Mentimeter
Mentimeter is a digital polling software that enables you to interact with your students synchronously and asynchronously with polls, quizzes, word clouds, Q&As and more. It supports a variety of pedagogical principles to ensure that all students can actively engage and participate in a variety of activities.
Mentimeter allows users to:
- prepare presentations using content slides and question slides
- interact with your student cohort synchronously
- embed into CloudDeakin for students to engage with asynchronously
- apply a range of question types to engage with your students
- offer students a way to engage from their own devices.
AI elements
Mentimeter leverages AI to cluster similar responses, generates deeper insights on the fly, and then generates more insights at a larger scale. For more information on these features, click on the ‘Find Out More’ button below.
Mentimeter has been found to enhance engagement in units by building a sense of connection and increase feedback loops. Don’t forget that you also have the option to embed it into CloudDeakin for students to engage with it asynchronously.
List of functions
Key features of Mentimeter are:
- Variety of templates and question types;
- Responsive on all devices;
- Promotes interactivity as students are asked to ‘do’ something;
- Anonymous responses can promote contributions;
- Moderate responses in real-time;
- Real-time feedback from students; and
- Ability to export data.
Recommendations for using Mentimeter are:
- Align with teaching activities so the use of Mentimeter is purposeful;
- Vary the question types to enhance engagement; and
- Show the students how their feedback is used within workshops so they know their feedback has purpose.
Support resources
Deakin Resources:
Digital Polling: use this resource to understand the ways in which you can use digital polling in your unit
Getting started with Mentimeter: this is a step-by-step guide that explores the different question types and ways in which you can present with Mentimeter
Vendor Resources:
Mentimeter Academy (external): learn about the newly released features though the Mentimeter Academy.
Examples
The use cases below showcase some ways in which you can use Mentimeter in your practice:
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Knowledge Acquisition
Interactivity with lecture content – guide participant interaction during on-campus lectures or online seminars
As a teacher I want to create an interactive presentation with digital polling to build student participation and engagement opportunities so I can guide them to extend and deepen their knowledge.
My students can consider the teacher-set questions, post their answers to demonstrate their current knowledge and receive immediate feedback, as well as ask questions about anything they don’t understand or where they want to know more.
Example design considerations for real-time student interaction with content using Mentimeter:
- Create your content presentation in Mentimeter (no need to use PowerPoint).
- Design purposeful questions to maximise engagement.
- Consider the digital polling question types (e.g. MCQs, ranking questions) that best suit the content or core concepts under focus.
- Consider best placement/timing of questions within the presentation, for example:
- iterative places to establish collective understanding of a core concept prior to building to another content area
- mid-review and/or end of presentation consolidation.
- Encourage participation through the competitive nature of polling using Mentimeter (e.g. add a leaderboard for quiz results, where students can use their real names or pseudonyms to compete against their peers).
- Encourage students to ‘up-vote’ questions that their peers’ ask, so that you as teacher can identify and address common queries.
Demonstration of knowledge – real-time student responses to teacher-set questions and formative feedback
As a teacher I want to provide a safe space to assess my students’ understanding through anonymous digital polling, so I can provide formative feedback using the poll results as a discussion prompt.
My students can quickly and without judgement assess their knowledge anonymously in the digital polls, and benefit from feedback and discussion of the class-wide responses.
Example design considerations for student demonstration of knowledge using Mentimeter:
- Create your content presentation in Mentimeter (no need to use PowerPoint).
- Design purposeful questions to maximise engagement, and consider best placement/timing of questions within the presentation, for example:
- single questions progressively throughout the presentation
- a list of revision questions at mid-review and/or the end.
- Enable responses to be ‘anonymous’ to generate more student participation.
- Provide constructive formative feedback on class-wide responses and lead discussions to extend the demonstrated knowledge base.
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Inquiry
Student inquiry on topic content – guide interactivity with and discovery of key ideas
As a teacher I want to conduct a session where, instead of delivering a topic, I guide my students to make inquiries into a complex topic or scenario presented.
My students can offer their different perspectives on a complex topic or scenario to reveal varied responses to questions, to stimulate discussion and a shared learning experience.
Example design considerations for learning through inquiry using Mentimeter:
- Create your presentation in Mentimeter (no need to use PowerPoint), presenting an unfolding case study or a wicked problem or other authentic situation or scenario which will require students to deeply consider and apply new knowledge.
- Design purposeful questions, that may appear complex or thought-provoking, to prompt collaborative examination and discussion, for example:
- use open-ended short-answer questions (e.g. ‘type answer quiz’) and create a word cloud from the responses
- use matrix styled questions for prompting consideration of an issue from two dimensions (i.e. ‘2 by 2 matrix’ question)
- pose questions that have grey areas and will likely receive inconclusive results (e.g. MCGs, ranking or scale questions)
- openly gather primary data from the class on a topic to present as visual data (e.g. pie graph) or cross-refence with data from an earlier question, to facilitate student analysis and discussion of the data in relation to the topic.
- Facilitate a focussed inquiry-based discussion, involving collaborative examination and elaboration, following the reveal of results for each question.
