Why use polls?

Polls are a great way to get feedback from your students while letting them know that you value their input and care whether or not they are understanding important concepts. Also, polls allow students who don’t speak up in class to have their opinions heard. Poll responses are usually anonymous.

Most polls work best when students are in class with you in real time, either in a physical classroom or in a web conference class. There are also some options that allow for all students, both synchronous and asynchronous, to participate.  

"Students thought the polls were fun and a good way to break up the lecture and make it more interesting. More importantly, they perceived the phone polls as engaging, making them think and providing feedback on their learning…. The fact that not only the students themselves but also we as teachers were able to instantly see students’ answers provided valuable information on how much students had understood and allowed us to adjust our teaching accordingly."

Susanne Voelkel & Daimark Bennett (2014) New uses for a familiar technology: introducing mobile phone polling in large classes, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 51:1, 46-58, DOI: 10.1080/14703297.2013.770267

We recommend using:

Zoom polls, Poll Everywhere or Qualtrics. You may also find that the Canvas Survey tool meets your needs in some cases.

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous

Zoom polls are for synchronous students attending Zoom classes or webinars.

Poll Everywhere is for synchronous students who are attending class either on campus or in Zoom. It is possible to leave one question active for asynchronous students to answer.

Qualtrics is for asynchronous and synchronous students.  Students can participate at any time, so those watching the recording have equal access. Note: Qualtrics is a survey tool that can be adapted to be used for polls.

Effective Use of Poll Question Types

Note: Most question types highlighted below are available in Zoom Polls, Poll Everywhere and Qualtrics.   Get Immediate Feedback during class Using Zoom Polls or Poll Everywhere.

Check In

• Use single choice questions to ask students if they are ready to move on, or if they want to spend more time on a topic.
• Use single choice or rating scale questions to ask students how they feel about their level of understanding.

Formative Assessment

• Use single choice questions for true or false questions.
• Use multiple choice questions to check for understanding.

Summative Assessment

• Use quizzes, matching, rank order, short or long answer questions to check students’ depth of understanding.

Ask students for their opinions

• Use single choice or short answer questions.  
  • Poll Everywhere, allows students to up vote or down vote short answer responses others have already given. 
  • Poll Everywhere allows you to show responses in a word cloud.

Pros and Cons

Zoom Pros

• Included with your Zoom account
• Easy to create polls
• Launch and share results easily while in your Zoom classroom
• A variety of question types available
• More than 1 member of the teaching staff can create and launch polls (contact webconference@dce.harvard.edu for help)

Zoom Cons

• Results not easily shown in recording, but it can be done by sharing results from your browser
• Creating a report to see how each student voted can be cumbersome

Poll Everywhere Pros

• Lots of question types and ways to display responses
• You can create an account through Harvard and log in using your Harvard Key
• You can leave one question active so that asynchronous students can answer it
• You can require students to type in their names when responding to a question

Poll Everywhere Cons

• Fairly complex tool with a learning curve
• Students must use a phone or navigate outside of Zoom on their computers to participate in polls
• Students need to type in a code each time they respond

Qualtrics Pros

• Synchronous and asynchronous students have equal access
• Large variety of question types
• Create an account with your Harvard Key

Qualtrics Cons

• Complex tool with a learning curve

Don’t forget about Canvas 

The polls described above are usually used to gather anonymous, immediate feedback during class. Consider using Canvas if you’d like your students to have more time to reflect before answering a question, or if you want them to be able to choose the time to respond.  Since your students will be logged into Canvas, you can easily see how each one responded. 

Canvas surveys (created using the Quiz tool) can be used to ask students how they feel about the course. After each class or each completed assignment, you could ask them things such as: how well they feel they understand the material, if there is anything they don’t understand, or what they found most interesting or useful.  

Of course, you can always use Canvas Assignments for graded or ungraded formative and summative assessments.

How to Create Polls

Attend a training or take a look at these slides to see how to create polls.