One of the major challenges of distance learning is tracking participation and attendance during synchronous lectures. Instructors can track attendance by checking the number of students attending the live stream but there is little to no way to tell if they are actively listening. With Poll Everywhere, instructors can engage students by asking questions that are specific to material presented during the live session. That way, credit is given to those who are actively paying attention and not those who have instructors on mute.
Before you use Poll Everywhere for attendance, you must first create a Participant group for each of your courses with the appropriate students in it. Sorting your students into Participant Groups is the only way to tell if a student has not replied to any polls in the Gradebook report. Review how to create Participant groups in the Getting Started section of the guide.
Check out our blog for a detailed breakdown of how to take attendance online. Here’s a brief summary:
- Register students with Poll Everywhere. You must do this step to see their names after you take attendance.
- Create and present your attendance activity.
- Review attendance scores with a Gradebook report
There are a few steps you can take to prevent cheating while taking attendance:
- Enable registered participants only to ensure that only those registered for that specific class can participate
- Hide activity title from participant devices so that only students who can see your presentation screen will see the title of the activity. Note: This feature is only available for University-wide accounts.
- Set a timer of 30-45 seconds so students cannot switch accounts and respond for their classmates. The timer can be found in the bottom left corner of the activity.
