Nearpod - Allowing Students to Work at Their Own Pace

After giving the Quizizz Pre-Assessment on square and cube roots, Ms. Wilson and I decided the students needed a refresher on evaluating square and cube roots.  Since the students were all taught how to evaluate square and cube roots in Pre-Algebra last year we wanted to design something where students were encouraged to work at their own pace but collaborate if needed.  We decided to use Nearpod.  We focused just on square roots, which was enough content for one class period and an extra 30 minute extension period.

Link to Nearpod Activity
Link to Nearpod Data

When we planned this activity, we originally felt it fell under 3 of the 21st Century Learning competencies:

1. Collaboration:  Even though students had their own devices, we encouraged them more than once to ask questions of and discuss with their partners during class.  However, due to the headphones (so they could watch the videos embedded in Nearpod) students did not engage so this activity didn't really lend itself to collaboration like we originally thought.
2. Knowledge Construction:  Even though students were introduced to evaluating square roots the previous school year, it was obvious from our pre-assessment that they had not retained the knowledge.  Therefore, we wanted to go beyond just telling them what the perfect squares were.  We asked them questions like, "What is the difference between (-5)^2 and -5^2?", "How would your answer differ if you were asked to solve for the square root of 36 versus x^2=36?" and "Evaluate the square root of 75.  Explain how you got your answer." in order to encourage knowledge construction instead of just memorizing rules and tricks.
3. Use of Technology for Learning:  In this activity, technology supported students' knowledge construction because students were able to re-watch videos within the Nearpod and go to other websites if they still did not understand the content being presented. 

I do want to note a couple of glitches that we ran into while using Nearpod:

• We learned very quickly that we needed to run the Nearpod in "homework mode" if we wanted students to be able to move at their own pace rather than "live mode" even though they were not doing it for homework.
• Student work did not save between the initial class and the 30 minute extension class.  We sent an email to Nearpod asking them to troubleshoot this issue for the future.

Finally, some comments from the students regarding the use of Nearpod that they posted in Google Classroom:

• "This lesson was very helpful. It helped me with learning these exponents and equations quickly with ease. Also it was easy to get your attention when I needed help while normally its hard to get your attention."
•  "Honestly this is better than ed puzzle. It's more interactive for learning . It's cool."
• "I liked this activity because the videos explained the topic really well. It took a long time but it was good so it could help us understand more. I personally liked it better than the teacher standing at the front of the classroom. This is because we have to wait for EVERYONE to understand."