Increasing pupil engagement with ClassFlow

Keeping pupils interested can be difficult, even for the most experienced of teachers. Helping to improve classroom engagement, ClassFlow is the one-stop-shop for all your educational technology needs.

The Challenge

Engaging pupils remains one of the biggest challenges facing teachers today, with technology increasingly touted as a way to solve this problem.

Today’s younger generation has grown up surrounded by tech, both at home and in the classroom. By incorporating real-world technology into lessons, teachers can uncover fresh ways to keep pupils engaged; adding extra value and relevance to lessons in a way that is both mentally stimulating and fun.

By incorporating real-world technology into lessons, teachers can uncover fresh ways to keep pupils engaged

But engagement alone is not enough.

In addition to having fun, being collaborative, and increasing communication and interaction, teachers also need technology designed with them in mind, with real education benefits and established learning outcomes.

The Solution

ClassFlow delivers increased engagement while facilitating effective teaching and dynamic learning. Creating a collaborative learning environment, ClassFlow ensures the active participation of each and every pupil.

With ClassFlow you can improve pupil engagement by:

• Delivering interactive lessons with the dynamic flow of information between teacher and student devices (e.g. Interactive Whiteboards, Promethean ActivBoard, iPads, ActivPanel, notebooks, laptops, Chromebooks, etc.)
• Sharing digital content such as videos and images, quickly and easily
• Customising content, tasks and lessons depending on the ability of each pupil/groups of pupils
• Creating interactive polls, quizzes and team-based activities
• Sharing learning in real-time with the whole classroom, increasing class discussion and participation
• Allowing pupils to learn the way they do at home, extending learning beyond the classroom, and instilling independent problem-solving skills.

How it works

1. Use existing lesson content in ClassFlow to increase engagement

As a teacher, you have been using key resources successfully for years, and you don’t need technology telling you how or what you should be teaching. With ClassFlow, you don’t have to lose these valuable resources.

By enhancing, rather than replacing what you are already doing, you can incorporate your videos, Google Docs, PDFs, images, etc. into your digital lessons, generating increased levels of engagement from your tried and tested content.

However, as well as incorporating existing content into lessons, ClassFlow also provides access to a plethora of additional resources and the latest web content – without leaving the platform – helping to supplement your lessons.

Adding your current content into ClassFlow is easy:

• Go to Resources and open the lesson you want to add content to
• Click on the card you want to add this content to
• Click Insert on the toolbar and select the content you want to add (either as an upload from your computer or from within ClassFlow resources)
• Select Insert to add your content to a lesson.

2. Add photos and videos to increase engagement

Today’s pupils routinely use video and image sharing applications such as Instagram and YouTube. No longer a passive form of entertainment, instead, they are a mode of communication. Therefore, when seeking to increase engagement, it makes sense for you to use visual mediums within your lessons.

Studies also demonstrate a link between visual clues, the memory process, and the recall of new knowledge, and there is substantial evidence indicating that video can inspire and engage when incorporated into student-centred learning activities.

To add videos or images to your ClassFlow lessons:

• Go to Resources and open the lesson you want to add an image or video to
• Click on the card you want to add this content to
• Click Insert on the toolbar and select the image or video that you want to add (either as an upload from your computer or from within ClassFlow resources). Alternatively, you can use the dropdown functionality to search Bing or YouTube for a suitable image/video
• Drag and drop the image/video to add it to your lesson
• Once done, you can easily resize and move the image/video into the desired position.

3. Use fun quizzes and assessments to improve engagement

For many pupils, assessments can be stressful. However, with frequent quizzes beneficial to learning, technology can help teachers to engage students, while gathering insight into their progress.

Facilitating active participation by pupils and instant assessment by teachers, ClassFlow allows you to mark and collate responses at the moment of learning, in real-time. By immediately identifying and addressing any gaps in knowledge, you can then tailor lessons to the real needs of each pupil, helping to keep them engaged.

What’s more, by sharing learning and incorporating answers in real-time, with the whole class, ClassFlow stimulates discussion and participation, giving pupils a real stake in each lesson.

ClassFlow Assessment Builder can also be used to increase engagement by letting you set different questions for individual pupils (or groups of pupils) depending on their ability. By assessing students in a manner appropriate to them, pupils are less likely to become frustrated and disengaged.

To add fun quizzes and assessments to your ClassFlow lessons:

• Go to Resources and open the lesson you want to add questions to
• Click on the card you want to add questions to
• Select Add Questions in the toolbar to go to the Assessment Builder. Here you can set the parameters for the assessment
• Select Add to create a new question
• Select the question type (e.g. text, multiple choice, creative response etc.)
• Complete the process, adding as many fields as needed depending on the question type
• Add the appropriate scoring details and click Save
• Repeat until you have added all your questions
• Click Exit and return to your lesson (with the assessment now included).

4. Use Instant Whiteboarding to improve engagement

The ClassFlow whiteboard is built for engagement. The chalkboard has gone digital, and today, you can easily add image files and videos by dragging and dropping them onto the screen.

Rather than being a one-user device, Instant Whiteboard also offers pupils the ability to send work directly to their teacher for instant inclusion in lessons – improving engagement even further.

Giving you a blank-canvass to write on, by starting a pupil collaboration or brainstorming session, you can turn ClassFlow’s Instant Whiteboard into an interactive digital canvass, promoting deeper learning and engagement.

To run an Instant Whiteboard session:

• Select the Whiteboard icon
• The Instant Whiteboard will open with the Pen tool selected
• Deliver your lesson and start annotating, or select Pen again to change the colour or width, or select the Highlighter tool
• When done select Clear All Annotations to clear the display, or select Eraser to remove selected annotations
• When you exit the Instant Whiteboard Presenter, the lesson will be saved in ClassFlow. This gives you the option to edit the lesson or play it again.

Results

Facilitating interaction and collaborative learning, ClassFlow lets pupils play an active part in their studies, increasing the depth of student engagement.

By allowing teachers to import or create lessons into one, comprehensive and easy to use learning platform, ClassFlow’s strength lies in the enhancement, not replacement of more traditional teaching methods. In short, teachers remain in control of their lessons and established learning outcomes at all times.

Simple to adopt, ClassFlow doesn’t require any change in teaching approach – it is simply an enablement tool – with teachers helped every step of the way with a wealth of support resources.

Sign-up to try out ClassFlow today and uncover the benefits for yourself – it’s free!