Xorro Solutions

Solutions to Engage & Involve your Audience

Tag: xorroq

  • 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.

  • Interns Prepare Course Content in Xorro-Q

    Interns Prepare Course Content in Xorro-Q

    This summer, the University of Auckland Department of Civil Engineering has supplied eight student interns to work with Xorro on developing a targeted learning solution.  These interns have been working alongside another intern group (numbering seven) from Massey University contributing to product development in Xorro Workboook and Xorro-Q projects.

    Engineering interns lift the grade

    The Engineering interns had just finished their second year.  They were drawn from a large cohort of students who had been using Xorro-Q as a practice based learning tool in introductory structures.  The focus of the internship at Xorro has been to improve course content, making use of the students’ own experiences and feedback to provide an even better outcome for next year’s course.

    Lecturer Dr James Lim introduced the use of Xorro-Q to the structures courses because he felt there was a need to evolve a more intuitive understanding of the core concepts.  By introducing these concepts individually through working problems, the students can experience their use first hand.  Students can safely experiment with the concepts through responses in Xorro-Q and, by repetitive experience, evolve a practice-based understanding of the behaviour of structures.

    Intern feedback:

    Interns Awal and Sophie describe their work this summer as follows:

    “The questions are now quite diverse so I believe there will be a wider range of understanding. The feedback [has  improved with more comprehensive and detailed solutions provided, rather than just saying whether the answer is right or wrong. ” (Awal)

    Sophie adds: “We have … targeted the questions to explore weaknesses in the understanding of basic material….. and have tried to provide as much detail as necessary for each question to clarify confusions. The detailed feedbacks in the questions should be helpful to students who are struggling to understand ideas…”

    Awal sums it up:

    “I’ve always thought [Xorro-Q] was a good program to use and working with the team has solidified my views.  [Xorro-Q] made me think in a more abstract way rather than just using number crunching methods to solve problems.  I believe [this kind of conceptual thinking]  is an important attribute to an engineer.”

    By leveraging the use of Xorro-Q through the interns’ efforts to improve learning content, Dr Lim expects that the 2016 cohort will avoid the conceptual challenges around learning beam theory which were experienced by earlier years.

    If you are interested in contributing student interns to work at Xorro-Q developing content for your courses, please contact us.

    Start using Xorro-Q for free today

    See the video tour.

  • Hotspots and Heatmap Visualisations

    Hotspots and Heatmap Visualisations

    A few weeks back, the Xorro team released heatmap visualisation for Xorro-Q‘s hotspot questions.  This enables a much clearer interpretation of the many thousands of data points contributed by an audience to a live hot spot question.

    In August a University of Auckland lecturer collaborated with us using Xorro-Q in large classes.  Students were required to respond to multi-select hotspot questions to demonstrate their understanding of how a structure would deflect under given loads.

    Using Instant Hotspot Questions in class

    In class, a Xorro-Q hotspot question can be asked “instantly” by simply drag-selecting over an image on the display (eg in a slide show).  The students receive this image as a “hotspot”on their phone, tablet or laptop displays.  They touch or click on the image multiple times to input dots and lines.  These inputs can be auto-assessed and individualised feedback is provided instantly.  The aggregated responses are displayed graphically for the lecturer in real-time, either as raw data points superimposed on the source question image, or (now) as a heat map displaying the density of inputs of different types (eg auto-assessed right or wrong).

    How heatmap visualisation helps

    Very large audiences or workgroups can easily produce many thousands or tens of thousands of data points.  Plotting these in real-time can produce a cluttered output which takes some effort to interpret; effort which can be ill-afforded in a live audience setting.  The use of heatmap visualisation makes it far easier for a presenter (or in this case, lecturer) to identify the common misconceptions at a glance and act on these immediately.

    Heatmap visualisation is already available on all of Xorro-Q’s hotspot question results. The visualisation algorithm will continue to be improved over the next few weeks to provide a more granular and detailed view of the underlying data.

    Inquire about this story….

  • New label questions add flexibility and speed

    In September Xorro quietly released Label questions for the Xorro-Q audience assessment platform.  Label questions provide a flexible and fast assessment tool suited to any topic.  The Label Question concept in Xorro-Q can be applied to a range of needs, from cloze-activities to test phrase completion in language learners through to assessing visual interpretation of an image or map.

    Xorro-Q’s label questions follow similar assessment rules to open text response questions.  Multiple labels can be applied to any image.; there is one score per label. Each label can be associated with multiple “correct” answer terms.  Enterring any of these terms into the label will win the participant the available score.

    Try out a sampler activity including five label questions.

    Check out the tutorial video on how to make label questions in Xorro-Q …. It’s fast and easy!

    If you’re not already a Xorro-Q Facilitator, join up for free here.  A Free facilitator access is enough to run these with small groups of up to 33 participants, asking no more than 100 questions per month.

  • Assessing Instant Questions lifts in-class engagement

    Assessing Instant Questions lifts in-class engagement

    We know that regularly asking “instant” questions in class is a sure-fire way of lifting and sustaining engagement.  Now, using Xorro-Q, assessing instant questions has become easy – even in class.  Students’ responses to instant questions can be automatically rewarded: either by assessing them for correctness or by recognising the contributor through participation points.

    Using Xorro-Q, questions can be prepared in advance and then “asked” selectively at any time during class.  An “Instant Question” differs from these in that it provides a response form to a question which has not been prepared in advance.  For example: An educator might, in the course of a video, pause the video and “ask” the audience for an interpretation of a particular scene.   If a text response is wanted, then the educator just presses a single button (on Xorro-Q’s Q-Launcher floating toolbar) and the audience devices are served with a text response form.  As responses arrive, the lecturer might pre-view these on another screen, or might prefer to allow them to be seen “live” as a stream, or as a “wordcloud”.  Learn more about Instant Questions

    Instant questions now account for 23% of all in-class (real time) questions asked in Xorro-Q, and it’s rising.

    Instant questions are popular with educators, since they add spontaneity to the students’ classroom esperience, and they do not require preparation.   When using Q-Launcher, instant questions from any context (slide shows, videos etc) are also really – instant!  It’s essential that nothing get in the way of the flow of the session.  By asking instant questions, the Facilitator can easily gauge how effectively the message is getting across, as well as ensuring that everyone in the audience remains actively engaged.  Xorro-Q tracks participation, so a Facilitator can recognise in class participation and award points on this basis without consideration to the “correctness” or otherwise of any contributions.

    The missing factor for many has been the absence of assessment value to instant questions.  Assessment has been limited to questions prepared in advance, and so the motivational value of participation has been somewhat reduced for instant questions.  This has now changed:

    Xorro-Q’s Instant Questions can now be assessed just as instantly as they are launched and answered.

    In Xorro-Q, multi-choice instant questions can now be assessed when the results are in.

    Typically the Facilitator will close the question (to further submissions), then display the results to the group as a bar chart.  By right-clicking any option and setting it to “correct”, the Facilitator now automatically adds to the scores for those participants who chose that option.  It’s easy, and instant; it also encourages participation!

    The benefits of assessing instant questions include:

    • participants are motivated to remain engaged and alert to the topic;
    • questions can be tailored to make them highly relevant and specifc to a topic under discussion;
    • participants commit more deeply once they have ventured an opinion (albeit silently).

    Future:

    Assessment for instant questions is presently only available for multiple choice questions.    We are working on incorporating assessment into the instant hotspot question type as well, so that on receiving a groups’ Result (being a range of selected locations on the image), the Facilitator may circle (or “lasso”) a sub-set of the range and set that to “correct”.

    About instant questions:

    Xorro-Q’s instant questioning functionality is lauded by educators for its ease of use and ease of access.  Whatever the context (eg slide show, video, speech), a “Facilitator” can spontaneously “ask” a question without breaking away from the flow of the presentation.  The the audience can just as instantly answer the question using their own devices.  A range of question types is supported, including multiple choice, numeric answer, text answer, and even hotspot clickable images.  The grouped responses can be displayed on the screen , and selected responses can be marked as “correct”.  Every response is awarded a participation point, and “correct” responses can be awarded additional scores as well.

    By being given “safe” opportunities to participate in class, audience members take a much closer interest in the topic. Being able to safely and anonymously experiment, venture their opinions or ideas, and use their existing knowledge to attempt or guess responses, participants can learn instantly from feedback as well as gain motivation from observing how their responses compared with those of peers.

    Relevant Xorro articles:  Get started with Instant Activities

  • Q’s Numeric and Text Questions become Tolerant

    Q’s Numeric and Text Questions become Tolerant

    One of the compromises in automatically assessed numeric (and text) response questions is that they demand exact responses from participants.  For example, in asking a group of participants “Who was the leader of Nazi Germany?” – we might demand “Adolf Hitler” as the “correct” answer, but we will in fact receive variations such as “Hitler”, “AdolfHitler”, Adolf hitler”,  “Hitler”, “hitler”, “A.Hitler”, and so on.  Most of us would be inclined to accept several of these responses as correct or at least partially correct.  The same  often applies to the numeric answer to a multi-step calculation.  What shall we accept as the perimeter of a circle with radius 3cm?  A “correct” score depends on the participant’s choice of significant places, and of units.  In the past, the range of acceptable alternative answers makes the automated assessment of these types of questions problematic.  No longer:  Xorro’s latest text and numeric questions now provide for a range of possible responses, and for tolerance of variations in the submitted response “string”.

    Numeric response questions:

    When creating (or editing) a numeric response question, the author can now specify an acceptable tolerance for the response.  This can be a % value, or it can be set as an incremental value of the target “answer” value.  In addition, the author can set a preferance for such tolerances, which will then apply by default to all of that author’s questions (except where over-ridden by the author at question level).  A new feature permits the author to set a prefix and/or a suffix to the answerr field on the participant screen.  A prefix might be (for example) “$” or “US$”, while a suffix might be “.00”, “N”, “kN”, or “%”.  These make clear to the respondent the intended format of the response: the units being used,  perhaps the significance level to be applied.

    EXAMPLE: Consider the question: “Using a discount rate of 12% per annum, calculate the Net Present Value of a payment of £35,000 at the end of 36 months from today.”

    In setting the correct answer ($24,707) the author might decide to permit a variation of +/-0.1% which will recognise those respondents who enter $24,000.  By setting a prefix “£” to display in front of the answer field, the respondent is encouraged to not enter the “£” character in the answer.

    Text response questions:

    When setting the model (“correct”) answer for a text response question, authors are no longer restricted to a single “string” of text.  Now, multiple alternate “answer terms” can be listed, each of which may or may not be identified as “correct”.  Each specified term can have feedback associated with it, and each may attract a score if used by the participant.   In addition, the author can choose the rigour to be applied to grammar: for example whether to enforce capitalisation, punctuation and use of spaces.   Lastly, the mere inclusion of a taregt string in a participant’s response can be deemed sufficient, for example (in replying to the question in the first paragraph) a participant who answers “”probably Hitler” would still get a positive score associated with the term “Hitler”.

    EXAMPLE:

    Consider the question “What is the term used to describe a graph of the form y=ax2+bx+c ?”

    Specified terms might be: “parabola” (correct, 5 points); “parabolic” (correct, 5 points); “quadratic” (partially correct, 3 points); “hyperbola” (incorrect, 1 point); “line” (incorrect, 1 point).  Each of these might have specific feedback for the respondent.  There might also be feedback and a score offered for the case where none of these terms features in an answer.  By default, a participant who enters “linear parabola cubic hyperbola” would not get any points; otherwise the author might choose to allow mere inclusion of the word “parabola” in the submission to attract its points.

  • 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