Gaining actionable insights in staff meetings

Gaining actionable insights in staff meetings
St. Basil’s Primary School
Location
England
Size
10+
Use case
K-12

Poll Everywhere was the easiest way to get feedback very quickly from people who were using a range of devices, whether it was a laptop or a phone or a combination of both. Having the ability to submit a response via text was an added benefit too.

Andrew Wood, a teacher at St. Basil’s Primary School, introduced Poll Everywhere as a creative way to spark discussions in virtual staff meetings. “Everyone was either very quiet and not contributing much to the discussion that we would normally have in person, or talking all at once. The headteacher asked me to take a look at options which would allow us to conduct the meetings differently.”

Engaging everyone in key discussions

The staff at St. Basil’s has been participating in online training courses over the last few months. Led by either the headteacher or a staff member, these sessions include Poll Everywhere activities at the end of the PowerPoint presentation designed to gather feedback and brainstorm ways to apply the topics to the school’s curriculum. “We needed to start using a platform quickly that would be intuitive for a lot of people, so it was really easy to set up my Poll Everywhere account and get started.”

Andrew typically shares his screen during staff meetings and manages the responses coming in. He uses a variety of activity types, from word clouds to Q&As to clickable images.

I like the ability to embed activities into PowerPoint in advance, but also how easy it is to create a new question off the cuff as a topic comes up in conversation. It’s the best of both worlds.

Generating lasting insights

After staff meetings, Andrew has been exporting results and sending them to the meeting leader. “It helps them plan their curriculum and get an understanding of how the staff is feeling about certain topics overall.”

Even with a wide range of technology experience and the rapid transition to remote work, staff members have been adopting Poll Everywhere seamlessly. “Everyone’s been able to respond really quickly. There were no issues with downloading the app or submitting responses, even though participants had a range of IT proficiency.”

After integrating Poll Everywhere successfully over the last few months, Andrew is looking into new ways to incorporate it in more faculty meetings and even the classroom. “Now that we’re working through privacy concerns related to e-learning and starting to return to school, I’m looking into the possibility of bringing Poll Everywhere into class with the devices the children can use. Because it’s so easy to integrate into PowerPoint, you can build student interaction into the lesson.”

Andrew’s advice for other educators is to “take some time to try out the different activity types and settings so you can decide the best way to present the data.”

Poll Everywhere in the classroom

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