Polling is an effective way of engaging students with their learning. You can use polls in a synchronous or asynchronous way to gather responses from students quickly and sometimes anonymously.
In Microsoft Teams, using polling tools is a great way to gather opinions from students, and this can be done through the channels, through the chat, or in a live session. Below you can find some of the tools that work well in Teams.
Mentimeter is an online polling tool which the Digital Education Office (DEO) acquired in 2021. It also works well as a presentation tool which you can use instead of PowerPoint. See how to get an account and use Mentimeter.
Mentimeter has an app in Teams which it is possible to use. However, if you want to use Menti in a live session you can screenshare your Menti presentation so that the students can see the live results. Alternatively, you can create a link to share with your students that you can add to your Team’s chat or one of the channels.
TurningPoint is another polling system that we have a campus wide licence for at the University. TurningPoint is best for synchronous teaching sessions. If you already use TurningPoint with PowerPoint, and you are running a live session, you can use Teams to screenshare your presentation and allow the students to poll through their mobile devices by going to ttpoll.eu.
Microsoft Forms, part of the O365 suite, is another great polling tool that can be used very easily in Teams. A form can be added to the chat, but if you wanted to add something into a channel you can use the app when you start a new conversation. The polling and responses will then appear in the channel.
Some Schools have bought licences to use PollEverywhere in their teaching. You can add a PollEv poll into the channels of Teams when you start a new conversation. The DEO don’t support this tool.
