Using the Polling Feature in Zoom
Polling your students is a great formative assessment option to see if students understand what you are teaching. For efficiency during class, it is best if you set-up the polling questions prior to class. Results can be private, so that only you know the results, or you can share them with the class. Names are not included in the shared results, but they can be downloaded after the session.
Video Example of Polling (Also with Attendance Reports)
Creating Polls for an Individual Meeting
Sign in to the Zoom web portal at https://zoom.usu.edu
Go to the Meetings page and click on your scheduled meeting
(If you do not have a meeting scheduled, schedule a meeting now)
Scroll to the bottom to find the Poll option
Click Create and choose whether you would like to make a basic poll or an advanced poll/quiz
- Basic Polls: Only multiple choice questions are available.
- Advanced Polls and Quizzing: Multiple choice, matching, rank order, short answer, and long answer questions are available.
Enter a poll title and your first question
(You will use the title to identify the poll while you are in the meeting)
- Select what type of question you want from the dropdown menu to the right of your poll question.
- (Optional) Click the Anonymous check box to keep the participant polling information anonymous in the meeting and in reports.
Type in the answer options for your question and click Save at the bottom
If you would like to add an additional question, click Add a Question to create another question for that particular poll
- All questions on the same poll will be available to participants once the poll is started. If you want poll questions active at different times during class, create multiple polls.
Creating Reusable Polls
Follow the instructions below to create polls that are saved to your Zoom account.
Sign in to the Zoom web portal at https://zoom.usu.edu
Go to the Polls/Quizzes tab and click on Create
Follow the same steps for creating polls as described for individual meetings
Toggle on Enable to sync the poll with all of your meetings
Conduct a Poll
This short video will walk you through the process of conducting the poll during your class meeting.
View Poll Results
If you want to view poll results within the meeting, follow these instructions*:
Launch your poll as normal within the call
When finished, click End Polling
Select the Download button, which will generate a CSV file
If you want to view poll results after the meeting is over, follow these instructions*:
Sign into https://zoom.usu.edu
Select Reports on the left hand side
Select Meeting
At the top of the page, select Poll Report and click the blue Search button
Find the meeting you are looking for and select Generate on the right side of the page
A file should then begin downloading onto your device (*Instructions from Zoom's website
- If registration was turned on and the poll was not anonymous, it will list the participants’ names and email addresses.
- If registration was not on, the polling report will show the profile names of authenticated users in the same account.
- If the poll was anonymous, it will show “anonymous” for the participants’ names and email addresses.
Emojis/Nonverbal Feedback
Another way to keep your finger on the pulse of the class, so to speak, is to encourage students to use the nonverbal feedback. These include options raise hand, hand clap, thumbs up, heart, laughing, open mouth, confetti, and many more.
These icons are visible to all participants, so be aware of using them for potentially sensitive questions.
Zoom has the capability to automatically recognize if someone is physically raising their hand or giving a thumbs up. In order to activate gesture recognition, sign into the Zoom desktop client. Click on Settings, General, and then scroll to the Reactions section to check the box next to Activate the following emojis based on hand gesture recognition: 👍 ✋