Student Participation

How students participate depends on the format, and there are only two models. Knowing which one you’re using shapes how you run the room.

Model One: Verbal Participation (Seven Formats)

Categories, Showdown, Millionaire, Dealmaker, Apex, Word Search, and Revealer all work the same way. Students watch the display and respond out loud. You drive everything from your control screen.

There is nothing for students to join, download, install, or log into. No accounts, no devices, no links.

This is a design choice, not a limitation. It means:

• Zero setup time — the game works the moment the display is up
• No student who can’t participate because their phone died or their wifi failed
• No students looking at phones instead of each other
• It works identically with 6 students or 60

The tradeoff is that you don’t capture individual responses. You’re reading the room, not collecting data.

Running Verbal Participation Well

Decide how students signal. Hands, calling out, or team spokespersons. Say which at the start — ambiguity produces either chaos or silence.

Use teams where the format supports them. Categories and Showdown have built-in team scoring. Teams give quieter students cover to contribute and turn the session into a group activity rather than a quiz.

Watch who isn’t talking. Verbal formats reward the confident. If the same three people answer everything, call on teams rather than individuals, or switch to Pollster.

Model Two: Device Participation (Pollster Only)

Pollster is the one format where students respond individually from their phones. They scan a QR code on the display, a voting page opens in their browser, they pick an option, and the tally updates live.

No app, no account, no login. Votes are anonymous.

Use this when you need a response from everyone rather than from whoever speaks first — checking comprehension, surfacing disagreement, or getting an honest read on a topic people won’t say out loud.

See QR Code Access and the Pollster article for details.

Choosing Between Them

Use verbal formats when you want discussion, energy, and group dynamics; when devices would be a distraction; or when you can’t rely on everyone having a working phone.

Use Pollster when you need every voice, when the honest answer differs from the public answer, or when you want to see the distribution rather than the loudest opinion.

Most instructors use both — Pollster to diagnose, a verbal format to teach and reinforce.

Class Size

Verbal formats scale by changing how you collect responses, not by changing the game. In a large room, teams and spokespersons work better than open calling-out.

Pollster scales naturally — a hundred students voting is the same as ten.

Accessibility

Because seven formats need no student device, they work for anyone who can see the display and speak or signal. Consider:

• Seat students who need it close enough to read the display comfortably
• For hearing-impaired students, verbal formats rely on hearing the discussion, not just the screen — pair them or provide a written copy
• For Pollster, students without a phone can pair up or hand you their answer

Next Steps

• The Dual-Screen Experience — the setup students are watching
• QR Code Access — the Pollster exception
• Team Management — team-based scoring in Categories and Showdown