Real-Time Polls Make Classroom Management More Efficient

When classroom education shifted online with little warning in 2020, administrators and instructors explored a variety of learning tools to make the most of the situation. Many of these teaching tools fell flat, whether from lack of features or steep learning curves. Real-time polling was an exception. In-class polls gave instructors access to valuable, real-time data they could use to track progress, participation, and more.

Today, many students are back in classrooms, but the undeniable convenience and appeal of online learning means online and hybrid classes are going to be in demand from now on. Just like students have dictated widespread adoption of remote online learning, instructors are looking to continue to leverage the insights of polling.

The educational experts at Echo360 developed EchoPoll: a learning platform allowing teachers to solicit answers from the entire class and analyze the results in real time. EchoPoll is inspired by all three tenets of our e³ philosophy of equity, evidence, and engagement, making it an important part of our broader mission of bringing learning to the next level.

Part of EchoEngage, EchoPoll works alongside the rest of the Echosystem (EchoAuthor, EchoExam, and EchoVideo) to provide inspired learning experiences to every student. Please continue reading for more information on what makes EchoPoll the real-time learning presentation and data collection solution for everyone, everywhere.

How does live polling enhance the learning process?

Every teacher knows that one of the keys to helping students reach their learning goals is engagement. If students develop an interest in the material and are willing to put forth their best effort, teaching becomes easier. However, it becomes more challenging if students would rather be doing something else.

Classroom polling encourages students to pay attention because they know that the class will have interactive elements. Whether sharing their opinions with classmates and instructors or facing assessment throughout a presentation, polling keeps them on their toes.

EchoPoll provides all of these benefits and then goes beyond them. For example, EchoPoll includes gamification elements incorporating teams and wagers to facilitate a “quiz show” format for review purposes. You can also use incentives such as live leaderboards and badges to encourage individual effort.

EchoPoll has a great feature called Anywhere Polling, allowing instructors to insert questions into any media and get immediate feedback to track learner knowledge and adjust presentations on the fly. Upload a PowerPoint deck to create a PollDeck, adding small assessments throughout. It’s a great way to develop engagement with video content and online meetings as well. EchoPoll provides real-time engagement scores, too, so you’ll always know if you’re holding your audience’s attention.

We also recommend repeating polls to make learning more visible. You can start by asking a question and giving students a moment to think it over. Reveal the class’s responses to the entire group. Then, ask your students to discuss their answers with their peers. When the resulting discussion dies down, ask the original poll questions again. The vast majority of students should now have the correct response, allowing them to immediately see the exercise’s benefits.

If you’re teaching a remote class, you can still incorporate polls. Using the course creation tools within the Echosystem, you can add polls to self-paced assignments for assessment purposes, ensuring students thoroughly understand one concept before moving to the next. You can even lock content behind a poll to ensure students must pass an assessment to move on, preventing them from taking on more advanced information until they are ready. Overall, the robust feature suite of EchoPoll has been found to increase student engagement by as much as a factor of seven!

Will polls make it easier to manage my classroom?

Polls provide a myriad of learning benefits, and they can also help streamline administrative work in the classroom. For instance, a quick survey is a great way to take attendance. EchoPoll allows teachers to send push notifications demanding a response, ensuring that students have to be present to be marked as present. You can even mandate a student’s presence in a particular geographic area if you want to ensure you have their full attention.

One of the hardest parts of a teacher’s job is identifying when a student might need help, and incorporating review questions into lessons provides a great indication of who’s keeping up or falling behind. Students can also send you a confusion alert on EchoPoll should they need help with something.

Can I track answers by class and individual students?

Polling is a great way to get actionable information, but instructors often miss opportunities to act on this evidence if it takes too much time to process. EchoPoll addresses this problem in the teacher’s view by revealing answers from the whole class and individual students, with data visualization tools to make evidence easier to interpret at a glance. EchoPoll will also help you accurately track and reward student participation.

Similar visualization tools are available for remote students, helping teachers effectively monitor their progress even if they don’t spend any in-person time together. Asynchronous teaching becomes substantially easier when you have reliable evidence of each learner’s performance.

How can polling be accessible for all students?

There are many reasons why students might not participate in polling, and EchoPoll is designed to address them all to promote equity. For example, some students might be shy about sharing with their classmates or asking for help. EchoPoll allows students to answer questions anonymously, ensuring that all learners feel comfortable participating. Teachers can see which students answered correctly and who might need remediation.

Similarly, instructors can share polling results with the entire class to reveal what they think in broad terms without identifying students who provided particular answers. These customizable dashboards make teaching much more effective.

EchoPoll allows students to use their preferred mobile devices to answer polls, but some learners might not have access to smartphones or tablets in class. Luckily, these students can still participate using web browsers. All EchoPoll content also includes high-contrast visuals and accessibility tools to promote equity for all students. EchoPoll meets or exceeds all WCAG 2.0 guidelines, providing the same opportunities to all students regardless of any sensory impairments.

Engagement is more enjoyable when you have more students participating. With EchoPoll, instructors can set guest user access allowing learners to join with anonymity and administrators can control the session size allowing more learners to participate and meet compliance standards.

How can I learn more about EchoPoll?

We would be happy to discuss the features of EchoPoll all day, but we strongly believe that you’ll need to see it in action to truly appreciate what it could do for you and your students. Taking attendance is a breeze, and polls increase engagement for both in-person and online students. EchoPoll also promotes equity in teaching while ensuring instructors have evidence when their students are ready for the next challenge. From identifying which students might need extra support to making it easier to fill out online forms, we’re confident EchoPoll will change the way you teach.

EchoPoll is a great way to engage students and improve your presentations, but it becomes even more powerful when combined with the entire Echo360 suite. Contact us today to learn more about our entire suite of products designed by educators to achieve superior classroom outcomes!

Get a demo

Instructors, administrators, and learners everywhere can now experience the most comprehensive suite of learning engagement, assessment, and authoring solutions.

Let’s talk more to find the right solution for you.

Best-In-Class Learning Management Solution

Question Types

With over 14 different question types, you can match the assessment to the material at hand. Use traditional test question types such as true/false, multiple-choice, multiple response, numeric response, matching, completion, short answer and essay to review, re-teach and reinforce learning.

Reporting & Analytics

Ensuring that learners understand the information presented and how it can impact their success is key. Assess, track and analyze learner performance. Get results immediately and view valuable reports at the individual level, or for the class or group as a whole. Provide results in real-time, or at a later time as preferred.

Dynamic Bimodal Versioning

With dynamic content, generate multiple iterations of exam questions to test the same concept. Use bimodal to toggle between multiple-choice and short answer question types, immediately changing the item difficulty level.

Instructors supported

0 K+

Students engaged

0 MM+

Sessions and views enabled

0 MM+

I Want More Engaging Interactive Lectures in My Classroom

To learn more about how Echo360’s Echosystem can help you conduct more interactive lectures that truly engage each student’s attention, contact us today. We’re excited to share all the features of the Echosystem that can help.