Application: Stick Pick
What it is: Stick Pick is a great app for the teacher iOS device. Teachers can randomly (or intentionally) choose a student’s name from a virtual can of Popsicle sticks. Student sticks are tied to a mode and level of difficulty for each learner. Each time a student’s stick is drawn, you will be shown over a dozen Bloom’s Taxonomy related questions that are tied to the learner’s individual ability level.
Questions can be linked to cognitive or linguistic needs to each student. Teachers can have multiple soup cans (classes) filled with sticks (students). During setup, teachers choose a category of questions that they want to focus on for the learner. Questions can be based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, English as a second language skills, and a degree of difficulty can be chosen for each learner.
Formative assessment is easy to track because teachers can tap a corresponding correct, incorrect, or opinion button based on the student’s answer. Teachers can also rate each student’s answer by selecting 0-5 on the critical thinking rubric (for Bloom’s) or an elaboration rubric (for English as a second language). Student data is saved directly in the app and can be emailed.
How Stick Pick can enrich learning: Stick Pick is a handy tool for any teacher device. Stick Pick can guide classroom discussion and formative assessment in really helpful ways. Teachers can mark sticks so that they aren’t constantly calling on the same students or asking students the same questions over and over again.
Students can use Stick Pick too. During small group work, students can take turns asking one another questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy making group work more productive and on-task.
Record and send student progress to parents easily directly from the app.
Devices: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later
Price: $2.99 (iTunes Link)
