Polling in Zoom is an effective way to add interaction to online learning and gather input from learners. It can help you understand your students views on a specific topic or question that you discussed during a synchronous session. According to Levy (2020), polling can help you:
- Promote participation from all students in the session.
- Foster student engagement with the content.
- Aggregate student views on a particular topic.
- Adapt your lesson plan depending on where your students stand with regards to the topic in discussion.
Types of questions
Zoom only allows multiple or single choice questions in a poll. It’s good practice to not include only questions that are limited to recall of facts, concepts and definitions. With well-constructed questions, you can assess your students’ critical skills and conceptual understanding, as well as aggregate their views, feedback and preferences.
Levy (2020, adapted from Bruff, 2010) identifies the following types of questions (along with examples) you could ask in a poll:
Recall
Example:
Which of the Blue Whale subspecies below are recognised by the Society for Marine Mammalogy’s committee on Taxonomy?
a. B. m. musculus in the North Atlantic and North Pacific
b. B. m. intermedium (the pygmy blue whale) in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean
c. B. m. brevinauda in the Southern Ocean
d. B. m. indira in the waters off Chile
Conceptual understanding
Example:
A paperclip is placed on the surface of a glass of water and does not sink. Which of the following is an accurate description as to why?
a. The paperclip’s density is less then that of water, so the paperclip floats with most of its volume above the water.
b. The paperclip’s metallic perimeter acts as a surfactant, continuously sliding water under the paperclip and keeping the paperclip afloat.
c. The paperclip’s weight dimples the surface, and the surface’s resistance to an increased area keeps the paperclip above the surface.
d. The paperclip’s shape traps air bubbles along its length, keeping it from sinking even though the paperclip has a density that is higher than water.
(source: Raghuveer Parthasarathy)
Application
Example:
Nick would like to have an annual pension income of £25,000 per year, in addition to the state pension. He plans to retire at age 65. He has been quoted some annuity rates. How much would he need in his pension pot to buy a single annuity, just for himself, with 2% escalation and no guarantee?
a. £585,480
b. £569,887
c. £650,477
d. £282,214
Student perspectives
Example:
If you were the gatekeeper of the App Store, would you allow this app to be available for download?
a. Yes
b. No
Student preferences
Example:
Which of the following topics would you prefer to discuss in our next session?
a. Life Assurance
b. Budgeting
c. Investments
d. Annuity
Confidence level
Example:
How confident are you in your answer to the previous question?
a. Very confident
b. Confident
c. Somewhat confident
d. Not confident
Feedback/monitoring questions
Example:
How difficult was last week’s assignment?
a. Very easy
b. Easy
c. Just right
d. Difficult
e. Very difficult
Enabling the polling feature
The polling feature is enabled by default for all Brookes Zoom accounts and cannot be disabled. To see the polling feature in your Zoom meeting, you need to schedule the meeting in advance, either via Moodle or brookes.zoom.us for non-Moodle related meetings.
Adding polls to your Zoom meeting
Preparing polls in advance for meetings in Moodle
In your Moodle course:
- Schedule a new Zoom meeting from within the Zoom LTI activity.
- Once you schedule the meeting and save it, scroll to the bottom and click Download CSV template.
If you wish to add polls to meetings that you have already scheduled, click on the Zoom LTI activity and then click on the (blue) title of the meeting. Then scroll to the bottom to download the CSV template.
- Open the CSV template with Microsoft Excel (opens in new tab) and populate it with your polls.
Populating the poll CSV template
The template consists of 4 columns:
- Title: give a title to your poll. When you start a new poll with a new title, always start in a new row. Pro tip: if you run polls at different intervals during your session, you can add the time in brackets to help you remember which poll you need to launch.
- Questions name: type the question as you would like your students to see it in a new row, i.e. not in the same row with the poll title.
- Questions type: in the same row with the question, write
– multiple (all lowercase) if you wish students to be able to choose multiple answers or
– single (all lowercase) if you wish students to be able to choose only one answer. - Answers: type the answers that your students will choose from; always type each answer in a new row.
Each poll can have multiple questions and all questions of a poll will appear at the same time when you launch the poll during the live session.
If you wish to ask your students, for example, 3 questions at certain intervals during the meeting, then you need to have 3 polls with one question each, not 1 poll with 3 questions.
- Once done, save the CSV file and return to Moodle.
- Click on the (blue) title of the meeting within the Zoom LTI activity and scroll to the bottom.
- Click Import CSV.
- The polls will appear at the bottom of the screen.
Preparing polls in advance for meetings outside Moodle
In the Brookes Zoom web portal:
- Click Meetings from the left-hand sidebar.
- Click Schedule a new meeting on the right.
- Once you have chosen your settings in the scheduler, click Save.
- Scroll to the bottom and click Add.
If you wish to add polls to meetings that you have already scheduled, click on the title of the meeting (don’t click Edit next to the title), then scroll to the bottom and click Add.
- Give a title to your poll. Pro tip: if you run polls at different intervals during your session, you can add the time in brackets to help you remember which poll you need to launch.
- Tick the box next to Anonymous if you would like the poll report to not contain any student names.
- Type your question.
- Choose:
– multiple if you wish students to be able to choose multiple answers.
– single if you wish students to be able to choose only one answer. - Type each answer in the relevant field.
- If you wish to add another question to the same poll, click Add a Question.
- Click Save.
Each poll can have multiple questions and all questions of a poll will appear, one after the other, when you launch the poll during the live session.
If you wish to ask your students, for example, 3 questions at certain intervals during the meeting, then you need to have 3 polls with one question each, not 1 poll with 3 questions.
Setting up polls spontaneously in the live session
While we recommend to prepare your polls in advance, so they are ready to launch during the live session, you can also add a quick poll spontaneously while you are running the session:
- Start the Zoom meeting.
- Click Polling at the bottom of the window.
- In the pop-up window click Edit next to Poll 1.
- Don’t close the pop-up window. Move it to the side as shown in the video above.
- Give a title to your poll.
- Tick the box next to Anonymous if you would like the poll report to not contain any student names.
- Type your question.
- Choose:
– multiple if you wish students to be able to choose multiple answers.
– single if you wish students to be able to choose only one answer. - Type each answer in the relevant field.
- If you wish to add another question to the same poll, click Add a Question.
- Click Save.
Launching and ending polls in the live session
When you ready to show the poll to students:
- Click Polling at the bottom of the window.
- Click Launch.
- If you have more than one polls, click on the poll to reveal the associated question(s) and then click Launch.
As your students give their answers, the poll results will get populated with the number and the percentage of students who chose each answer.
- When you are finished click End Poll (red button).
- In the poll results, click Share Results to share the poll results with students.
To continue your session, close the Polling window.
Downloading the poll report
We recommend reading Zoom’s notes about reports: Generating meeting reports for registration and polling.
If you scheduled the meeting in Moodle:
- Click on the Zoom LTI activity in your Moodle course.
- Click Previous Meetings and find the meeting you need the report for.
- Click Report on the right of the meeting.
- Click Poll Report.
- To download the report, click Export as CSV file.
If you scheduled the meeting via the Brookes Zoom portal:
- Go to brookes.zoom.us
- Click Reports on the left.
- Click Meeting.
- For Report Type, tick Poll Report.
- Choose the date range and click Search.
- Find the meeting you need to generate the polling report for.
- Click Generate on the right of the meeting.
If you wish to generate polling reports for multiple meetings at once, tick the boxes on the left for all the meeting you need a report, then click Generate.
- Click Download on the right to download the report.
Note: If the poll was anonymous, it will show “anonymous” for the participants’ names and email addresses.
References
Bruff, D. (2010). Classroom Response Systems (“Clickers”). Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved 8 March 2021 from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/clickers/.
Levy, D. (2020). Teaching effectively with Zoom. 1st edn. Printed by the author.