About the Author
Whitney Gegg-Harrison
Associate Professor, Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program, University of Rochester
About the Tool and Class
| Title | Using Jamboard for collecting and organizing student responses |
| Tool | Google Jamboard (https://jamboard.google.com/) |
| Tool Description | Google Jamboard is a collaborative whiteboard tool that allows users to create “sticky notes” that can be color-coded, resized, and repositioned (including angled positions) by all other users with edit access. Users can also directly draw on the whiteboard using the pen tool, draw shapes using a shape tool, and upload images to the whiteboard. There is a “laser” tool that allows users to easily “point” to specific areas of the board. |
| Class/Target Level | Any class (first-year undergraduate through graduate) |
| Course Title | WRTG 105E/A Language as a Window into the Mind |
| Background Information About the Class | WRTG 105E and WRTG 105A are theme-based, first-year writing courses. My course theme is centered around questions relating to language, translation, and thought, which we explore from different perspectives including philosophy, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and science fiction. |
| Lesson Time | 25-40 minutes |
| Number of Students | 10-15 |
| Learning Outcomes | For Use Case 1: 1. Generate ideas relating to academic writing concepts 2. Observe relationships between their own ideas and the ideas of their peers, and visualize those relationships through clustering 3. Discuss definitions of academic writing concepts For Use Case 2: 1. Generate ideas relating to course readings 2. Ask questions relating to course readings 3. Organize ideas and questions to form a concept map Observe connections between course readings |
Lesson Plan #1: Concept Pairs
Opening
I begin by introducing a pair of related concepts (e.g., “academic” vs. “popular” writing, “revision” vs. “editing,” “good” vs. “bad” presentations) and telling students that I am interested in finding out what beliefs, associations, or definitions they have for those concepts: what have they learned in their previous schooling or elsewhere that informs how they think about those concepts? I then share a link to a Jamboard on which I have drawn a line down the center and given text labels to each half corresponding to whichever pair of concepts we are exploring. (5 minutes)
Body
I tell students to create a sticky for each associated thought they have and place it on the appropriate half of the Jamboard, and invite them to also add images or memes if they are relevant. While they are creating stickies or sharing images or memes, I begin looking for themes. (5-10 minutes)
After students stop sharing stickies, I ask them to take a few minutes to look at what has been shared, and to move any stickies or memes that seem to be sharing a related idea to be close together in a cluster. If there are ideas that are related, but belong to oppositive halves of the board, I encourage students to move those stickies or memes to be next to the central line. During this process, I encourage students to collaborate and call out what they are doing as they move the stickies or memes around. These call-outs inform the discussion that follows. (5 minutes) Once the board has been rearranged, or if there is a stalemate or disagreement in terms of how to rearrange it, I turn the discussion toward clusters of themes that they notice in the Jamboard. What do these clusters of themes tell us about the concepts we are exploring? Where does there seem to be a lot of agreement? Where is there a lot of uncertainty? Do we want to add or modify any stickies? (10-15 minutes)
Closing
I bring the discussion to a close by highlighting what I thought were the most interesting observations and connecting them to the learning goals. (5 minutes)
Findings/Assessment
Students enjoy creating stickies, sharing memes, and then organizing them, and the Jamboard creates a nice springboard for in-class discussion. Students who tend to be quieter like being able to contribute in text or images, and everyone seems to benefit from having a little bit of time to think and to organize thoughts before diving into discussion. Students are able to discuss their existing ideas about particular concepts and how these ideas do or do not accurately reflect what they are learning in class or from class readings.
Lesson Plan #2: Finding Connections Between Readings
Opening
Body
I begin by telling students that we are going to discuss a set of readings (usually two readings, but sometimes up to three or four) and will use Jamboard to gather our thoughts. I then share a link to a Jamboard and provide a color-coding system that maps each reading onto a particular color of sticky; e.g., ideas relating to Reading A will go on green stickies and ideas relating to Reading B will go on orange stickies, and so on. (5 minutes)
I begin by dividing the students into groups so that each group is focused on one reading at a time; we will rotate through each reading so that all students get to share thoughts about all readings (this tends to work better than asking students to collect their own thoughts on multiple readings at the same time). Their job is to create a sticky (in the correct color) for each thought they have in relation to the reading they are focused on. A thought can be a point that stuck with them, a question that the reading raised for them, an idea presented in the reading that seems especially useful, or really any sort of response they have to that reading. After approximately 5 minutes, we rotate so that the groups are now sharing thoughts about the other reading(s). The goal is to have a board filled with color-coded stickies, and if we need to resize the stickies to fit them all, we can. (10-15 minutes)
After students have shared all of their stickies, I ask them to take a few minutes to look at what has been shared and then to move stickies that feel related to form clusters, making them as close (as in overlapping or touching) or as far apart as makes sense given the relationships students see between the ideas. I encourage them to notice if they have clusters that are multicolor, representing multiple readings. As they are moving stickies around, I encourage them to call out what they are doing, and these call-outs inform the discussion that follows. (5-10 minutes) Once the board has been rearranged, of if there is a stalemate or disagreement about how to rearrange it, I turn the discussion toward their observations about the concept map they have built and the connections they see between the readings. I sometimes choose a few stickies to highlight and ask for the student who contributed the sticky in question to elaborate if they are willing, and if no one volunteers, we discuss the sticky as a full class; this gives students who are more comfortable sharing their thoughts in text or sticky form a way to contribute to the discussion even if they are not feeling up to speaking out. (10-15 minutes)
Closing
I bring the discussion to a close by highlighting what I thought were the most interesting observations and connecting those observations to the learning goals I had for the readings. I also invite the students to revisit the Jamboard as they write their next paper, and to use it to help themselves think about the “conversation” at play between the authors of their readings. (5-10 minutes)
Findings/Assessment
Students enjoy creating stickies, sharing memes, and then organizing them, and the Jamboard creates a nice springboard for in-class discussion. Students who tend to be quieter like being able to contribute in text or images, and everyone seems to benefit from having a little bit of time to think and to organize thoughts before diving into discussion. Those students who need to revisit the readings to remind themselves of what they read and collect their thoughts are able to do so without feeling “called out,” as everyone is looking at laptop screens during the idea collection stage. Students are able to find interesting connections between their readings and to build a meaningful concept map of the ideas in the readings.
Accommodation
For students with a visual disability, Google Jamboard stickies are compatible with some but not all screen readers (but be aware that even on compatible screen readers, there can be problems with images being identified by a long string of numbers in the absence of alt text).
For students who need more processing time or who need to participate asynchronously due to illness or other issues, the Jamboard provides a space that documents the in-class discussion that can be revisited and explored and even added to after the fact. Before or after the synchronous class, asynchronous students can participate in adding to and rearranging the board as a “living document,” and can submit a reflection on what they observe in the board as an alternative to synchronous class participation.
For students who are not able to use a laptop or tablet during the class session for any reason, pairing up with another student who is using a laptop or tablet to add stickies works very well; in this situation, I have all students work in pairs so that sticky contributions always reflect the input of two students.
Reflection
Reflection from instructor
I find that these Google Jamboard activities facilitate better in-class discussions and create good opportunities for collaboration between in-person and remote (asynchronous or synchronous) students. They provide a shared space that students can refer to when making spoken contributions to discussion, and integrate well into the flow of the class.
Preparation time/materials
10-15 minutes to prepare the Jamboards (adding a dividing line, adding text labels, setting up sharing settings, putting the link in an accessible place).
Benefits and challenges of the tool
The visual nature of the Jamboard creates a shared “workspace” to which students and instructors can refer during class discussion, easing cognitive load for all class participants; it is easier to keep track of the ideas that have been shared because they are also written down on the screen. The Jamboard can be modified during class discussion, creating a record of the directions the discussion took. It can also facilitate collaboration and inclusion between students who are participating remotely (whether synchronously or asynchronously) and those who are participating in-person.
The only real challenges are ensuring that students have the link that they need to be able to access the Jamboard(s) and sharing permissions are set to give them edit access. There is a small learning curve for creating stickies, etc. but, in my experience, students are able to quickly figure out how to contribute to the board.
In-class experience
Logistics involve making sure that everyone who is supposed to contribute to the Jamboard has access to the Jamboard via a link with appropriate sharing settings. Over Zoom, this link can simply be pasted into the chat. For in-person teaching, it is best to have a space where students know they can access links during class (e.g., in a Google Doc shared with the entire class or on the course Blackboard page).
Ease of use/Ranking
Beginner-friendly with a brief tutorial from the instructor on the different tools (pen, sticky, shape, and image).
Reflection from students
Notes collected from anonymous WRTG 105E and WRTG 105A course evaluations: “The Jamboards were fun!”; “Professor Whitney let us add memes to Jamboard and that made it more interesting”; “I liked the activities where we organized stickies on the Jamboard”; “I liked being able to write down my thoughts on the Jamboards before we started discussing them.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.