Plickers!

While assessing students and checking for their understanding of a topic is essential in the academic world, it is also important not to make that something that students come to hate. Many times, students hear the word “test” and automatically begin to panic. They start worrying how much time they will have to study, how much information they will have to try and memorize, and how much information there is that they thought they knew, but actually don’t. With Plickers, the instant anxiety of test taking goes away because here, taking a “test” isn’t really taking a test.

Plickers is an extremely simple tool that allows teachers to collect a real-time formative assessment from their students, without the hassle, and without the anxiety. With Plickers, a question is displayed on the screen, and students answer individually buy turning their individual card in the direction of the answer that they believe is correct. The teacher then walks around the room with their phone, iPad, etc. scanning and automatically recording everyone’s individual answers. By doing so, no one will know who got an answer wrong or right, except for the teacher, allowing students to feel comfortable answering questions, even if they are not completely sure of the correct answer.

The use of Plickers is great for student of all ages, is easy, and free to use!