We discussed the importance of opportunities to respond and how to use Choral Responding to effectively target this essential educator practice in this post. Response cards are another high-leverage practice (HLP) that fast-tracks learning by increasing opportunities to respond in the lesson.
Response cards follow the same three steps as Choral Responding:
Teacher question (prompt)
All students answer (response)
Teacher responds to the student answers (feedback)
However, these two instructional strategies differ in that Response Cards allow students to respond visually instead of verbally. This supports our teaching by expanding the type of questions that can be used when engaging your learners with the content. You are no longer limited to questions that can only be answered with 1 - 3 specific words that can be said in unison by the class.
With response cards you can ask questions that:
Have a wide variety of correct responses
ex. when reading this passage, what character is most prominent to you?
Require more than 3 words to answer
ex. write a sentence using the vocabulary word __________________.
Have multi-step answers
ex. solve this equation ______________________.
Response Card Options
Write on response cards
This can be any medium where students have the ability to write, display, and erase the answer to use again for the next question. There are a variety of ways to do this using dry erase markers.
Small dry erase boards
Clear sheet protectors with paper inserted
Plastic plates
Socks, tissues, erasers,
Pre-printed response cards
These cards have answer options printed on them and do not require any writing. They can be two-sided with "True" on one side and "False" on the other. You can expand the response options with True, False, and A, B, C, D.
Print the cards on paper (click each image to access a free .pdf download), fold in half, and distribute to each student. Now you are able to verbally ask or display questions on a screen with multiple answer options.
To extend the durability of the pre-printed response cards, print them on a heavy card stock or laminate an entire set to use throughout the year.
Digital response cards
There are a variety of apps, websites, all-in-one student "clicker" systems that allow you to display questions and have the students respond digitally. These tools have rapidly expanded over the years no longer requiring additional equipment with schools implementing 1:1 technology initiatives and many students having cell phones in school (if your school allows this).
Students may find using technology during instruction engaging and many versions have a "gamification" element. The clear advantage of a digital system is that you have the ability to set up student accounts/assign student numbers to collect each individual response over time. Having access to these data provide you the opportunity to review the performance data to quickly know which students have acquired the content and which students are not yet proficient. The disadvantage is the time required to set up the questions and devices in advance along with requiring a digital display for the questions to be presented to the students.
Here are 4 of the many web-based options you can use (note: many have pricing plans):
Regardless of which type of response card you integrate into your instruction, this strategy is one of the most efficient ways to support student success through increasing opportunities to respond.
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