How to use our traffic light feature most effectively
AB Tutor’s traffic light feature is a handy tool for teachers to gain valuable information from students. Whether it is lesson feedback or answers to questions within the lesson, the feature facilitates the teacher’s job a lot more, which may, by extension ameliorate a student’s participation in the lesson. It provides the student with three options on their screen; These involve a green light, amber light and red light, which can mean a lot of things for the teacher, dependant on how they explain which button means what. So, what are the most effective uses of it?
1) Firstly, it can be used at the end of the lesson, for the teacher to obtain feedback. Now, there are a vast amount of cases where students feel disheartened at the thought of putting their hand up and letting the teacher know that they don’t understand something. This only has a negative effect on the student, as they can easily fall behind on the work. In order to prevent this from happening, the teacher can ask at the end of the lesson, or even after certain points that the class have gone through, questions that can gather a full understanding on a single student’s perception of the work.
2) A couple examples of a great question to ask would be something on the lines of ‘How did you find the test?’ or ‘How confident do you feel with this topic?’. The students can then choose one of the lights, the green one being a good understanding, the amber one being that they get some parts but not all, and finally the red, being that they are completely lost. From the teacher’s computer, they can see which student put what, and therefore are aware of which students struggle with certain topics or points. The feedback is anonymous towards other students and therefore certain students can’t be pointed out as not understanding the work. In addition, it builds trust between the student and teacher, and a good relationship is crucial to produce high motivation and effort levels.
3) Another way in which it can be used is to quiz the students. The teacher can read out a question with three multiple answers, and assign an answer to one of the lights. Giving a simple example, a question may read ‘What is 12 + 7’, and the teacher can assign the correct answer to a light, and consequently can identify who got the answer wrong, and who got the answer right. Similar to our point made before, this idea can be better than asking a student the question in front of the class, as they may feel scared to get it wrong. With the feature, it prevents this, as the answer can only be seen by the teacher. Ultimately, the variation helps maintain motivation within the classroom.
4) Finally, it can be used to spot feedback patterns from the students. For example, if you try a new teaching technique one lesson, and ask for feedback on it using the traffic light feature. You can see which students like the technique, and which ones dislike it. After trying a few teaching techniques, you’ll be ale to familiarise yourself with each student’s most effective learning technique, and take advantage of it by using that technique for the student. However, we cannot go off the basis that since most of the class enjoyed a certain technique, you must use it from now on. This is definitely not the case, as the ‘One size fits all’ technique can lead to a stunt in the minority of the student’s educational progress. The key lesson here, is variation, as we don’t want students to lose motivation and fall behind in class.
Be creative. Use our traffic light feature to your desired choices, but keep on mind some of the best techniques that help both the students and teachers carry out their job most effectively. Please feel free to call our support line for more information or view the range of Youtube videos available on our channel @ABTutor.