are like a community. With the right insight and feedback, you can better serve and guide your students throughout their educational journey. Here are three reasons why you should be using Zoom’s polling feature in your classroom today.
1. Fostering Engagement
Distractions, lack of motivation, and disinterest are a detriment to the learning environment. To overcome this, engagement in the virtual world is imperative. Engagement shows you that students are passionate and interested in the information that you, the facilitator, are conveying. It may be harder to pick up on nonverbal cues virtually or some students may be apprehensive in speaking up during class. Implementing polls as a means to engage your community will bring those students who normally sit in the back row to the forefront.
An example of a fun poll to create is the blank multiple choice poll. Click on the image below to listen as our Lead Faculty Training Specialist, James Koons explains how to use the blank multiple choice poll to engage your students.
Image by James Koons, (To Poll or Not to Poll: That is the Question) Blank MC Poll
2. Building Community
In a virtual learning environment, a facilitator has to put more work into connecting with the individuals in their community. A great way to form that connection is to create a space for open dialogue. Polling the students on information they learned on a particular topic can be used to set the tone for your discussion. A wonderful aspect of Zoom’s polling feature is the anonymous polling option that can be turned on. This allows students to feel comfortable in participating and not feel singled out for their answer. After showing the results of the poll, your next action would be to open the floor for a discussion based on the responses to that poll.
3. Checking the Pulse
As a professor, one of your goals is to ensure you deliver life-changing outcomes to your students and set them up for success. But in this virtual world, how do you know you are achieving this goal? Polling helps you get a pulse check on whether your students are comprehending the material and also allows you to gauge which students may have some struggles with the content. Launching a poll at the beginning or midway through your live class will help pinpoint areas that you may need to expound on during the session. Although the polling feature greatly benefits the students in your community, having this on-demand feedback tool will help you facilitate your lessons in a more impactful way.
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