Part 3: Launch and Reflect

I love using this type of platform In a discussion regarding mental health with my groups. There were so many different and fun ways of discussing this that helped children feel comfortable. This activity helped answer a lot of questions students had and helped fight stigmas. 

This was successful in my lunch group. It allowed for a light conversation along with helping me have discussions with more students who might be struggling.Helping normalize mental health in the school is extremely important. I plan on using this with my classroom mental health presentations in May. I definitely will continue using this in my role as a school social worker!

My students loved doing word study review by playing kahoot! Every student was engaged and it was a very fun way to practice word study on a Friday morning. Next week I am going to do a math review for our unit test. Next time I will play around with the type of questions and add a variety of multiple choice, response and true/false.

Overall Experience- The overall experience with Kahoot is always great! The students really enjoy the friendly competition, engagement, earning possible extra credit points, bragging rights, and doing something different in the classroom.

Engagement- Most, if not all the students were engaged in the lesson activity. They always enjoy seeing in real time their results, how they're doing, and if they're moving up or down the leaderboard. That always seems to create some friendly banter, competition, and bragging rights between friends and classmates. Also, the top three finishers that finish on the podium at the end of the game receive extra credit points on their upcoming unit test.

Whole-class Pacing- Most Kahoot activities that I do normally have 20-25 questions with a timer set between 20-30 seconds (depending on the content and make-up of the question). Most, if not all the students were able to complete the questions in the allotted time. The activity was used as a review tool for an upcoming unit test, which took up the majority of the class period.

For next time, I would probably add a few more content-related questions, along with different types of questions (besides for just multiple choice questions). Also, I would probably incorporate more images to further enhance and engage the students with- political cartoons, charts, graphs, maps, etc. Overall, it was a great experience. It's always a good day and class period when we're using Kahoot as a review tool for both the students and myself!

Overall Experience:
The overall experience was great. The students really enjoyed competing with each other and it was fun to see which ones were on the podium. 

Engagement: 
All the students were engaged. They could see real time how they were doing. I offered extra credit to the top 10 students. This really seemed to motivate them.

Whole class pacing:
I had each question timed at 30 seconds. I changed this for the other classes and some of the questions I put at only 20 seconds. They didn't seem to need all the time with easier questions. The entire Kahoot activity took about 5 minutes at the beginning of class to get them engaged and review the previous day's lesson.

What might you do differently next time:
I changed to time on some of the questions to shorten them. I might also add a couple more question types. I only focused on multiple choice and true false questions. I want to add a few more images to some of the questions to enhance them. 

I created a kahoot on photographic exposure and composition as a review for an upcoming test in my class.  The students LOVED it!  The friendly competition between the students was a lot of fun and they were all really engaged.  It was a great app to use for the review!

• Overall experience?

I don't currently have my own classroom to trial this in, but I have used it in the past. Classroom teachers in my past school used Kahoot! to complete unit reviews and for fact practice. I loved launching them because the kids were always excited to participate. 

• Engagement?

I would say I would have at least 98% engagement. I think it's a bit harder to differentiate for those who are not at the same level. I've completed them as small group and partner activities so that everyone was able to participate. I just slow the quiz down. It's nice to be able to mix it up and add some true and false questions in as I feel like kids often need more practice with this concept. 

• Whole-class pacing?

Math facts, I keep the pacing fast, but for everything else I slow it down. I also read it out for the kids and once I'm done reading they are allowed to answer. 

• What might you do differently next time?

I would like to try to add more useful graphics, I didn't really bother while creating my most recent Kahoot! because I didn't feel like it added to my content. I think that it would add more excitement for the kids as they like visuals and interest. 

Kahoot is a very fun and engaging way for students to show what they know.  All of the students were engaged, but some were so overly excited that I had to work with them on not yelling out answers.  Whole class pacing was good, but I think some students saw that peers were answering the questions faster than them; which caused them to guess and move on.  Many of my 8:1:1 students struggle with decoding.  In addition they need extra time to comprehend the questions and answers.  With this being said in order to avoid them from guessing, I told students they had to hold off from answering the question until I finished reading the question, reading the answers and giving appropriate think time for everyone.  After I was ready, I would tell students they could click and they would select the correct answer.  Overall that strategy seemed to work a little better when trying to assess what the students know.

In Algebra, I have been looking to change it up in my small class setting. I have a couple students not afraid to speak and a few that are shy. This definitely got everyone involved. I think I need to adjust the timing as the default of 20 seconds was a bit quick with my students but that is an easy fix for next time.

I like how the shapes are on their screen require the students to reference back to the text for each response (another reason I would give more time).

One thing I would change is not having all the points given for the quicker times of responses.

One thing I LOVE is the ability to assign this as homework. I am going to do that to change up my assignments for sure.

The kahoot experience went well in my classroom to review order of operations. It was an engaging activity for students and also encouraged students to show their work to get to the correct answer and earn points. It is definitely a tool I will use in the classroom more often especially when it comes to reviewing topics to make it more interesting and engaging for students!

I used Kahoot for an end of the school year activity. I had students state two truths and a lie about themselves and the other students guessed who it was. It was extremely engaging and lead us to trying out other pre made cahoots. I think this could work well for specific topics or activities similar to this. my students really loved this.