Angelo Garcia, III, owner of Future Environment Designs, conducts engaging group training sessions by incorporating live questions with Poll Everywhere.
Building engagement into the virtual classroom
As a training provider, Future Environment Designs specializes in training professionals on key topics like OSHA compliance, asbestos handling, construction safety, and more. Angelo had been using Poll Everywhere for about a year when he incorporated it into his interactive conference presentations.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he decided to bring the tool into the virtual classroom too when he saw low participation. “I wanted to give the students a way to interact. With videoconferencing software, you have to adjust to the fact that two people can’t talk at the same time. You can’t just interject your answer — you have to wait until the person is finished talking. In some of the first classes I ran, students wouldn’t interact at all.”
Designing interactive classes
To accomplish this goal, Angelo started inserting Poll Everywhere multiple choice activities in between his PowerPoint slides. “I could see where students stood before presenting the information. That was revealing because they might’ve completed the course a year ago, so I could see how much they remembered.”
With questions set to be anonymous, students could see how everyone did and identify where they needed a refresher without feeling singled out if they answered incorrectly.
Angelo is looking forward to bringing Poll Everywhere into more of his training sessions, even when they begin to transition back to in-person.
