Xorro Solutions

Solutions to Engage & Involve your Audience

Tag: class response

  • Student Response Systems enable student-centered teaching

    Student Response Systems enable student-centered teaching

    Recently we followed up with Dr Michael Rehm from University of Auckland’s  Business School, on how he uses student response systems such as Xorro Q in his courses.

    According to Michael, the student response system has totally changed education. Traditionally, engagement in a classroom has relied on techniques such as breaking the class into groups and having discussions.  The problem of how to achieve the active participation of every student is either ignored, or addressed through some “forced” method such as picking a student at random to answer a question. Michael feels this “lottery” approach is uncomfortable for everyone, and counter-productive to making class time enjoyable and risk-free for learners.

    How student response systems benefit both educator and learner

    A student  response system such as Xorro-Q helps achieve the active participation of every single person in the class. Using student response systems properly ensures that participants enjoy a rewarding, risk free participative experience.  In these circumstances, students’ feedback on use of student response systems is excellent.

    Because student response systems achieve instant delivery and instant assessment of students’ readiness, they disrupt the previous content-heavy teaching paradigm, replacing it with a leaner, higher value student-responsive approach.  Educators can ask questions instantly and spontaneously, and can automatically assess responses to these.  This assessment can be stored and included in an overall course assessment.  Alternatively, students may be rewarded for participation (as opposed to “correctness” of responses) through a portion of their grades.  Either way, the student response system makes this instant and effortless.

    Although many educators are wary of using student response systems for assessment, this too needs realistic review in today’s context.  Historically, setting and grading assessments is an onerous task for educators, while sitting them presents a fearsome hurdle for learners.  By using student response systems, frequent low-stakes assessments become an easily integrated (and even enjoyable!) part of the learning experience

    Since students are digital natives, they are already very comfortable bringing and using their own devices in class.  This makes it easy to implement student response systems, in comparison to previous years when distributing and using clickers presented logistical and financial challenges.

    Experience in  a blended learning model

    Michael has been using student response systems in undergraduate courses since 2012. He has converted his teaching to an online blended learning model, with all lectures accessible online. These supporting materials are highly interactive, including embedded quizzes and links to supplementary materials on Youtube, etc.  Students are expected to go through these materials in their own time.  This leaves the face to face tutorial sessions to focus on student-led needs and extensions. These tutorials can also be attended by online participants, and are enabled by a real-time student response system.

    The tutorials begin with quizzes to determine the group’s requirements.  Michael uses the student response system to deliver these quizzes to all participants.  Delivery is instant, as is assessment.  The areas requiring tutorial focus are easily identified.  Michael has been using Xorro Q and TopHat for this purpose.

    Michael observes that Xorro-Q makes quizzes more fun by exploiting competition among students.  Michael’s careful use of  Xorro-Q’s “Not Yet Answered” panel can display the names of students not answering questions, and in this way deliver a gentle reminder that participation is an essential and expected part of learning in Michael’s courses.

    Challenge = Opportunity for educators

    Although Michael finds Student Response systems very beneficial for the students, there remains a significant challenge. The benefit for learning is proven, however educators need to be motivated to make use of the new opportunity to add more value in face-to-face teaching.  Being responsive and adaptable requires re-learning how to interact valuably with large groups in live sessions.  This in turn stretches the time and resources available to educators and faculty administrators.

     

    Help yourself to a free limited user license for Xorro-Q, or contact Xorro to request a free trial license.

  • Free access to Xorro-Q

    Free access to Xorro-Q

    Free Access to Xorro-Q

    From 1 January 2015, all users – both facilitators and participants – have full access to Xorro-Q for free.

    Anyone can now create learning games, contests and competitions, and run brainstorm and collaboration activities with live audiences, all for free using Xorro-Q.

    Changes to Xorro-Q plans

    The free access is limited to sessions with 30 participants or less, and is volume limited to no more than 100 questions being asked (that’s 3000 question-impressions) per month. Beyond these limits, a facilitator will require a Xorro plan or will need to apply for a free limited-time trial.

    The existing Q30, Q300 and Q3k plans continue as before with full and unrestricted access to Q applying for the relevant audience sizes.

    Create your Free Facilitator account at Xorro-Q.

  • Xorro offers Free Algebra Question Banks

    Xorro offers Free Algebra Question Banks

    Before Christmas, a Xorro-Q customer enthused on how useful it would be to have large banks of maths practice questions appropriate to his college classes. These could easily be included in contests and games which motivate students to have fun practicing algebra through the term.
    Here at Xorro, from concept to reality can take a day or two… So by the end of January, we had created and uploaded 2800 linear equations problems (in five levels of difficulty) and 2095 problems around factorising and expanding quadratic equations (in 7 levels of difficulty).  These resources are shared globally in your Q-Bank.  It’s free for any educator to use.

    Here are some great ways to use this resource:

    At the start of each lesson, run a short 3 question quiz …

    … using Xorro-Q to test the students’ comfort with problems at the level you choose.  Here’s how:

    • On your Xorro QF site, make a real-time activty in your QF site (if you aren’t already a Xorro user, you’ll need to register as a Free User).  It’s as easy as giving your activity a title, and checking you’re happy with the other default settings (we recommend you “scramble” the options if you use multi-choice). Press “Create Activity”.
    • In the Edit Activity screen: Select “Import Questions”.  This will take you to your Q-Bank.
    • Set the “Scope” to Global” (lower right of screen).
    • Either use the search tool and filters to find the questions you want (try key words such as “linear equation” or “quadratic” or “factorise”), or just browse through the Maths categories.
      Select the questions you’re interested in from the filtered list.  Once you have the ones you want, press “Import” (bottom right of form).
    • Back in the activity: you can order the questions by dragging them on the page.  You can edit them by simply opening them (for example, you might want to change the scoring, or the feedback).  If you want the questions to be asked all together and have the students work through them at their own pace in class (as is usual in a class quiz), simply press “join” between the questions to form a batch.  Otherwise, the questions will be asked one by one, at your prompting.

    You’re done! – and ready for class.
    In class: Just run the activity either from your QF site, or in Q-Launcher – browse to select the activity and run it.
    Enjoy the real-time Leaderboard! (Note: in Q-Launcher, this is available through the Participants Panel: click the Participants icon on the dashboard).

    Set up a 3-week contest with a large group of questions…

    Get the Principal to sponsor a prize for the top score winners, and put up an achievement prize also for everyone who can get past a pre-determined benchmark score.  Here’s how:

    • In your Xorro QF site, create a “Self-Paced” activty (if you aren’t already a Xorro user, you’ll need to register as a Free User).  It’s as easy as giving your activity a title, changing activity type from “Real Time” to “Self Paced”, and checking you’re happy with the other default settings (we recommend you “scramble” the options if you use multi-choice). Press “Create Activity”.
    • In the Edit Activity screen: Select “Import Questions”.  This will take you to your Q-Bank.
    • Set the “Scope” to Global” (lower right of screen).
    • Either use the search tool and filters to find the questions you want (try key words such as “linear equation” or “quadratic” or “factorise” or “algebra”), or just browse through the Maths categories.
    • Select the questions you’re interested in from the filtered list.  Once you have the ones you want, press “Import” (bottom right of form).
    • Back in the activity: you can order the questions by dragging them on the page.  You can edit them by simply opening them (for example, you might want to change the scoring, or the feedback).
    • To launch the self-paced activity. press RUN, either now or later.  Decide on what the opening and closing dates will be for your participants to access the activity.  Check the other settings (particularly multi-choice option scrambling, and feedback disclosure options), and press “Launch” when you’re ready.

    Have fun!  And be ready to celebrate the Leaders during each lesson.

    Please feel free to email us with feedback or suggestions on how you think we could improve on these resources.  Also… please suggest what other resources you think would help motivate your students  to learn!

     

    Relevant keywords: algebra, algebra lesson, algebra questions, binomials, BYOD, contests, games, linear equations, maths lesson, quadratic equations, quiz, Xorro, Xorro-Q

     

  • Xorro-Q adds free learning activities to BYOD classrooms & lecture theaters

    Xorro-Q adds free learning activities to BYOD classrooms & lecture theaters

    Xorro has released free access for school educators to its gamification and real-time assessment solution, Xorro-Q.

    Xorro-Q’s dashboard enables educators in BYOD classrooms and lecture theaters, to ensure the active participation of every single student in instant challenges. Challenges can be prepared ahead of time, or better, created in-class around existing resources and activities such as slide shows, videos etc.

    Getting started is simple: students access Q using any browser (no plug ins, no downloads, no apps). There is an optional “Q-Launcher” desktop application for the teacher to download (Windows and Mac both avalable), however all Q functionality can be accessed by the teacher through a browser as well. All responses are saved in your account for later access.

    You’ll be using Q to brainstorm, create live wordclouds, check class conceptual understanding, run class contests and instant quizzes in no time!

    To get started, enrol for a free account.  You’ll get a username and password to use Xorro-Q as a Free Facilitator.  Login to your Facilitator Home Page; download the Q-Launcher desktop software, or just get started (“Activities tab”) in creating some questions and activities.