Smart Response, Notebook and Tagging

All of you should have at least one set of Smart Response clickers in your school. These are very useful tools to collect formative and summative test/quiz results in a quick and timely manner. The purpose of tests/quizzes is more than just a grade for the students, they should be used by the teacher to help shape and direct instruction. Teachers should ask themselves as often as possible, “How do I know if my students understand this topic?” and “What do I do for the students that don’t understand it?”

For years the main way of collecting test/quiz scores was to have the students answer the questions for the quiz/test on a scantron or just have the students write the answers on a piece of paper. If the teacher was ambitious they would break down the responses of all the students of all the classes and find out which questions were missed the most and who missed them. Then the teachers may have linked each of the questions to the topics that they were assessing to find out what topic or topics the students struggled the most with. As you know this process takes a lot of time and effort. I am here to tell you, THERE IS A BETTER WAY.

Smart Notebook calls the better way tagging. In a nutshell Tagging allows you to label the questions with the topic that they cover, the standard and objective or any other information that the teacher feels is relevant to their class. Then after the tag is applied you can run reports and see which topics the class struggled with and then reteach them as needed.

How to tag your test/quiz questions in a new notebook presentation:

1. Start by inserting a question into a notebook document
2. Choose the type of question
3. Type in the question
4. Add the appropriate tag
5. Then finish creating the question

How to tag your test/quiz questions in a notebook presentation that already exists:

1. Open the notebook document that needs to have the tags added
2. Click on the slide/page that contains the question
3. Click on the Smart Response icon
4. Click show answer key
5. Enter the tag information
6. Repeat the above steps for the rest of the questions