Socrative, by Chris Little

‘Clickerless Clickers’
Socrative is a student response system, much like TurningPoint. However, Socrative’s main USP is that no institutionally-bought devices or accounts are required to use it. Students respond to questions using their mobile devices. They simply need an internet browser to access.

For staff, a ‘teacher’ account is completely free with an educational email address. The software is web-based (found at www.socrative.com) and intuitive to use. A brief summary of its features from a teacher/lecturer/facilitator perspective is:

• You create your own room. Students simply go to www.socrative.com and log into your room. Mine, for example, is imaginatively called ChrisRoom. This log-in process means that facilitating learners to use this software is quicker and simpler than the TurningPoint clicker devices, particularly for large groups.
• You can create polling quizzes containing multiple choice, true/false and short answer/open text responses to questions. Creating these quizzes is incredibly simply and you can drag and drop questions into different orders. Quizzes can also be student or teacher paced.
• You can pre-enter automated responses to questions to elaborate on the question after students have answered.
• Additionally you can create quick polling questions whilst teaching. You could write the question on the board then simply choose a true or false question on Socrative and see the polling results on the screen. This could allow you to change your teaching strategy mid class.
• Socrative also allows you to share these quizzes with colleagues via a share code that they simply enter in their Socrative ‘dashboard’ and it copies the quiz directly across.
• You can download your quizzes as polished, slick-looking pdf copies for students to use the paper-format.
• Quizzes can be created so that learners remain anonymous or have to enter their name first.
• Socrative will produce an Excel, or Google Doc, spreadsheet containing the data from the session which would open it up to many possible uses- gathering data for research, module evaluations, etc.

For students, Socrative is easy to use and offers an attractive user interface. When quizzes are teacher-paced, you control when students have the questions sent to their phones. The following screenshots show the Socrative interface for learners whilst waiting for a question and when responding:

The above screenshots show what the student sees when they are waiting for you to ’send’ a question, and when it appears. The interface is simple and easy to interact with for both staff and students and has been well received.

The following video sums up how to use Socrative fairly succinctly:

Why use it?

Student response systems (SRS), such as Socrative or TurningPoint Clickers, have been found to be useful, and offer significant opportunities to demonstrate understanding, provide immediate feedback for both learners and lecturers and have been seen to be positively associated with exam scores (Trees & Jackson, 2007). Heaslip et al (2014) also found that students became more engaged when clickers were used in lectures than when they were not present. Additionally, they found that students appreciated how ‘fun’ using clickers can be, and the anonymity they can afford.

However, these effects have not been without confounding variables. The implementation of SRS has been found to be indicative of wider attempts to engage students in formative questioning in weekly activities, as well as taught sessions (Poirier & Feldman, 2007). Additionally, Morling et al (2008) found that the impact of clickers could be confounded by the presentation of questions. For Morling et al, the presentation of questions is what spurs further learning and highlights gaps in knowledge to learners, not necessarily the use of clickers. Anthis (2011) study suggests that, in fact there is no statistical link between clicker use and exam scores, and further pedagogical investigation is required in order to understand the true impact of clickers.

For many lecturers, clickers et al provide a platform for immediate feedback, recapping learning and providing an insight into how your teaching is ‘going’. For us at least, Socrative has provided a platform to engage lots of users in a quick and effective way. Even with the patchiest of wi-fi connections (particularly in CBC rooms) Socrative still worked. Additionally, we have seen students seem a little ‘bored’ by TurningPoint and this does the same thing but in a fresher way.

TurningPoint is great and definitely still has uses. It’s integration with PowerPoint is particularly useful. However, colleagues have reported problems with TurningPoint interacting in difficult ways with their remote presenter devices, not installing correctly on machines and other problems. Additionally, both the Student Learning team and colleagues who have tried Socrative, have found that the fact it does not integrate with PowerPoint is actually a positive. For me it stops me relying on my slides and can often lead to students feeling they are driving the direction of the class. Colleagues have found the same: that not relying on PowerPoint slides frees them up to respond to the class more and almost form a user-led free-form class. This is obviously not applicable to every class, all of the time, but a nice option to have.

How we use it?

Example teaching strategies we have used it in are:

• Recap quiz - In order to ascertain understanding of lectured material in a session for the Management School we have deployed Socrative as a means of testing how much material students remember at the end of the session. Additionally we have used it in in Criminology sessions as a way of recapping referencing systems in the run up to an assignment, this allowed us to flush out issues that Level 4 students had with referencing before the assignment. 

• Self-Audit Free-Form Class - In order to facilitate a self-audit activity, we have used Socrative to not only direct a free for, class responding to the feedback of the group, but this also allowed us to highlight the existing knowledge, or lack thereof, about our central services. 

Student feedback, specifically around the Socrative parts of our sessions have been positive. As with clickers, students have found the interactivity and possible anonymity to be positive:

• ‘It made me realise others were struggling too’ Y1 Social Work student 
• ‘Learning that there is additional help available via socrative’ Y1 MAN10018 student 
• ‘Very interactive and fun’ Y1 MAN10018 student 

It is not, however, bulletproof and dependant on the university's wi-fi strength, which is not always foolproof, as indicated by student comments indicating what would improve the sessions including Socrative:

• 'A stronger internet connection’ Y1 Social Work student 
• ‘Phone would not work in socrative section’ Y1 Criminology student 

Despite the above, for us it has been hugely successful in highlighting how well our central services have been promoted and advertised, as well as flushing out transitional issues and opportunities for support. Using it as a ‘taking stock’ self-audit strategy has been extremely effective. Given its capacity to produce a report there could be potential in completing module/ teaching evaluations through it. Additionally, while the website advises that Socrative is designed for 50 students, we have had significant success with groups up to 100.

Socrative continually works as a way of engaging groups of varying sizes as well as encouraging me to ditch the PowerPoint slides from time to time, forcing me to think on my feet and respond to each individual group in front of me. If you are interested in learning more, please feel free to get in touch. Additionally, Dervan (2014) offers a comprehensive review of use of Socrative as well as a thorough walk-through of the features of Socrative: well worth a read.

References

Anthis, K. (2011). “Is it the clicker, or is it the question? Untangling the effects of students response system use”. Teaching of Psychology. 38 (3): 189-193.

Dervan, P. (2014) "Increasing in-class student engagement using Socrative (an online Student Response System)." AISHE-J: The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. 6 (3).

Heaslip, G., Donovan, P. & Cullen, J. G. (2014) “Student response systems and learner engagement in large classes”. Active Learning in Higher Education. 15 (1): 11-24.

Morling, B. McAuliffe, M., Cohne, L. & Di Lorenzo, T. M. (2008) “Efficacy of personal response systems (“Clickers”) in large, introductory psychology classes”. Teaching of Psychology. 35 (1): 45-50.

Poirer, C. R. & Feldmann, R. S. (2007) “Promoting active learning using individual response technology in large introductory psychology classes”. Teaching of Psychology. 34 (3): 194-196.

Socrative. (2014). About Socrative. [Online]. [Accessed 5th February 20115]. Available from: http://www.socrative.com/about.php

Trees, A. R. & Jackson, M. H. (2007). “The learning environment in clicker classrooms: Student processes of learning and involvement in large university-level courses using student-response systems”. Learning, Media & Technology. 32 (1): 21-40.


Socrative by Chris Little, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2007/08 #KATS2015

Project Title: Chemistry for Environmental Sciences: Context-based Learning
Project Leader(s): Mark Ormerod, Zoe Robinson and Dave McGarvey

Chemistry for Environmental Sciences - Presentation Slides

Chemistry for Environmental Sciences: Context-based Learning by Mark Ormerod, Zoe Robinson and Dave McGarvey, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Peer E-Mentoring
Project Leader(s): Claire Fox

The main objective of the scheme is to provide all first year students with informal support and advice from a more experienced second year student. Hopefully, this will help with the transition to university life, with benefits in terms of improved student retention. It gives first year students someone else to turn to for advice and support; it may be that students find it easier to raise concerns and / or seek help from a fellow student, rather than a member of staff. It also provides students with training on and experience of mentoring. They can use their university experience to benefit others, promoting a sense of ‘giving something back’. The mentoring does not take up too much of their time, but is a useful addition to their CVs. The mentors are awarded with a certificate of participation at the end of the year. Additional benefits for mentors include: the development of key transferable skills and opportunities to meet other like minded students.

Peer E-Mentoring - Final Report

Peer E-Mentoring by Claire Fox, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2007/08 #KATS2015

Project Title: Effective Communication for SPIRE Students
Project Leader(s): Sherilyn MacGregor

Project Aims:

• Initiate conversations with colleagues about how we support and encourage effective communication in students’ work. 
• Produce a set of common resources on basic writing, referencing and study skills for use by teaching staff in SPIRE. 
• Inspire, enable and boost confidence of students; make effective communication an attainable goal.

Effective Communication for SPIRE Students - Presentation Slides

Effective Communication for SPIRE Students by Sherilyn MacGregor, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Project Zero
Project Leader(s): Diego Garro

An introduction to project work at University level

Project Zero - Presentation Slides

Project Zero by Diego Garro, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2004/05 #KATS2015

Project Title: Web Based Assessment and Support
Project Leader(s): Doug Quinney

Web Based Assessment and Support - Presentation Slides

Web Based Assessment and Support by Douglas Quinney, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Developing Interprofessional Reusable Learning Objects
Project Leader(s): Cath Bucher

The purpose of the project will be to host a workshop for staff from a range of professional groupings in the Faculty of Health to give them experience of developing content for standalone web based reusable learning objects (RLOs). These RLOs can then be used by a variety of disciplines in their teaching with the possibility of some RLOs being generic to other disciplines outside of the Faculty of Health.

Developing Interprofessional Reusable Learning Objects by Cath Bucher, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Formative vs Summative Assessment of Skills-based Group Projects
Project Leader(s): Anthony Curtis

The aim of this project is to evaluate and develop the assessment of an existing skills-based group project in terms of its timing and effectiveness in supporting such tasks, and to produce a model that can be applied throughout science and healthcare education.

The objectives of this project are:

• Evaluate the skills-based group task within the context of existing Keele degree programmes with a view to applying it in more flexible, creative learning environments
• Identify areas for improvement in relation to feedback, particularly the balance and timing of formative vs. summative assessment and the use of feed-forward
• Assess the impact of expansion of the project to include different cohorts of students from various discipline backgrounds with respect to the type, appropriateness and level of feedback given
• Disseminate the results of the project to the Keele academic community via the Keele Learning & Teaching Committee and active engagement with the Higher Education Academy and the FDTL4 FAST (Formative Assessment in Science Teaching) network

The proposal will further the University’s Learning & Teaching Strategy primarily, though not exclusively, through the development of student engagement with the principle aspects contained within the Employability Skills guidelines. It will also encourage the development of key, transferable skills, the implementation of basic inter-professional/inter-disciplinary learning, and develop a methodology that will encourage innovative, multidisciplinary teaching. Students will clearly benefit from this project, as is reflected in their engagement with other group-based work and the increased interest in industrial placements within the current Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry cohorts.

One key aspect of the proposed work is that it will provide valuable, innovative course materials and a model that will be deployed in the proposed Pharmacy programme.

Formative vs Summative Assessment of Skills-based Group Projects by Anthony Curtis, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2004/05 #KATS2015

Project Title: Development of a Digital Video Technique within a Student-led E-Learning System
Project Leader(s): Nigel Mountney and Stuart Egan

This project aims to develop a learning and teaching system that employs the medium of digital video in order to demonstrate the behaviour of various natural physical processes that have hitherto been difficult to describe and explain using more traditional teaching methods. At the heart of the proposed learning facility will be a database of video clips that will provide students with a dynamic, exciting and innovative learning experience. These will be integrated within an interactive, student-driven learning environment through the development of a dedicated, web-based front-end interface, interactive aspects of which will be further developed using the Java Applets – a programming tool used for the development of dynamic html systems. These resources will be presented as a series of e-learning practical exercises designed to develop independent learning skills in students, especially those operating in large teaching group settings.

A fundamental objective of this project will be to shoot, collate and edit a series of video clips that portray earth science and geographical phenomena and to integrate them with a variety of other digital media types including photos, animations and computer model simulations in order to produce a dynamic and innovative set of graphical learning resources. Implicit in this process will be the distillation of ‘raw’ data into a refined and integrated end-product designed specifically to help understand complex dynamic processes and to help students solve 3D problems that are common in branches of earth sciences such as stratigraphy. The video footage and related resources will be delivered as a series of practical-based exercises. Resource delivery will be undertaken by academic staff in lectures or in practical classes, or may be initiated by students via download from an intranet (Fig. 1), Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or through use of menu-driven interactive DVD video disks (Fig. 2). A further objective of this project will be to encourage students to make use of digital video recording equipment within a series of physical experiments conducted during practical laboratory classes in order to record results that would otherwise not be discernable from standard observations.

The past three years have seen a revolution in semi-professional digital video editing, mainly because digital video cameras have become affordable and desktop PC’s have become sufficiently powerful to be able to capture and edit digital video footage at near broadcast quality. Only now are the capabilities of this exciting new medium starting to be employed within taught courses to enhance the student learning experience. The power of digital video lies in the ability to precisely edit footage and mix video with still images, captions, audio overdubs, computer simulations and virtually any other type of digital media. This allows difficult concepts to be explained and illustrated in a manner that has hitherto not been possible.

Development of a Digital Video Technique - Final Report

Development of a Digital Video Technique within a Student-led E-Learning System by Nigel Mountney and Stuart Egan, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Clinical Case-based Simulator
Project Leader(s): Colin Melville and Douglas Quinney

The aim of this proposal is to promote clinical by ensuring adequate coverage of core material. The limited duration and opportunistic nature of current practice makes this challenging. This proposal outlines the development of core clinical cases to assist the learner to develop clear archetypes of typical cases which will be delivered through IT using existing software, though the platform may need modifications to deliver some of the materials suggested below.

Software has already been developed to allow mathematicians to generate vast numbers of mathematical problems for learners to practice on. From what is known about brain function at the level of cognitive neuroscience, in particular the structure of the brain as a massively parallel-processing neural network, it is essential that learners are exposed to multiple examples to develop these clear archetypes. This software also gives specific, instantaneous feedback and explanations to students.

To our knowledge such software has not been used extensively in the medical field. Our proposal is therefore to generate randomly variation in cases within plausible limits, so that learners are presented with a case spectrum similar to that seen in clinical practice.

The importance of formative assessment is clear from many publications. It influences student motivation, identifies a starting place for instruction, clarifies learning goals, influences students learning strategies and skills, their ability to retain and apply learning and their self-perception concerning self-efficacy, and describes student achievements.

Assessment enhances learning if it encourages intrinsic motivation, builds confidence, gives a sense of ownership and control, provides detailed feedback, enhances strategic awareness, and encourages collaboration between students. Of particular importance is feedback, which should be specific, rapid and communicate clear and high expectations of students.

Our hypothesis is that provision of such a facility for students should result in a rapid measurable improvement in diagnostic skills for specific knowledge domains. The effectiveness of the resource will be evaluated carefully in a pilot group of students. This strategy may well be of interest to others at Keele who wish to integrate IT into their own teaching and learning programmes as the university moves towards a VLE.

Clinical Case-based Simulator - Presentation Slides

Clinical Case-based Simulator by Colin Melville and Douglas Quinney, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Using Google forms and docs to improve engagement and feedback, by Mark Davys

The approach taken
The Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) is designed to enable graduates with non-law degrees complete the academic stage of professional qualification and to be able to progress to the vocational stage of training to be a solicitor or barrister in England and Wales. At Keele, GDL students take some modules alongside undergraduates who have already been studying law for one or two years, so the pre-semester 1 English Legal Systems and Legal Method (ELSLM) module introduces GDL students to the law and gives them an opportunity to begin to practise some of the legal skills that they will need to successfully complete the programme.

Various skills and tools for legal research are introduced during the ELSLM module. Until 2014-15, the module also included a ‘Skills Exercise’ introduced and completed in a single day. Students were given a series of tasks to complete before returning to class for a plenary session. Whilst reflecting on this format, the teaching team identified a number of weaknesses, including: (1) some students finished quickly, and were left waiting for the plenary session to start, whilst other students would have benefited from having more time to complete the exercise; and (2) feedback in the plenary session tended to be general, rather than specific (whilst students could usefully reflect on their experience afterwards, there was not time to check individual work and give specific feedback within the day allocated for the exercise).

It was decided, therefore: (1) to issue the Skills Exercise in the form of a Google Document on the KLE at the beginning of week 2 of the 4 week teaching programme; and (2) to require students to complete a Study Skills Assessment at their convenience on Thursday or Friday of week 3 of the programme.

The Assessment was prepared using Google Forms and released by posting a link on the KLE. Some questions were multiple choice; others required text of varying length. Some questions asked students to repeat the information they had discovered as part of the Exercise; others required them to analyse or process this information to reach an answer.

After the assessment was completed, each student was sent an electronic copy of a document containing their answers, suggested answers and some general feedback. Reflection on this feedback formed part of a later teaching session.

The advantages
(1) Students were able to spend as long as they needed on the exercise, where they wished. It was, therefore, closer to what they would experience when undertaking research as part of a substantive module or after their GDL.

(2) Students were required to reflect on the information they had gathered and consider how to use it, rather than just record it.

(3) The use of Google Forms enabled individual student responses to be conveniently recorded, read and accessed by staff and the individual students themselves.

(4) Presenting the students with their answers alongside suggested answers and general feedback enabled informed reflection by students and staff before the feedback session.

The disadvantages
Neither Google Forms nor Google Sheets (used to automatically compile the answers) support discrete use of italics. Italics are used in a specific way when citing case names, so this meant that it was not possible to conveniently model or test this aspect of referencing.

Key recommendations
The information gathered by the Google Forms that students submit is compiled into designated Google (spread-) Sheet. With very small cohorts the information could simply be cut and pasted from the Sheet to provide individual feedback to individual students. In most cases, however, it will be better to use some sort of automatic ‘mail-merge’ into a standard template. This requires a Google Add-on, such as ‘autoCrat’. When using autoCrat, a little care needs to be taken to ensure that the names of the merge fields are sufficiently short and discrete (the full text of the questions tends to be too long for this purpose), but otherwise it is relatively easy to set up and deploy.


Using Google forms and docs to improve engagement and feedback by Mark Davys, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2003/04 #KATS2015

Project Title: Validating the Methods of Assessment used During the Dissertation Phase of Postgraduate Management Courses in CHPM
Project Leader(s): Jean Robson and Sarah Derret

Project Aim:

• To evaluate the quality of student (independent) learning in CHPM
• to improve guidance for supervisors of MBA students
• To develop reliable & acceptable dissertation marking schemes

Purpose:

• Improve the fit between output and purpose for the dissertation component in all seven CHPM master’s programmes.

Validating the Methods of Assessment - Final Report

Validating the Methods of Assessment used During the Dissertation Phase of Postgraduate Management Courses in CHPM by Jean Robson and Sarah Derret, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: Meeting the Needs of New Groups to HE - A Staff Development Package
Project Leader(s): Sarah Hatfield and Peter Haycock

A staff-training package will be developed to provide comprehensive information about the issues affecting WP students. This will be designed to be applicable specifically to all academic and support staff involved with the academic training or pastoral support of this student group, enabling them to take an informed approach. The relevant departments should then be able to give WP students a more positive learning experience and reduce their drop-out rates. It is intended that the training package will be made available to all current and new academic and support staff through the TLHEP and KKP programmes. This has been discussed with the TLHEP co-ordinator and the Staff Development Unit within Human Resources.

The primary intended outcome is a high quality training package that will educate staff with regard to the WP students. Staff who successfully complete the package will have:

• increased understanding of why WP students are different from their peers, the difficulties that they face in reaching HE, and how best to ensure that they have a positive HE experience and do not drop out;
• increased pastoral awareness and the ability to develop support systems in a manner applicable to WP students; and
• knowledge of the diverse range of learning styles adopted by WP students and how to adapt teaching styles to match these, in order to maximise the chances of a WP student being successful in HE.

Meeting the Needs of New Groups to HE - Final Report

Meeting the Needs of New Groups to HE - Presentation Slides

Meeting the Needs of New Groups to HE - A Staff Development Package by Sarah Hatfield and Peter Haycock, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Project Title: An Interactive Whiteboard for Problem Based Learning
Project Leader(s): Paula Roberts, Mike Mahon and Stephen Bostock

Project Aim:

To help learning by students creating a shared, electronic, editable record of the PBL process

An Interactive Whiteboard for Problem Based Learning - Presentation Slides

An Interactive Whiteboard for Problem Based Learning by Paula Roberts, Mike Mahon and Stephen Bostock, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.