University class live poll goes astray

Biosciences Professor Philip Batterham at the University of Melbourne came up with a novel way of getting his students to participate, by using using the live poll tool Socrative during one of his classes, and asking them "What factors/influences make an athlete great?" Things quickly escalated and some hilarious answers popped up. Fortunately the witty professor could take it.


From Huffington Post Austrailia:

Batterham has been praised for keeping his cool in a quirky situation and told HuffPost Australia it was all part of the fun of a live teaching environment.

"I believe there's no such thing as passive learning," Batterham said.

"You can't learn anything by sitting still and not interacting.

"Back in the Flintstones days of teaching, I used to walk around the class with a microphone and ask questions," Batterham said.

"The thing about the mic is some students would just freeze up. With Socrative, you can submit answers anonymously and that opens things up to that more playful side but it also lets people answer seriously.

"I took that risk."

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