At Scott's Branch High School, there is a new style of learning and assessing that is taking students to another level. Students love it, and it seems to bring out the best in overall student performance.
Teachers believe that a new program called Kahoot.it allows students a greater degree of comfort while also increasing their confidence in taking educated guesses based upon the knowledge they have acquired in the classroom. Sharon Mellette, U.S. History teacher, and Miguel Fleitas regularly use Kahoot.it. Mellette describes Kahoot.it as a strategy similar to the Socratic Method. Socratic teaching is the oldest, most powerful teaching tactic for fostering critical thinking as it focuses on giving students questions, not answers. The students must use reasoning, probing and inquiry skills. Most of the students created online accounts using their cellphones by going to www.kahoot.it and inputting a PIN. All their devices need is an Internet browser.
Once the class joins Kahoot.it, the fun – oops – the quizzes begin. Questions continually pop up on the whiteboard for everyone to see and from here on, it is anybody's game. Like the Socratic Method, Kahoot.it increases students focus on learning, keeps students intellectually responsible, stimulates discussion through probing questions and draws numerous students into the lesson. If you hear that Scott's Branch students have gone Kahoot.it, that is absolutely right.
- Beverly Spry
