MIPRO 2015, 25-29 May 2015, Opatija, Croatia
Interactive Teaching with Socrative
M. Filipović Tretinjak*, A. Bednjanec* and M. Tretinjak*
*School
of Electrical Engineering (Elektrotehnička škola), Zagreb, Croatia
martinafilipovic.tretinjak@gmail.com; andrea.bednjanec@gmail.com; mario.tretinjak@gmail.com
Abstract – Interactive teaching methods promote a learning
environment that leads to achieving the expected learning
outcomes through encouraging student participation.
Socrative student and Socrative teacher are applications
that enable teachers to implement an engaging class
environment through educational exercises and games that
can be used on any web enabled devices, such as
smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops. Experience
from the School of Electrical Engineering in Zagreb shows
that Socrative supports both independent and collaborative
learning and can create an interactive learning
environment.
I. INTRODUCTION
Interactive teaching methods encourage students to
participate in class activities, use questions to stimulate
discussions, measure student understanding. Each class
activity enables students to deepen their learning and
achieve the planned learning outcomes. Interactive
teaching supports a student-centered approach in the
learning process. The advantages and disadvantages of the
interactive teaching with Socrative are given in Table 2
below.
TABLE I. THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE
INTERACTIVE TEACHING WITH SOCRATIVE
Advantages
can easily check the
students’ understanding
(e.g. Exit ticket),
can create games to track
the students’ performance
while playing (e.g. Space
race),
have automatically-graded
Teacher
Teacher
Interactive Teaching with Socrative
multiple choice quizzes,
can monitor the students’
progress via Excel or
Google spreadsheet,
can have up to 50 students
loged in at one time per
room,
have access to the
Socrative account from
different mobile devices
are involved in various
activities through the use
of technology,
comprehend better,
Students
Students
become more interested in
course topics,
develop critical thinking,
have access to the
Socrative from different
mobile devices
Disadvantages
needs to have access to the
required technology,
needs to have access to a
computer and internet,
needs time to collect and
create the necessary
learning materials
need to have access to a
computer and internet,
spend more time on the
computer
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Socrative is a free smart student response system that
enables teachers to engage students in the learning process
with a series of educational activities via any web enabled
devices such as a smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop.
By using Socrative, teachers can immediately collect
feedback from students as well as monitor their progress
and help them to become self-evaluators of their work.
To be able to use Socrative, a teacher needs to create
an account, students then access the Socrative virtual
room by using a unique room code that is provided to
them by the teacher. After logging in, students can be
involved in various activities such as quizzes and
answering quick questions.
II. SETTING UP A SOCRATIVE TEACHER ACCOUNT
A Socrative teacher account can be setup either
through a web browser on laptops and desktops or on the
Socrative teacher application on any web enabled mobile
device such as a smartphone or tablet. Currently,
Socrative allows one classroom per account. If additional
rooms are required, the teacher needs to create and
manage additional Socrative teacher accounts.
Students don’t need to create a separate account or
login credentials. Socrative teacher and Socrative student
accounts are free for use.
A. Creating an account - using a web browser
A Socrative teacher account can be setup through a
web browser, including Firefox, Chrome, Safari and
Internet Explorer (http://b.socrative.com/login/teacher/).
After entering email and password you will enter the
Socrative site (Dashboard) where you will receive a
unique Room Code (e.g. ROOM: f306d0a7), which
students will use to access the created activities.
B. Creating an account - using the Socrative teacher
application
A Socrative teacher account can also be registered
through the Socrative teacher application
(http://www.socrative.com/apps.php to download the
application) via a smartphone or tablet.
After downloading and installing the Socrative teacher
app, start the application, enter email and password and
enter the Socrative site (Dashboard) where you will
receive a unique room code (e.g. ROOM: f306d0a7),
which students will use to enter a virtual room and access
the created activities.
 III. LOGGING IN TO SOCRATIVE
Teachers log in to Socrative by using their created
teacher accounts (http://b.socrative.com/login/teacher/ and
enter email and password) via a web browser or the
installed Socrative teacher application. Teachers that have
a Google email account can log in by using the “Sign in
with Google” button.
Students can log in to Socrative by using a web
browser or the installed Socrative student application. To
access the teacher’s virtual room, students need to enter
the room code (given by the teacher) and then select the
“Join Room” button. After logging in, students can access
various activities.
IV. ACTIVITIES
Students learn through their participation during the
lesson. Educational quizzes can help stimulate interest and
promote further learning or can be used as an assessment
tools.
Each activity below provides students with
opportunities to deepen their learning. To teachers these
activities can provide feedback about the students’
learning.
After logging in to Socrative, teachers can start
different activities such as: start a quiz, run a space race,
run an exit ticket, run quick questions (e.g. multiple choice
and true/false quick questions, short answer quick
questions).
Within Socrative, only one activity can be active at the
same time and this activity will stay open until the teacher
selects finish or chooses to start another activity.
Teachers can see the activity results through an opened
browser or application. Even if the teacher chooses to shut
down his/her computer, the activity stays opened. To end
the currently running activity, the teacher needs to press
the button Finish.
A. Start a quiz
At the beginning of the lesson students individually or
as a team can take a quiz about the class topic they have
already learned. The teacher estimates the students’
comprehensions of the topic and gaps in understanding.
Quizzes like evaluation exercises can contain multiple
choice questions, short answers or can be a combination
of the two. Teachers can create a new quiz, import a quiz
from another teacher, import a quiz from Excel and access
quiz reports through the Dashboard (main screen in
Socrative) using Manage Quizzes button.
When importing a quiz from an Excel file, teachers
need to download the Excel template first, populate it with
quiz question and answers according to the template
headings and save it to a computer with a unique name
(e.g. SOC-XXXXXX). A quiz can then be imported into
Socrative as an Excel file.
When starting a quiz, teachers have three options to
choose from: Student Paced – Immediate Feedback,
Student Paced – Navigation or Teacher Paced.
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When using the Student Paced – Immediate Feedback
quiz type, students receive immediate right/wrong
feedback and explanations after answering each question.
Students answer questions in a particular order and cannot
skip them or change their answers. Teachers are able to
monitor the students’ progress via the Live Results Table.
When using the Student Paced – Student Navigation
quiz type, students have the ability to edit questions, skip
questions and navigate the quiz in their own way. Once
they’ve completed the activity they can submit the entire
assessment. Teachers are able to monitor the students’
progress via the Live Results Table.
When using the Teacher Paced quiz type, teachers are
able to control the flow of questions. Teachers can send
one question at a time and visualize the responses as they
happen. Teachers can also skip and revisit certain
questions.
Additional quiz settings allow teachers to disable
student names and randomize the order of questions or
answers.
B. Run a Space Race
Quizzes can be deployed as a fast-paced rocket race
game. Students are engaged in fun exercises that track
their performance while they're playing. This Socrative
feature allows students to work in pairs or small groups in
order to answer the quiz questions.
Teachers can choose the number of teams (there can
be up to 20 teams), team colors can be automatically
assigned or selected by students. Each correct answer
moves a rocket across the screen. The team of students
that have answered the most questions correctly will win
the space race.
Before activating the Space race quiz, students need to
be divided into teams, while only one person from each
team needs to be logged into Socrative. The teams need to
choose a team name before the game is started.
There can be teams that believe they have no chance
of winning so they quit the game. If that happens, each
student needs to submit his/her answers on a piece of
paper after the game to help them get back into a good
mindset.
If there is a small number of students (up to 14) in a
class, students can participate in the space race separately.
C. Run an Exit Ticket
Exit tickets are quizzes that are mainly used to check
the students’ understanding at the end of a class. Exit
tickets provide students with an opportunity to reflect on
what they have learned, to analyze their learning efforts.
For teachers, Exit tickets provide feedback on an
instructional strategy used during a lesson. It is an easy
way to gather the students’ responses, access level of
mastered learning outcomes and their interests. Based on
the data collected, teachers can at the beginning of the
next lesson clarify small misunderstandings and adjust the
pace for further lessons.
Here are some examples of Exit ticket questions:
 x Name one important thing you learned in the class
today.
x Write/ask one question about the content of
today’s lesson - something that has left you
puzzled.
x What questions do you still have about today’s
lecture?
x I used the blackboard extensively today. Were its
organization and content helpful in your learning?
Why or why not?
x Which of the readings you did for the today’s
class was most helpful in preparing you for the
lesson? Why?
x We did a concept map activity in the class today.
Was this a useful learning activity for you? Why
or why not?
D. Quick question activities - "Right now" polling
Quick question activities enable teachers to do a quick
pool during the lesson. Pool questions can be asked aloud,
but it is much better to give students a paper copy of the
questions. If a classroom is equipped with a projector,
questions can be projected on the screen.
Teacher can ask a question with the option Short
answer and students then give their answer. After students
have answered a question, the teacher uses the option Start
Vote. The class can then vote on their favorite responses.
VI. SEARCH RESULTS
Research was conducted for two months on seventy-
four students from 17 to 18 years of age. Participants were
students who attended subjects from the vocational
education program: Computer system electronic
technician. Research was conducted during courses that
already have in-class computer-based activities.
Students already use different platforms such as
Edmodo (https://www.edmodo.com/) and Zondle
(https://www.zondle.com/publicPagesv2/). They always
like to participate in various activities that can be carried
out through the use of smartphones, tablets, laptops and
desktops.
Figure 1 shows the research results of the students’
feedback on using Socrative. Most of the interviewed
students (82%) liked using Socrative and claimed that
Socrative gave them a better insight into what they have
learned.
A small number of interviewed students (18%) didn’t
like participating in Socrative activities. They explained
that this was because there was too much emphasis on
technology. They would rather participate in activities that
include working with printed materials and textbooks.

V. REPORTS
Reports are used to keep students activity results. After
students have completed the activity, the teacher needs to
press the Finish button and the Report pop-up window
will open. From the Report pop-up window, various report
types can be selected, such as the Whole Class Excel, Figure 2. Students’ feedback on using Socrative
Individual Student(s) PDF or Question Specific PDF.
Figure 2 shows that the 83% of the high school
To download a selected report to the computer, select students agreed that Socrative activities were an
the Download option. Because the download option is not interesting new way to learn. A small number of
available on tablets or smartphones, the report can be interviewed students (17%) didn’t like using Socrative.
received via email and Google Drive or can be viewed in They said they would rather use Edmodo learning
the live results Chart (option View Chart). To get reports platform.
sent to the Google Drive, the email associated with your
account must be a Google Domain email address and you
must log in via Google Single-Sign-On.
Then select the report you want (Whole Class Excel,
Individual Student(s) PDF or Question Specific PDF) by
clicking the grayed-out OFF and toggling it to ON. To
collect all the data in one spreadsheet, it is best to use the
Whole Class Excel report. The Individual Student(s) PDF
refers to the report with a completely graded quiz for each
student. The Question Specific PDF report shows
response data for each question in a full quiz format. To
receive the selected report, click the Submit button.
To access all previously created reports, go to the
Dashboard and click on the Manage Quizzes button. Figure 1. Students’ feedback on using Socrative

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 Here are some examples on what student wrote about
Socrative:
x “The Socrative activities were fun!”
x “It was nice to learn in a different way.”
x “I think that it was a totally useless activity.”
x “Space race got me motivated to learn more and
it was fun.”
x “I would rather use my textbook and printed
materials.”
x “I have learned a lot.”
x “Space race is my favorite class activity.”
VII. CONCLUSION
Students perceive and assimilate information in
different ways. Socrative allows the implementation of the
interactive learning environment in which students repeat
core information and practice basic skills through various
games.
Quizzes throughout the lesson can help teachers assess
the effectiveness of their instruction, as well as student
understanding of the concepts taught.
Socrative allows teachers to engage and assess their
students through the educational activities on tablets,
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laptops and smartphones. Through the use of real time
questioning and instant result aggregation, teachers can
easily evaluate the effectiveness of their instruction and
the students’ current level of understanding.
Experience from the School of Electrical Engineering
in Zagreb shows that the use of Socrative increases
student participation during class and provides instant
feedback (to both the students and the teacher) on the
achieved learning outcomes, thus creating an interactive
learning environment.
REFERENCES
[1] http://www.bedu.com/interactive.html
[2] http://www.socrative.com/
[3] http://www.socrative.com/apps.php
[4] http://www.socrative.com/resources.php
[5] http://www.makingtechsimple.com/socrative
[6] http://www.makingtechsimple.com/socrative
[7] http://garden.socrative.com/
[8] http://www.thelandscapeoflearning.com/2012/02/11-ways-to-use-
socrative-as-formative.html
[9] http://catlintucker.com/2014/01/my-favorite-mobile-apps-2-
socrative-lesson-ideas
[10] http://www.nicolechubb.com/2014/07/31/getting-set-up-on-
socrative/
[11] http://www.brown.edu/about/administration/sheridan-
center/teaching-learning/effective-classroom-practices/interactive-
classroom-activities