Collaboration

Designing questions for digital polling

What is the purpose for your digital polling

Digital polling can be applied to the teaching and learning space for a number of reasons including, but not limited to: increase student engagement and participation; increase student feedback around threshold concepts so teachers can adapt content; rapid feedback loops for the teacher and learner through knowledge self-checks; reinforce threshold concepts; create a sense of cohort and connection between campus and cloud-based students; and alignment of digital polling questions to content.

Before implementing Mentimeter in your teaching practice it is important to articulate why you are using digital polling and what you want to achieve by using it. This will enable you to review your content and determine where to add digital polling accordingly. Please note: it is not expected that you get it right the first time however review how it has worked and iterate your design through feedback for the following weeks’ content and unit.

To get ideas of the different question types, refer to the question types inWhat are the question types? in further in this page.

Tips & tricks to get started

In our research of academics using digital polling in their units, it was found there were some simple tips and tricks to get started:

Do not ‘overuse’ the digital polling tool; find a happy medium for your unit otherwise it can ‘hijack’ the class and lead to reduced engagement.
When using digital polling, make sure students see the impact as this will increase engagement. For example, if you pose a question and the majority of students get it incorrect, then it is important that you spend time on why that answer was incorrect. In doing so, you are demonstrating that the students’ response will generate an impact (in this instance an explanation of why it was incorrect) and therefore they will be more likely to participate in future polls.
Do not underestimate the time it takes to respond to the polls; so start off small and iterate the design as you progress.
To design polls that aren’t generic but are aligned to the content can be time consuming. So, to get started you can use the questions from a text book that you may be aligning your teaching with. Remember, this is an iterative process, so you can review this over time.
Don’t use the same question types; experiment with different question types to get feedback from the students.

When would I use Mentimeter? demonstrate different ways in which digital polling can be implemented in the teaching and learning space to achieve different pedagogical outcomes. It is important to experiment with different question types depending on what you like to achieve.

There are a number of different question types that you can develop, for support in writing the following please visit:

Multiple choice questions, download guide to writing Multiple Choice Questions.
For examples of other question types, refer to “what are the question types?” below on this page, to explore different possibilities.
For new ideas refer to the inspiration tab in Mentimeter and they will explore how you can use different question types.
We will be sharing authentic teaching and learning examples in due course; if you would like to showcase what you are doing please contact Joan Sutherland.

Use this to support you in getting started developing your digital polling questions

Create your first presentation

What are the question types?

Once you have logged in, you will be able to create your first presentation. Before you get started, consider why you are using digital polling and what you want to find out.

Multiple choice questions – students can choose between the different options you provide.
Image choice questions – similar to multiple choice, however upload images instead of words as options.
Word cloud questions – students can add words to create a word cloud that will grow and expand.
Open ended questions – enable students to type their answers freely.
Ranking questions – provide a list of items where student can rank them in a particular order and Mentimeter will rearrange these according to the order the students have put them in.
Scales questions – students can rate something using a Likert scale this question type can be effective.
2 by 2 matrix – rather than one dimension, if you would like to rate an item with two dimensions then this is the question type for you.
Questions from audience – enable the students to ask you questions from their own device anonymously.

Presenting with Mentimeter

Change the result layout – regardless of the question type you select, you can choose the layout of the responses.
Hide results – if you want to avoid bias by not showing real time responses you can show results once everyone has contributed.
Segmentation of votes – want to show a high level analysis of votes real time based on how participants have responded in previous questions.
Mentimote – if you would like to present using your smartphone only then use this remote presentation app.
Select voting pace – learn about the difference between presenter pace and audience pace.
PowerPoint plugins and integrations – if you have a PowerPoint presentation; you can import this into Mentimeter or you can simply add the plug in to PowerPoint. Please note: there can be some lag time depending on your audience size, so, in this instance it is recommended that you have PowerPoint/presentation app open full screen and alt+tab between that and your Mentimeter account.

See what questions you can ask your audience and learn how to maximise engagement with them.

If you would like to showcase how you are using digital polling in your unit and the different ways in which you engage with it, please contact Joan Sutherland.

Add the Deakin University Logo

To add the Deakin University logo you need to download a high resolution logo and add to your presentation in a few simple steps.