Interactive Data LessonsWhen teaching lessons, I love to poll the audience. It is great to see how students feel about a topic and using that data to drive future discussions and lessons. Not only that, but live data is intriguing for students. It is relevant to them; it is their voice.
The funny part is that I was doing this long before awesome tools like Google Forms and Google Classroom existed. I just made columns on the board and had students cast their vote by writing their name or using a sticky note. We would then pull the data together to form graphs so we could represent the data. On a big data analysis lesson, we would create polls on paper and have students walk around to each paper to cast their votes on various topics. Students love to create graphs on data that is relevant to them.
Google Forms Saves the Day!Now with Google Forms, the entire process is streamlined. Teachers have been using Google Forms for the purpose of gathering data for quite some time. They can make a variety of assessments or use it for polling the audience. Either way, data is quickly gathered and easily analyzed as it pushes into a Google Sheet. If you are unfamiliar with Google Forms, I recommend learning how to use it first by visiting my Blog Post on the new version of Google Forms.
After you create your form, I recommend creating your spreadsheet destination right away. In the activity demonstrated in my video below, you need to be able to share the data with students right away. So if you are looking at the new Google Forms, here is how to quickly create your response sheet.
|Create Your Spreadsheet|
In my video, I demonstrate how to setup a Google Form in Google Classroom so that students can quickly participate in a poll/survey and see the results. Then students can make a copy of the spreadsheet of data to create their own charts to better represent the dataset.
New to Google Sheets?
If your students are new to creating charts in Google Sheets, have no fear. Start with simple pieces of data. It is as simple as highlighting a column of data, clicking on "insert", and "chart." Not sure how to get started? Here is a quick tutorial on making a chart.
Don't Have Time to Make a Chart?
No problem. The summary of responses will create instant charts. Just click on "Form" and then move down to "Summary of Responses" to view instant graphs.