Increasing student engagement with Padlet

Sophie Woodward talks about how Padlet helped to encourage a large group to engage with a core research methods module.

Teaching and learning problem?

This is a core course for first years in research methods and research design and a key challenge is getting students to engage with this; often core courses are less popular than optional ones. Research design and methods in particular are very challenging to teach and getting students engaged and interested in. In addition, 110 is a large number to get engaged in a group setting.

Solution? (teaching innovation / use of tool)

Padlet was explored as a way to get students in groups actively engaged in tasks. Students were put in break-out groups of 7 or 8 and a task. They had to discuss as a group and posts their answers on a padlet (with their group number as the title of the post).

How successful was the solution?

Expected benefits

I would be able to see how much or if students got involved so I would be able to then visit groups who were not answering the questions.

Actual benefits

The activity had the above benefit, as it allowed me to see that each group was involved and to see their understanding of the questions. The additional benefit that I had not anticipated was that they could see each other’s comments, and I could also look at them all together. We then had a productive discussion about how they had given different examples, or how they interpreted data differently.

Student reaction

Once we got over initial technical glitches, I used this method regularly, and students told me how much they enjoyed it and that it made them work more as a team in the break out groups .

Top Tips

Making sure it is set up for students to be able to comment first!
Trying it with different types of activity – more reflexive activities as well as where for example they had to choose their own case studies to work with.