About the study

Filipino students from Our Lady of Fatima University (OLFU) in Valenzuela City participated in a study highlighting Nearpod’s effectiveness. The study interviewed 224 students who had used Nearpod consistently for over four months. Their positive feedback emphasized how Nearpod significantly improved their learning journey across social motivation, creative expression, and personalization. This research aligns with David Havens’ framework, advocating for technology tools that encompass these crucial aspects in the classroom.

Empowering Filipino higher ed students: Nearpod’s role in transformative learning, motivation, and creativity

Several factors contribute to the effectiveness of a technological tool in education. First, it should facilitate a shift from traditional teaching methods to more progressive ones, fostering innovation and engagement in the learning process. Second, it should sustain student motivation, whether in the context of distance learning or face-to-face instruction, ensuring that learners remain eager and committed to their studies. Additionally, it should influence the development of 21st-century skills in students, preparing them for the demands of the modern world. Last, the use of technological tools, such as Nearpod, often reveals unforeseen benefits that enhance the overall educational experience, making it a valuable asset in contemporary classrooms.

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Key research questions

This research study aimed to explore the perspectives and experiences of college students who have incorporated Nearpod into their classroom activities. The exploration is guided by three key research questions:

• How do college students who used Nearpod in their classes feel about Nearpod in terms of social motivation, creativity, and personalization? This question aimed to uncover the students’ perceptions regarding Nearpod’s impact on aspects such as social interaction, creative engagement, and personalized learning experiences.
• How do students describe their experience with Nearpod? Here, the focus is on gathering in-depth descriptions of students’ personal encounters with Nearpod, providing valuable insights into their overall experiences and interactions with the platform.
• What are the students’ favorite things about working with Nearpod? This question aimed to pinpoint specific aspects or features of Nearpod that resonate most with students, shedding light on the elements that contribute to their positive perceptions and preferences within the platform.

Key findings

Boosted students’ social motivation

Social motivation is basically any motive that is acquired by interaction with others. Peer interaction is a big part of the learning journey, which is why most traditional and non-traditional learning cultures emphasize the importance of teamwork and group activity.

The study asked students if, during Nearpod activities like Collaborate Board, Quizzes, and responses shared on Time of Climb, students interacted with their peers in a way that helped them learn. An impressive 96% said that they often or sometimes did. When asked about their preferred aspect of using Nearpod, the three leading responses comprised engaging activities, chances for creativity and self-expression, and the user-friendly interface it offers.

When asked about their preferred aspect of using Nearpod, the three leading responses comprised engaging activities, chances for creativity and self-expression, and the user-friendly interface it offers.

• 99.5% of the students felt that their teacher knew how they were doing with the material or lesson some or most of the time while using Nearpod.
• 95% of the students said that someone (teacher/peers) would see the work they did during Nearpod activities.

Nearpod enables proactive tracking of teacher-student interaction, while also fostering social motivation through peer engagement. This social motivation, arising from interactions with others, is substantially important to the learning process, as evidenced by both traditional and non-traditional educational approaches that prioritize teamwork and group activities as integral components of the learning journey.

The teacher remains an integral part of the student journey, easing the fear that education technology could make teachers redundant. Most of the time, or sometimes, the teacher knew how the students were doing with their lesson.

Ignited student creativity

Creative forms of learning enable the lessons to stick far longer. Nearpod offers students various avenues to stretch their creative muscles and learn while at it. By incorporating interactive activities, multimedia presentations, and collaborative projects, Nearpod empowers students to engage with educational content in innovative ways, enhancing their retention and comprehension. This approach not only makes learning enjoyable but also cultivates a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

• 97% of the students said they can express themselves creatively using Nearpod. 
• 67% of the students claimed that Nearpod provided them avenues to express themselves creatively more than other classroom activities.

Supported personalization and embracing student individuality

Recognizing the individuality of each student and acknowledging the diversity in learning speeds and abilities, Nearpod’s educational tools stand out in their commitment to personalized learning. While tailoring lessons to cater to every inquisitive mind might present challenges within a traditional classroom setup, Nearpod’s tools have demonstrated remarkable success in this endeavor. In fact, a significant 88% of surveyed students attested that the difficulty level of Nearpod’s activities was perfectly suited to their learning needs.

More than 60% of students experienced a sense of connection with the content and a personal interest in the topics they were learning through the use of Nearpod.

Key results

Faculty members of Our Lady of Fatima University reinforce that Nearpod not only enriches the learning experience but also empowers both students and teachers. It has helped foster a sense of community and collaboration while embracing the unique strengths and needs of each learner. These findings affirm the value of Nearpod in modern education and its potential to shape a more engaging, creative, and personalized learning landscape.

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We know that there are many benefits to integrating educational technology into curriculum and that these benefits extend to both teacher and student. One of the most well-known benefits of educational technology is that it helps instructors to differentiate instruction to multiple types of learning styles while also offering the ability to quickly assess student understanding. However, another major benefit of educational technology is that it also allows the classroom to be anywhere. Having the flexibility to learn when and where it is convenient is something that is becoming increasingly important for adult learners.

Integrating educational technology into curricula helps institutions adapt to the needs of their students while benefiting both the teacher and student. Educational technology, like Nearpod, allows the classroom to exist anywhere and on any schedule. The flexibility of learning when and where convenient allows students to better manage their schedules and opens the door to those who cannot commit to a regularly scheduled in-person class. Additionally, educational technology makes it easier to tailor a course to multiple types of learning styles. Instructors receive real-time insights into student understanding for the entire class, not just the ones willing to speak in front of the class. 

“We were able to decrease face to face time but increase the intensity of learning without being in the physical classroom.”

Dr. Adam Duggan, Dean of Adult Education and Training Services at Mount Wachusett Community College, recognizes the challenges that adult learners at his college face. His commitment to making education accessible to all types of learners is one of the reasons Nearpod appealed to him. After learning about Nearpod, he realized the benefits that adult learners would have by giving them the opportunity to learn from anywhere—not just in the physical classroom. Nicholas Colello, Associate Director of Adult Education and Training Services, also saw the advantages to integrating the Nearpod platform into their courses. Many of their students work part- or full-time jobs and find it challenging to attend class on a consistent basis. 

“Nearpod has allowed us to take a much more creative approach to all of our classes.”

Mount Wachusetts Community College’s diverse group of students have many different needs, ranging from learning to speak English to earning a certification or degree for a career. Dr. Duggan noted that Nearpod has simplified their ability to adapt curriculum to meet the needs of their students. When the college started to look for technological options in 2016, they were introduced to Nearpod by instructors who also taught in K-12 classrooms. The ability to customize lessons to best fit the needs of their students was extremely appealing. Since many of their students are on time constraints, being able to combine lessons and content allows them to maximize learning in a shorter period of time. One of the ways they do this is by combining courses required for a career with English language development content. Nearpod’s integration with Google Slides makes lesson customization easy. By combining content, students are able to study the skills they need for their future job while also working on their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills at the same time. Nearpod’s partnerships with publishers such as Quill, have also helped to strengthen their students’ English development. 

Dr. Duggan and Mr. Colello both believe that Nearpod has allowed them to meet the many different learning needs of their students. The Nearpod platform allows them to capture student understanding for both formal and informal assessment. The Collaborate Board feature has been an extremely useful tool in engaging classroom discussion. Students who generally shied away from speaking during class were more likely to participate in discussion because they could respond anonymously. This was especially true with their English as a second language students. 

Dr. Duggan attributes Nearpod as one of the reasons their students were still able to achieve success in their areas of study when COVID-19 shut down their classrooms. Having instructors and students who were already comfortable using Nearpod made the transition to remote learning easier. The shift to remote learning was so successful that instructors are planning to offer remote learning through Nearpod indefinitely. While some Mount Wachusetts Community College students may still want to attend class in person, instructors recognize that the majority of their students will benefit from being offered a HyFlex learning environment.  

“Nearpod is just as effective outside the classroom as it is inside the classroom.”

Mount Wachusetts Community College also uses Nearpod to gain funding for their programs. In order to receive funding, the college must show that students regularly attend class and track their seat time. Nearpod’s reporting features allow instructors to easily track student usage and attendance. 

Nearpod allows adult learners to further their career goals while getting the flexibility they need to balance both their professional and personal lives.

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Dr. James Gentry, a professor and director of instructional development and course design at TSU, has invested years researching the different types of technology that can be used to enhance classroom instruction. Since arriving at TSU in 2005, he has placed a focus on how technology can be used in the higher education classroom. He feels strongly that it is important to not only use technology to enhance his instruction, but to prepare future K-12 educators to teach in technology-enhanced classrooms. As a member of Texas A&M’s Council on Academic Technology and Innovative Education (CATIE), he collaborates with his peers across the university system to learn how different forms of technology can be used in both classroom instruction and assessment. He also educates his colleagues at TSU on the best practices for integrating technology into their curriculum and instruction.

As a former K-12 educator, Dr. Gentry has seen how the thoughtful use of technology in the classroom has impacted student comprehension and engagement.  He has also observed how technology has changed over the decades. He noted that when he first entered the classroom, his classroom’s technology consisted of a chalkboard and one computer for the entire class to share. He also remembers that if technology needed to be incorporated into a lesson for the entire class, they would utilize the school’s shared computer lab. 

Nowadays, Dr. Gentry has students coming to his classroom with multiple forms of technology—cell phones, laptops, and tablets. He believes that all of these devices have the potential to engage his students in deeper, more meaningful ways. One way he adapted his instruction to accommodate such devices was by weaving Nearpod into his curriculum. He started using Nearpod in this classroom as a way to formally and informally assess students’ understanding of the content he was teaching.  

Dr. Gentry’s background in education means that he understands that students learn in a variety of ways. With class sizes averaging around 30 students, he feels that Nearpod helps him to address all of the different learning styles in this classroom. He also finds the versatility of Nearpod’s features allows him to adapt his curriculum so that it is relevant for his undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students.

“I wanted something easier.” 

Dr. Gentry was impressed by how easy it was to add content and create new activities within Nearpod’s platform. Nearpod’s ability to integrate with Google Slides and the Canvas learning platform was also extremely appealing to him. He appreciates how easy it is to add videos and visuals such as charts or photographs that students encounter during their assigned readings into a lesson on Nearpod. By adding the visuals from their reading into a lesson in Nearpod, he is able to incorporate activities to assess students’ comprehension from the reading. Nearpod formative assessment tools such as polls, open-ended questions, and multiple choice questions allowed him to see student responses in real-time. His students that were less vocal during classroom discussions were more engaged and seemed to feel more comfortable sharing their opinions and ideas on Nearpod’s platform. 

“Nearpod saved me during the pandemic.”

In the Spring of 2020, Dr. Gentry found himself in the same position that the majority of professors and instructors across the country were in. He was thankful that both he and his students were already comfortable using Nearpod before the pandemic started. However, he knew that the way he instructed his students remotely would look a little different. He also knew how important his role was in preparing future educators to enter into classrooms of their own, potentially spending their first year of teaching to students amidst a pandemic. He knew that in addition to building their confidence in curriculum and design, it was now also crucial to teach them how to instruct their future classrooms in hyflex or remote learning situations. He has made it a point to introduce his students to digital technology that they may encounter once they enter their own classrooms and are responsible for educating their own group of students.

When Dr. Gentry’s students transitioned to remote learning, he wanted to ensure that his students were still receiving the same level of instruction as they would have been getting when they were physically in the classroom. He relied on an old instructional method to engage students, which encouraged classroom discussion before, during, and after learning a new concept. This also allowed him to have a better understanding of what students understood before and after learning a new topic. He facilitated these types of discussions where students could share their ideas and opinions through Nearpod’s Collaborate Board feature. 

Dr. Gentry believes that Nearpod is a much more affordable option compared to other digital learning platforms on the market. He also believes that Nearpod has much more to offer thanks to its integration with other tools such as Google Slides. Another benefit for him is that he and his students only need to manage one login to gain access to a multitude of resources. 

With Nearpod, professors save time by streamlining their workflow to create and deliver interactive lessons with one singular platform. They can use this singular platform, instead of many, to find everything they need. It’s in Nearpod.

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HyFlex instruction is a combination of in person instruction and online learning. Students learning online may participate live through video conferencing or watching a recorded video of the instruction. This method of instruction recently became popular among schools across the country due to the pandemic. Universities, which typically have larger class sizes, looked to this method of instruction as a way to continue to safely educate their students. One benefit to HyFlex learning during the pandemic was that it reduced class sizes. HyFlex classrooms allow for part of the class to be physically distanced from one another in the classroom while another group of students learns remotely. 

Dr. Mallinson began implementing Nearpod in the Fall of 2019. He was both curious and hopeful that the platform would increase student engagement in his classroom. With class sizes averaging around 50 students, he believed the platform would allow him to customize content to meet the different needs of his classes and students. He found that the tools and features in Nearpod allowed students to freely share and communicate their ideas. He also noticed that Nearpod made it easier for students to collaborate with one another. Real-time insights delivered in the platform allowed him to assess how well his students were comprehending the information he was teaching based on their responses and engagement through Nearpod activities. 

Nearpod’s platform makes it easy for him to streamline all types of content into one place. Dr. Mallinson uses Nearpod to design his own lessons and embed important videos and links to enhance his curriculum and keep his students up to date on current events. He uses videos from social media platforms such as YouTube and Nearpod’s weblink feature to integrate URLs from various websites.

In addition to using video and website integration, Dr. Mallinson discovered that the collaborative tools that promoted discussion and sharing of ideas within the platform were beneficial to his students. Like most classrooms, Dr. Mallinson has a combination of students who are very vocal and some who are less talkative during discussions. By allowing students to communicate their opinions and thinking through Nearpod, he found that even his most quiet students were given the opportunity to have a voice in his classroom.

“Nearpod allows all of my students to have a voice in the classroom.”

Flash forward to the Spring of 2020. Dr. Mallinson found himself looking for ways to adapt his classroom for remote learning. Nearpod has become an integral tool for that. He already knew that utilizing Nearpod allowed him to quickly assess student understanding through the interactive lessons, interactive videos, gamification, and activities. One of the most beneficial aspects of Nearpod was that it allowed him to continue to hold meaningful discussions with his students, even while they were not physically in the classroom.  

Eventually, Dr. Mallinson had to adapt his instructional model again. During the 2020-2021 school year, Dr. Mallinson continued to use Nearpod as his classroom instruction changed to a HyFlex classroom. This meant that only half of his class was physically present in the classroom at one time. The other half of his students would work remotely from their homes. He found that Nearpod allowed him to continue to have students collaborate together whether they were physically in class or on Zoom. His students were able to continue to share their ideas and respond to questions by using Nearpod’s lesson activity features. Nearpod activity features such as polls, open-ended questions, and Collaborate Boards help him continue to engage with his students no matter where they were located.

“Using Nearpod in a HyFlex classroom made it easier to  engage students both in the classroom and on Zoom.”

Dr. Mallinson describes himself as someone who is passionate about correctly implementing technology in the classroom. Recently, he wanted to investigate how the use of technology in the classroom affected student engagement. He discovered that students were more likely to share ideas, ask questions, and interact with their peers when Nearpod was incorporated into their curriculum. He observed that the classroom discussions that took place within Nearpod gave his students a space to share ideas on how to create change in the world and problem solve. 

Through discussions his students had within Nearpod, he noticed that his students felt more inspired to take more active roles in their communities at the local, state, and national levels.

About Daniel Mallinson:

Daniel Mallinson received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Pennsylvania State University. His expertise lies in state and local politics and policy, with his main research focus examining the mechanics of policy diffusion among the U.S. states. Additional interests include public administration and public policy as well as statistical methodology.

He is particularly interested in Pennsylvania State politics and has experience as an Information Specialist for the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and a Program Analyst for the Office of Inspector General in Philadelphia (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). He has published in a variety of journals, including Policy Studies Journal, State Politics & Policy Quarterly, State & Local Government Review, and Statistics, Policy, & Politics. He received the Robert S. Friedman Award for Excellence in Teaching from Penn State University and has published about pedagogy in political science in PS: Political Science & Politics.

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While the format and content of these courses vary enormously across the US, one strategy that can be useful is modeling beneficial approaches to technology integration. This way, preservice teachers can experience first-hand how technology can be used in their future classrooms to help improve student learning.

Regardless of the structure of these types of courses, odds are, the instructor will need to deliver content, collect feedback, and share resources. Based on these needs, Nearpod can be an excellent tool for both teaching and modeling.

Use Nearpod to deliver instruction and gather feedback data

Nearpod lessons allow teachers to add in a wide variety of content, formative assessment activities, and online resources. Nearpod can handle it all; from website links andYouTube videos, to virtual reality field trips ; which allow instructors to combine and curate a diverse collection of lessons and resources to share with their preservice teachers.

With Nearpod, instructors can easily make their lessons more engaging with Nearpod’s interactive activities, while also gathering formative assessment data to guide further instruction or adjust teaching on the fly. Instructors can pose open-ended discussion questions, send out quizzes, polls,  ask students to collaborate on a question or problem, or do any of Nearpod’s 12+ interactive assessments ; while gathering real-time student feedback.Associate professor Dr. Anne Leftwich of Indiana University explains how her Nearpod lessons benefit from these types of activities:

“What I love most about Nearpod are the interactive activities. These activities force me to think about my lesson and to think about which parts of my lesson can be broken up to give our preservice teachers an opportunity to talk, to discuss, and to collaborate.  I particularly love the drawn response feature, and the Collaborate! feature is just awesome.”

Instructors can also use Nearpod to instantly collect formative assessment feedback from their preservice teachers. Assistant professor Jayme Linton describes how Nearpod is an excellent tool for both teaching and assessing, all without losing a beat:

“Master teachers don’t stop teaching to assess, and stop assessing to teach. Nearpod [lets teachers] seamlessly assess student learning and then use student responses to immediately adjust instruction.”

Dr. Diana Rogers-Adkinson, Dean of the College of Education for Southeast Missouri State University, expands on this idea by discussing how preservice teachers at her university benefit from Nearpod during their first teaching experiences:

“When our preservice teachers are out in the field, they appreciate that they can get just-in-time-feedback.  While they’re teaching, they know if they need to reteach or redo a part of the lesson, because they can see if students didn’t master what they just taught.  We find this to be really beneficial for our first time teachers.”

By allowing instructors to send out polls, start collaboration boards, and ask open-ended questions, Nearpod can provide instant formative assessment feedback on how students are doing with the content at hand. This powerful instructional delivery combination has proven successful for instructors of future educators, as well as current practicing educators in the classroom.

Create a learning environment driven by student feedback data

Nearpod can also be useful in providing transparency in the instructional process. When a course instructor receives formative assessment feedback from their preservice teachers in a Nearpod lesson, they can discuss with their students specifically how they are using that formative assessment data or feedback to make changes to instruction.

By making this process transparent and opening it up to discussion, instructors can model how this type of feedback could be useful in the classroom. Bette Schneiderman and Mike Byrne, who are the Co-Directors of LIU Post’s Educational Technology Program, discuss with their graduate students how data collected through Nearpod’s formative assessments can be used in the classroom:

“Data collection with Nearpod offers extraordinary opportunities to link action and data for evidence with engagement.  We address with our graduate students that data is now being collected everywhere and seemingly on everything (e.g., cars moving through traffic/red lights, purchases online, GPS locations searched, and just about everything able to be collected digitally). We can spend our time and energy looking at useless data or we can create data collection systems that give us the information we find of value. Nearpod lets us do that. We are the designers. We must know what we seek and then create our questions to capture reactions and evidence of learning to the triggers we offer our students. Refining our ability to do that is a skill we think important.”

Instructors can also model the wide variety of interactive features that Nearpod offers. As Laurie Guyon describes, this type of modeling can help spark ideas for how Nearpod can be beneficial for K-12 students:

“[Preservice teachers are] able to see the great ways Nearpod interactive features can encourage engagement and communication of ideas, and then they [get] to jump in by using Collaborate! to share authentically on ways they [feel] Nearpod could be used with students in their future classrooms.”

By modeling these types of practices, preservice teachers can gain a better understanding of the types of instructional approaches they can use in their future classroom.

Make learning active with Nearpod

The US Department of Education suggests that a major focus of preservice teacher education programs should be on “the active use of technology to enable learning and teaching through creation, production, and problem-solving.” Nearpod can be a useful tool for having students create their own lessons and resource collections, making a profound impact on teaching and learning.

When preservice teachers create their own interactive lessons through Nearpod and then deliver those lessons to their peers; this kind of preparation activity can benefit preservice teachers so they experience how things might go in their future classroom.

Nearpod not only offers a way to combine and deliver a variety of digital content; the platform provides instructional power to create interactive and engaging lessons that are perfect for educators and students at all levels..Ready to give Nearpod a try?

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FE Colleges offer courses spanning 16-year-old school leavers through to adult learners in both full-time and part-time study. This creates a  varied cohort of learning types and academic abilities all of which bring teaching and learning challenges for the staff and the institutions.

For the academic year 2020/21, the UK government injected an additional £400m in funding for this sector which includes funding worth £190 million to boost access to high quality courses for more than a million 16-19 year olds. Colleges and school sixth forms will also get £120 million to help deliver expensive but crucial subjects such as engineering which lead to higher wages and, ultimately, a more productive economy.

In addition, £35 million was allotted for targeted interventions to support students on level 3 courses (A level equivalent) who failed GCSE Maths and English, so they can re-sit their exams in these critical subjects.

The introduction of new qualifications – the T-Level (equivalent to 3 A-Levels) added additional capability and complexity to the sector – this was supported with an extra £25 million to deliver T-levels. The new qualifications start rolling out in September 2020 and will transform vocational education with two-year courses in subjects as varied as accounting, digital production and onsite construction.

A new £20 million investment will also help the sector to continue to recruit and retain brilliant teachers and leaders and provide more support to ensure high-quality teaching of T Levels.

A changing landscape 

FE Colleges have been operating in a rapidly evolving landscape during recent times. Changes in student demands and perceptions as well as changing requirements from the workplace, particularly the higher premium placed on collaboration skills and self-learning ability, have all led to an increasing use of education technology products and services to support changing teaching and learning needs. And then came Covid-19! 

The need for social distancing to slow spread of the virus led to many colleges moving from in-class teaching to remote learning overnight. Lecturers looked for ways to better engage remote learners with their existing material and adding interactivity provided a way to enhance material in a Zoom style lecture. “I was struggling with online teaching and keeping students engaged while I was working with Microsoft teams. Collaboration wasn’t the best. Nearpod helped me a lot with this. Students are engaged and enjoying lessons now.” Instructor, Reaseheath College. 

Whilst there are many operational and structural challenges to this, there is also the perennial challenge of student engagement. The cost to the individual and the institution of non-continuation or drop-out rates is high, and a lot of focus has been placed in recent years on ways in which student engagement can be measured and monitored so that appropriate intervention and help is on hand at the right time. Interactive assessments and exercises embedded within the teaching material are a great way for a teacher or lecturer to gain insight, not only to the attainment level or understanding of the student, but also to how engaged they are and can then target additional material, exercises or support to that student whether they are in-class or remote.

An instructor and Nearpod customer Wilberforce College put it this way, ”I have used Nearpod to help Level 2 students with their understanding of complex topics for revision for their forthcoming unit 2 exam. Using multiple choice questions and open ended and draw-it questions to make revision more fun and engaging.”

Wrapping up

The UK FE College sector is a key and vibrant contributor which is undergoing significant changes caused by changing needs and growth. Throw a pandemic into the mix and it leads to an interesting set of challenges! Whilst education technology has often promised but not fully delivered, remote learning underpinned by Zoom-like technology, enhanced and held together by collaboration and interactivity tools such as Nearpod has helped keep momentum in these student’s learning and offered a way to retain interest and engagement. Many commentators believe that post-pandemic, these tools will have vital roles to play in allowing students to self-study and still provide valuable assessment information to their lecturers and teachers allowing differentiated instruction.  

As students look for qualifications and experiences that better equip them for the workplace, FE Colleges are well positioned to meet their needs and with additional funding in the coming years able to invest in products and tools for their lecturer’s like Nearpod that adds interactivity and value across all their course materials, whether delivered in class, distanced or, as I believe is the new paradigm – a hybrid of the two. 

Learn more about how Nearpod is helping universities in the UK at www.nearpod.com/uk. 

Paul N Berry

Paul helps companies in the tech and edtech space with go to market strategy and execution. More info at www.imaginari.biz

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The Higher Colleges is renowned as an applied higher education institution, which continuously leverages cutting edge innovation and technology in its teaching and learning operations, including the large-scale adoption of iPads in 2012 for use in its Foundations program. As a result, over 5,000 iPads were distributed to students across the UAE, as part of HCT’s digital learning strategy and in order to support a paperless environment. To complement this ground-breaking approach, HCT faculty engaged various educational technology tools, such as Nearpod’s interactive presentation tool. As the use of iPads expanded to include a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) system, Nearpod continued to be a mainstay of the HCT’s technology-focused instruction, with its gold-level licenses gaining widespread application.

The Teaching with Technology (TWT) team, managed by Sarah Whittaker, surveyed the faculty on the preferred tools being implemented in the class, with Nearpod being the primary choice. As a result, in the fall of 2017 HCT opted to purchase a district license for all faculty to access. 

In order to enable the large-scale implementation of Nearpod by faculty in their classes, the TWT team provided support and several professional development opportunities, which incorporated both technical and pedagogical considerations. Since the acquisition and implementation of the Nearpod district license at HCT, over 2500 hours in Nearpod training have been delivered, with over 50 faculty members becoming Nearpod Certified Educators.

Nearpod has proved to be an invaluable tool since HCT’s  transition to fully online classes in March 2020. In September 2019, approximately 1000 Nearpod lessons were launched with over 19,000 students joining. Those numbers rose dramatically to over 3,000 lessons launched to just over 61,500 students in September 2020. Since March 2020, approximately 14,600 lessons have been launched by HCT instructors, providing engaging, online learning experiences to over 270,000 students. Even with the partial return to face-to-face classes at HCT, Nearpod continues to be a popular tool with both faculty and students. 

Nearpod has long been utilized by HCT instructors who seek to create and deliver engaging lessons for students, in both face-to-face learning and, increasingly, online environments. Being able to create interactive presentations that guide learners through an entire lesson ensures that active learning is happening in the class. 

Challenges:

• Transitioning from a traditional lecture-based teaching environment to a more interactive teaching strategy
• Addressing the educational technology needs of 16 campuses and multiple divisions
• Ensuring student attention and comprehension of course content, particularly in an online learning environment
• Assessing student learning needs on a regular basis

Solutions:

• Nearpod provided a tool that eased the transition for faculty who had been used to delivering lectures by way of PowerPoint, affording them the opportunity to provide interactive and engaging lessons for students while retaining the core of their content.
• Nearpod school libraries are useful for the HCT Faculties, bringing together faculty members from different campuses to share lessons that cover subjects.
• Nearpod provides ways for instructors to see which students are participating and whether or not they comprehend the delivered content.
• Instructors are able to see what students are doing within the platform, in real time, and provide immediate feedback. 
• Nearpod reports provide insight for teachers regarding student progress and open the door for contingency lesson planning. 

Keys to success:

• Providing relevant and timely professional development
• Allowing ease of access to the license and their Faculty’s (school) library
• Supporting instructors’ Nearpod Certified Educator applications 
• Offering technical support as required by instructors 
• Disseminating Nearpod updates in our monthly TWT newsletter
• Using and demonstrating Nearpod while providing other professional development training to faculty

Popular Nearpod features: 

• The Notes feature helps students stay on track and study after class without the instructor needing to re-share slides/activities.
• The student-paced mode allows instructors to track flipped classroom content. It also allows students who were absent to review the lesson and provides interactive revision of the lesson content.  
• Being able to add direct links in their Learning Management System, Blackboard, allows students to easily access the lesson and keeps the students’ names consistent in the reports.

Nearpod Team

Nearpod’s award-winning platform is used by thousands of schools around the globe, transforming classroom engagement.

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Introduction: 

UCF Global supports the intensive language program and international students, scholars, and professionals on the University of Central Florida campus. Nearpod helps to build a bridge of understanding in the ESOL classroom by offering teachers the opportunity to identify knowledge gaps during class and incorporate activities that test quickly for vocabulary understanding. International students love the fun activities in Nearpod, while language teachers appreciate streamlined formative assessment that helps English language students succeed.  

Challenges: 

• Adapting learning model to a multicultural classroom 
• Identifying student learning gaps 
• Being able to provide immediate feedback for English language learners 

Solution: 

“Wherever building blocks are needed, Nearpod helps students get to the next level.” 

• Nearpod helps to identify student learning gaps, especially in grammar and vocabulary 
• Nearpod provides a flexible learning tool for a flipped classroom and classrooms with multilingual students from different learning styles 
• Unlike a video platform, Nearpod allows teachers to see who is actively engaged and who understands course content 

Results: 

• 16,000+ students engaged on Nearpod 
• 135 professors using Nearpod in the classroom 
• Students see Nearpod as, “gamification,” while teachers appreciate data for where to target teaching

“Nearpod is such a value in this time for higher ed.” – Christina Cavage, Curriculum and Assessment Manager, UCF Global 

Popular Nearpod features: 

• Draw It is a useful feature in a paperless classroom and is used for students to upload their homework 
• Matching Pairs aids vocabulary development 
• Integration with Canvas making Nearpod one click away for all students 
• Instructors were wary of Time to Climb in a higher education environment, but once students used it, they asked for it! International students are familiar with caricatures 

Nearpod Team

Nearpod’s award-winning platform is used by thousands of schools around the globe, transforming classroom engagement.

nearpod.com/

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By Stuart Vanorny, Academic Technology Consultant at Zenith Education Group

Two years ago, while touring one of our career college campuses, I witnessed students engaging and learning in our physical labs. These labs provide access to numerous tools and machinery pertinent to their field of study. It was evident that while the students enjoyed working with their hands, they disliked being in the classroom. It was at this moment I found my mission: to improve the classroom experience and make it appealing to our career and technical education students. 

The Challenge: Make Learning Engaging

Many of our students (and a few instructors) viewed the classroom as a necessary evil, where publisher-created slides filled with bullet points and stock photos were the only way to teach concepts. After that day on campus, the provost challenged me to find a way to replace the staid, stand-and-deliver lectures with active learning strategies. She did not need to ask twice.

The Solution: Nearpod Interactivity

After an exhaustive search for interactive educational technology tools, we settled on Nearpod, which offers a plethora of active learning activities that allow our instructors and students to stay connected and engaged during a lecture.

It is not a reach to say that the Nearpod platform fit our pedagogical needs perfectly. Through a team of experienced individuals, including a faculty subject matter expert, the curriculum dean, and an instructional designer, we were able to add interactivity to our lectures and give students the ability to complete formative assessments in real-time during class. Nearpod provided instructors with the ability to adjust lectures and address any gaps in knowledge.

We also peppered our interactive lectures with rich HTML5 web activities from other platforms. Nearpod is extensible, meaning you do not have to give up the other tools you love. You can integrate them into Nearpod. 

The Pilot: Nearpod + iPads

Before introducing it across all our campuses, we piloted lectures in our Medical Assistant (MA) program. Here students learn the skills and knowledge required to provide high-quality patient healthcare in a clinical setting. These classrooms split time between a lab and a lecture room.

Working with the MA faculty and the curriculum dean, the instructional design team spent three months planning the rollout. This included creating more than 60 interactive lectures in Nearpod, and developing a training program to ensure all our MA instructors were well versed using Nearpod before introducing it to students.

We purchased iPads, which would host the Nearpod software, and provided them to students and instructors. We made sure to include an attachable keyboard case with each iPad, enabling users to type sentences, not just tap their screens. Finally, we outfitted each MA classroom with an 80-inch TV, an Apple TV to mirror the instructor’s iPad on that TV, and a charging cart to make sure the iPads were always ready to use. 

The Results: Success for Students and Instructors 

The pilot lasted five months and was a smashing success! Not only did the students and instructors tell us that they loved the interactive lectures, the data backed it up. Across our three campuses, the students’ overall A-C rate (that’s the number of As, Bs, and Cs that each student received) increased an entire percentage point from 92.17% to 93.68%! Of the 83 students who completed the end-of-pilot survey, 91% recommended we replace the traditional lectures and continue with interactive lectures. To top it off, every single one of our MA instructors told us they wanted to continue with the interactive lectures using Nearpod.

It was clear that the Nearpod had revolutionized our MA lectures, and it was time to expand the offering to our other programs.

The Future: Expand the Interactivity Revolution

Fast forward to today. Altierus Career College will soon be providing Nearpod to students enrolled in a majority of our programs offered across our campuses. The integration of Nearpod has helped to transform our classrooms, and we expect that it will positively affect the overall success of Altierus Career College and our students.

Explore Nearpod for Higher Education

Stuart Vanorny

Stuart is dedicated to helping under-served populations and has extensive experience in the education, corporate, and non-profit sectors, including senior leadership in Fortune 500 firms and innovative educational technology initiatives. He specializes in ideating and implementing large-scale educational technology projects. Stuart was elected to the Woodridge 68 Board of Education.

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Technology deployment in higher ed has always been different than K-12 classrooms. Environments are often BYOD (bring your own device), in-classroom technology platforms aren’t always mandated to educators and the variety of different learners in a given lecture hall or virtual classroom can sometimes cause a disjointed technology landscape. 

But that doesn’t mean technology can’t make as big of a difference in higher ed lecture halls and active learning spaces as it does in K-12 classrooms. In fact, the 2018 National Survey of Student Engagement showed that 92% of first-year college students and 93% of seniors believe technology has contributed significantly to learning and studying. 

That’s why we’re excited to launch Nearpod for Higher Education and help get college students engaged and actively learning – while also ensuring that professors can easily connect with their students. We’re applying some of the same strategies we use in our K-12 platform for higher ed, and we look forward to seeing how professors bring even more life to their lessons and lectures.

Engaging every learner in a changing environment

The higher ed space has never been more diverse. What’s more, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a higher ed classroom without some form of technology integrated, even if it’s just students taking notes on a laptop in a traditional lecture hall. In order to better serve their students and provide the best learning experience possible, instructors can benefit from leaning into technology and using it to actively engage their learners – whether they’re in-person or online. 

Instructors, who are often subject-matter experts with their own content, can now leverage the built-in pedagogy within the Nearpod platform to create that experience. By making use of Nearpod’s interactive lesson and formative assessment tools, they’ll be able to easily bring active learning techniques, structure, and proven teaching methods to their existing material. 

Another key difference is that many higher ed learners are now non-traditional students – such as part-time learners, returning service members, and adults returning to school. These people are motivated to learn but have many other obligations (and distractions). For these students and their instructors, we envision Nearpod as the ideal active learning platform. Instructors want to generate excitement among learners who may be working day jobs and caring for kids when they’re not in the classroom. These challenges are heightened when these learners are attending class virtually. With Nearpod, every learner can feel empowered to participate and feel connected to the classroom, no matter where they’re learning from.  

The nature of higher ed also calls for much more self-paced and independent learning compared to K-12, and our platform features can help support students pursuing remote and distance learning programs to keep their studies moving forward at their own pace.

After initial pilots with 200 top institutions, we’re already seeing great success – particularly in schools of Health Sciences, Business, Law, and Education. 

A platform that keeps evolving

While higher ed has some unique engagement challenges, many instructors still aim to connect with students, deliver interactive lessons, and assess understanding like their K-12 counterparts to help create active learning environments. That’s why we included features like polling and quizzes to the higher ed platform, so instructors can regularly check-in with students about what they’ve learned and differentiate instruction in the moment based on class-wide and individual comprehension. 

As we gather feedback from Nearpod’s higher ed early adopters – like Illinois State and Saint Xavier University – we’ll keep evolving the platform to meet higher ed needs. From content creation to tailored features, we can’t wait to explore this market deeper and continue building out programs that suit the needs of all higher learning institutions and their learners. 

As higher ed student demographics change, and as instructors experiment with new ways to keep students engaged, we’ll keep improving the platform. Come back often to Nearpod to stay up to date on our higher ed innovations.

To see how your university can work with us, visit: nearpod.com/higher-ed.

How do you foresee your institution engaging students in active learning?

Felipe Sommer

It is my calling to improve the quality of life for others be it through education, entrepreneurship or anywhere needed. I obtained a BA in economics from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and received an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business.  In 2012, I co-founded Nearpod, a mobile platform that empowers educators to create learning experiences that engage and inspire millions of students around the world. As CEO and co-founder, I oversee Nearpod’s everyday operations.

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