Manish Agarwal is an improv comedian who has a side hustle as a Systems Thinking guest lecturer at a host of prestigious business schools in India.
Key to his success in the classroom is his ability to make classes fun, inclusive, and engaging for students so they don’t feel like they are in yet another class where they are being PowerPointed to death.
“A system is not the sum of its parts; it is the product of their interactions" - Dr Russ Ackhoff. StreamAlive helps improve the performance of my classroom system.Manish Agarwal
Shy students and cool students can be reticent about speaking up
For many students, raising a hand in class to ask or answer a question can be a daunting experience. They are about to have all eyes on them, and if they believe their question is silly, or if they don’t know the answer, they are likely to become ostriches with their head in the sand for the remainder of the lesson.
“StreamAlive allows me to get the too-shy-to-speak and too-cool-to-speak students to become active participants in my classes.” Manish Agarwal
This is something that Manish has often encountered during his years of guest lecturing. While these reticent students had valuable insights to share one-on-one, or in smaller groups, their personalities prevented them from being active participants in the classrooms.
“I would use improv comedy games and techniques to bring creativity and fun into the classroom, but every semester I found that there would be a core group of students that were eager for the spotlight, while other groups preferred to shrink into the background, speaking only when called upon to do so.” Manish Agarwal
StreamAlive allows every student to have a voice
In 2023, Manish became a beta tester for StreamAlive’s new browser-based chat that allows in-person and hybrid audiences to participate in presentations using their phone or laptop.
The results were astonishing. Reticent students were suddenly becoming active participants, giving their input, asking questions, and joining in with class discussions—all via the chat.
Manish uses StreamAlive’s browser-based chat to bring all students together into a single chat room. From the browser chat, students can interact with each other and participate in the polls, word clouds, and other interactions that Manish runs.
The browser-based chat has the option to use Single Sign On to ensure only authorized users can access it, but Manish prefers to keep things anonymous and let students pick their own name.
“I never insist on use of actual name when asking students to login to StreamAlive’s browser chat, letting the students come up with their own fun or scandalous names. I allow this to happen, and even participate in it; while caveating that the fun - learning balance is as much their responsibility as it is mine” Manish Agarwal
Manish was able to hook up his wifi-connected laptop to the projector in the lecture room and project the polls, word clouds and maps on the screen for all the students to see. The browser-chat became the preferred choice for introvert, extrovert and ‘textrovert’ students to participate.
“When I first tried StreamAlive’s browser chat I wasn’t sure if it would help engage students any differently, but it turned my class from a handful of participants to everyone participating - whether it was the shy students or the ones who thought they were too cool to give their opinions.” Manish Agarwal
By using StreamAlive, Manish has been able to get the pulse of his whole class and determine whether the students have understood the concepts he teaches. Without StreamAlive, Manish relied on the students who spoke up to determine whether the concept was understood, but with StreamAlive encouraging participation from every student, he gets a much clearer picture of how students are absorbing the information.
Bringing fun into the classroom and making it an active learning experience
Many classroom tools employ polls and word clouds to engage students, and studies have shown that using them can help with learning outcomes.
Along with regular polls, word clouds, and rating polls, StreamAlive offers a variety of other ways to inject some fun and surprise into the classroom to help keep students engaged. For example, asking questions that…
“One of the questions I ask in my classes about infrastructure development is which city has the best or worst public transport. Before StreamAlive I’d get a couple of hand raises. When asking the same question using StreamAlive’s Magic Maps, it becomes a fun activity as different cities light up on the map ” Manish Agarwal
Another way of bringing some fun and anticipation to the classroom is using StreamAlive’s spinner wheel. There are often situations where students are called upon to speak in front of the class, or your presentation could go off in a few different potential directions, or a test could be open book or closed book. In each of these scenarios, a spinner wheel brings an element of chance to entertain the students (and professors!).
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“StreamAlive has made student presentation time a lot more fun. When deciding who will go next I use the spinner wheel to randomly select a group. Before StreamAlive all the students would avoid my gaze in the hope of not being asked to go first or next, but with the spinner wheel the students are glued to the projector screen to see who it’s going to pick - it suddenly becomes a lighthearted activity.” Manish Agarwal
Reports help to make constant improvements to the classroom experience
At the end of each class, StreamAlive produces a report that Manish can analyze to learn which questions were the most popular, how many students participated, and how engagement trended over time.
Most importantly, it helps him understand how many of his students are understanding the concepts he’s teaching and how many haven’t quite grasped the topic yet.
“Looking at the StreamAlive reports helps me prepare for the next class. If I find that fewer students were getting the right answers, I know that I need to explore the concept from a different angle in my next class.” Manish Agarwal
Turn your virtual classrooms into engaging sessions with StreamAlive
StreamAlive works with all major meeting and streaming platforms. It works particularly well for in-person classrooms or hybrid classes using its browser-based chat.
Teachers can run polls, word clouds, interactive maps, rating polls, and spinner wheels during their class. There are even different ways to visualize the chat using thought bubbles and Tetris-inspired falling tiles.
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