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Lockstep: The Workflow

The first thing to do, of course, is to get the students all logged in. I discussed this in another article, so I won't repeat that here.

Create the Activity

If you're doing this as a quiz activity, prepare a generic quiz with random answers. The default quiz activity is probably fine here (with the question simply, "Answer the teacher's question", and the options listed as A, B, C, D and E). Print out a copy of the quiz so that you know which options are the correct ones. (Home Menu, under "Quizzes", choose "List all the quizzes", select it, choose "See Full Quiz", then from your browser's File menu, choose "Print"). Keep this ready during your class, so that it's easy to refer to.

If you're doing this as a survey activity, follow the advice above for quizzes. You may want to think about how many options to include. You probably will not need all 9 options for every question.

Ask the Question

When it's time to ask a question, inform the students that a question is coming. Hopefully, they're all already logged in and the question page is ready in their browser.

You can simply say the question and options aloud, but having them written out helps avoid confusion. The best option is to plan ahead, so that the questions and options are already prepared in a format that's easy for you to show to all of the students. You could also just write the options on the board.

Analyze the Results

When you ask the question, give them a minute or two to answer. Then, you should look at the results.

• If it's a quiz activity, you can see how many of them answered correctly the first time, and how many needed more than one chance to answer correctly (Home Menu, under "Quizzes", choose "See quiz results", choose the relevant quiz. Refresh the page for the latest results). You can choose to tell students how many of them got it right the first time.
• If it's a survey activity, each student can only answer one time, and you'll be able to see how many students chose each option (Home Menu, under "Surveys", choose "See survey results", choose the relevant survey. Refresh the page for the latest results). You can show the results page to the students, and you may be able to show them a pie chart of the results (this depends on your browser capabilities; it'll work with Safari and Firefox, but not with MS Explorer).

While you're doing this, be sure that students aren't falling behind or getting ahead. Be unambiguous about which question you're working on.

Leftover Questions?

At the end, if you have questions left unused in a quiz, you should try to use them up if you're going to be adding these results to the student gradebook. Maybe a series of review questions would be the way to go here. If it's a survey, there's less of a problem with unanswered questions, because students can get a participation point for every question answered, and that doesn't depend on the entire survey being finished. However, it's a good opportunitiy for a quick feedback session, asking questions about the lesson ("Do you think you learned something?", "Were the questions too difficult?").