Let’s consider how we can keep every student in the class actively engaged throughout an entire lesson.

Let’s consider that you are teaching a lesson that is 30 minutes in duration. If you have 20 students in your class and use the hand-raising, single student response approach, then each kid will interact with the lesson approximately 1.5 times during the lesson. (This accounts for some students getting 2 turns, while some get 1 turn.)

If a teacher uses whole class responses, then each student may have as many as 22 opportunities to interact during that 30-minute lesson.  The figure below shows the implications for a 180-day school year.

• Students who are asked to regularly respond are less likely to get bored and check out during a lesson.
• All students get multiple opportunities to interact with content and respond.
• Students are not singled out or put on the spot.
• Whole-class responses are a great means of formative assessment, which allows teachers to assess their own instruction.
• Behaviors will decrease!  Students who are actively engaged are less likely to display disruptive behaviors.

Pinch card responses can be done quickly with the entire class in both face-to-face and virtual (synchronous) settings. All students must have identical cards. On the teacher’s signal, students respond by holding up their cards by pinching their response. For example, a student would hold up a multiple choice response card by pinching the ‘C’ if that were her answer.

I love using individual whiteboards. Students indicate a response on their boards and then hold them up. This can easily be accomplished in synchronous virtual environments as long as students have cameras enabled on their devices. You can buy high-quality individual whiteboards for anywhere between $2- $10 each. For the thrifty and crafty teachers out there, check out my blog post that shares 7 teacher hacks to acquire very inexpensive white boards.

For those of you who are teaching virtually, many platforms have “white board” options where students can doodle, write, type, or place Emoji-style stamps on the screen. More activities related to virtual white boards are coming soon. For now, consider this post explaining how students can use annotation tools on virtual platforms to play Would You Rather?.

The Active Learning Revolution equips you with:

• Over two dozen verbal, gestural, whiteboard, and pinch card OTRs
• Full color file so you can print 6 unique pinch cards for your class
• additional instructional strategies for movement-based learning, problem-solving lessons, and collaborative structures.