Carmen has been an adjunct professor in the College Now program at the College of Staten Island for two years and counting. She teaches introductory psychology courses with hopes to diversify in the future. She earned her BA in Psychology from Stony Brook University and her MS in Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences from CUNY Graduate Center. While much of her experience centers on educational research, teaching is a true passion for her.
Course Setting
I appreciate how creative my CN students are and how perceptive their questions are. The psychology department designed this course with assignments that give students tools to succeed in future college courses, such as time management and working with relevant applications like PowerPoint. Given that our classes are 100% on Zoom, they seem hesitant to participate. Many students have competing priorities, like sports, arts, extracurricular activities, or pre-college activities. Given the number of hats they wear, the fact that they still show eagerness to learn about psychology is truly impressive.
Problem of Practice
I have a detailed syllabus that outlines how to succeed in the class, plus abundant resources to help my students succeed – but I still get clarifying questions and things students have missed. Reminders at the end of every class about upcoming due dates were simply not enough. After lots of recommendations, I decided to try making a game to identify resources during the Zoom class. Using MentiMeter, a customizable poll in various formats, everyone’s responses become visible in real-time. MentiMeter also helped create an interactive shared experience among the students.
Focus Question: How can I support my students in managing and identifying the abundance of resources available to them to help them succeed in my class?
Strategy
Previously, I would end class with a PowerPoint slide listing the next assignment due date. The choice to present at the end was due to research on the recency effect — the likelihood of remembering the last thing you hear. To address the PoP, I shifted the intervention to the beginning of class — the primacy effect.
I designed a brief 2-3 question survey on useful information via MentiMeter. This is a platform where participants can either join via QR code or a code that brings everyone together. As you answer the question, your responses appear on the screen along with everyone else’s. One example was a multiple-choice question: “Where can you submit the Willowbrook presentation?” Upon seeing how well the students responded to this activity, I started asking them more ice-breaker, bonding questions, like, “Tap on this map wherever you dream of visiting.” I found that the combination of productivity and doing this first really brought the students out of their shells more for the rest of the class in terms of participation, as well as reduced much confusion on the assignments.
Documentation
Class Map: Tap Somewhere you’ve dreamed of Visiting
This was an ice-breaker question, the white dots are where students tapped their responses to the question, “Tap somewhere you've dreamed of visiting.”
Figure #1: Tap Somewhere You've Dreamed of Visiting
Measurement
Mentimeter
MentiMeter is an online tool for gathering information from participants. It offers a lot of data extraction options. In future semesters, I plan to keep a log throughout the semester of participation trends, what kind of questions to students like the most, and which activities help keep them engaged/informed.
Figure #2: Mentimeter
Analysis
The interactive polling strategy seemed effective in increasing participation! That wasn’t quite the PoP, but it was still addressed, as students seemed to be able to locate resources independently. The assignments were all submitted in Brightspace, and any email queries were either for late work or for feedback. The polling activity led to increased class participation, mostly via Zoom chat and emoticon reactions. This enhanced the student learning experience by opening the door to questions and comments on the class material, which stimulated rich discussions and generally made me feel closer to them.
I took the opportunity to collect some student feedback on the course and College Now as a whole. Most students had only positive comments to share — which may be a limitation of the MentiMeter — but some reported wishing there were more options in psychology beyond introductory courses. This naturally led to more discussion, as I took the opportunity to explain that they would have more advanced psychology courses in their undergraduate careers. In fact, this led to even more discussions and questions about college as a whole, like class selection.
In the future, I’d like to structure the class so that I create intentional space for any questions they may have about the course and beyond.
Recommendation
If anyone wants to use MentiMeter or another interactive poll where the answers are seen on screen, be mindful of the questions you ask. Know how to ask the best questions.
