Open-Ended Responses for Plickers

One of the biggest drawbacks of student response systems is that often in ELA I want my students to do more than just answer multiple choice. How to get students to write answers while still taking advantage of the data these response systems have to offer? Simple: don't put answer options down!

I create the questions like above where A is a, B is b, C is c, and D is d. In groups, have students answer the question (or in the case of the above, finish the sentence) on a sentence strip. While the view is NOT on bar graph, have students put their sentence strip next to a letter. Students can then vote on the best answer. When done, flip it over to the bar graph view. Have students talk in groups about the results and then share out.

Using Plickers for Status of the Class

Nancie Atwell's status of the class for determining which children are in which stages of the writing process can be applied to any class in which there is a multi-day and multi-step assignment.

You can create a Plicker question to represent the status options or create a blank Plicker question and ask it
on the fly. Use in art class, for PBL, writing workshop, etc.

It lets you instantly prioritize checking in/conferences, see if there are larger issues, and proactively take care of concerns before things spiral out of control. Additionally, if students need to peer conference, you have in your hand which students are looking for that and can pair them up easily.