Mentimeter
What does Mentimeter do?
Mentimeter is an interactive presentation tool that can be used to enhance both online and face-to-face sessions, allowing you to provide opportunities for interaction and monitor levels of engagement.
The University has purchased a site licence for Mentimeter. Staff and Students can sign up and access a full featured licence by following the information on this page.
What problems does this solve?
- Anonymous (or students use nicknames) and this encourages all students to take part.
- Students can see whether they have answered a question correctly and also how many other students answered correctly.
- The lecturer gets real-time feedback on students’ understanding of the session material, and common misconceptions can be addressed during the session.
- Can have a competitive element which encourages students to engage with the course material.
Mentimeter can be more effective if used together with peer learning. Students can be asked to answer a question individually and then given some time to discuss their answer with a peer. They then answer the question again. This method of peer instruction was pioneered by Eric Mazur (Video: Eric Mazur – Peer Instruction) and has been shown to improve student engagement and outcomes.
Another way to use Mentimeter could be to ask students a series of questions relevant to a topic at the start of a lecture, deliver a lecture on that topic and then repeat the questions at the end of the lecture. Hopefully, you and your students will be able to see that learning has taken place, if not, you should be able to identify areas that require further clarification. Students will be able to measure performance against their previous attempt. This form of assessment where students are comparing themselves against their own previous performance is known as ipsative feedback.
Resources
For further information check out the guidance in the pages below:
Case study
If you want to know more about how colleagues in FSE are using Mentimeter check this page.
FSE Teaching Academy would love to hear from any colleague using Mentimeter within their teaching. Email: fseteachingcollege@manchester.ac.uk
