Nearpod for Engaged Learners

A few weeks ago, Ms. Dawn Bodden, ITF, held learning sessions for interested staff on using Nearpod in our classrooms. Mr. John Bassler attended a session during his prep hour and was intrigued by what he saw.

Before we go any further, if you’re not sure exactly what Nearpod is or can do in the classroom, check out this video.

In his College Algebra class, Mr. Bassler created a Nearpod presentation for Day 2 of a lesson on Coordinate Geometry. The previous class period, students had completed guided notes and a related homework assignment. During this class period, Mr. Bassler opted to use Nearpod as a way to do practice work as a whole class, while at the same time, students could also be engaged in individual work. He started with some True/False questions as a way to refresh the students’ memory on some of the concepts.

Students submit their answers

As the students progressed, Mr. Bassler changed to questions that required the students to demonstrate their ability to perform multi-step problems by using a “Draw It” page. This feature allowed the students to see the problem and write their answers with the pencil and even insert photos.

Students can write in their answers

 After the students had submitted their answers, Mr. Bassler was able to anonymously select a student’s work to display to the class. He then asked the students to explain why a certain answer was correct or where the student had made an error. Using both examples and non-examples allowed the students to see the common issues when working on Coordinate Geometry. While the class was working on reviewing the problems together, many students chose to take notes within the Nearpod app directly linked to each problem.

Students can insert pictures with their answers

The lesson was a great success and the students were able to process the information and work on the material at a very high level of engagement. Nearpod is a very comprehensive program that allows the teacher to monitor all of the students at the same time and also to offer lots of feedback and examples.

Interested in using Nearpod in your class? Recently, Mrs. Bodden sent the staff this article on more ways to use Nearpod in the classroom. Check it out for some ideas on how to make it work in your classroom.

Have you used Nearpod in your classroom? Share your ideas in the comments section. Need some more support? Talk to Dawn or one of your DTCs!