Volunteer tasks
A volunteer task is a lightweight tool for eliciting engagement. You can launch one any time you want an individual or group (once groups have been formed) to answer a question or make some other contribution. Here are some example situations where a volunteer task would be useful:
"Ok, so where do you think we should start? What information do we need to track, what variables should we declare to track it?"
"Do you think this code will compile? Does anyone want to hazard a guess?"
"Ok, we have a bug. Can anyone explain what went wrong?"
"Task 3 was a particularly tricky one. Are there any groups out there who want to show us how you solved it?"
Use volunteer tasks often. They can be launched in seconds, and are a great way to keep the class engaged and active.
Volunteer tasks can be a little intimidating for students. Warm the class up with easy no-brainer tasks first, before you ask for anything tricky or arduous.
Volunteer tasks pair beautifully with polls: a poll lets every student register their choice or opinion quickly and safely, and then volunteer tasks give you a structured way to invite students to explain or elaborate on those choices.
By asking for volunteers after students have already committed to an option, you shift the focus from “Who wants to speak?” to “Who can help us understand the class’s thinking?”, which often leads to richer discussion and more confident participation.
Volunteer tasks also pair beautifully with quizzes: After a quiz question closes and you have revealed the correct answer, use a volunteer task to invite students to explain why the correct option is correct (or why the others aren’t). This supports metacognitive thinking, reinforces key concepts, and encourages students to articulate reasoning out loud — all while maintaining an atmosphere where correctness is clarified through discussion rather than judgement.
Asking for volunteers
Volunteer tasks can be launched from either the presenter view or the remote control by opening the menu and selecting Find volunteer.
A popup will open that allows you to specify whether you are looking for an individual or a group to volunteer, and what the rewards are for volunteering. Students can earn participation points simply by opting in, and the selected volunteer(s) can earn (or loose) understanding points depending on the feedback you provide them after hearing their contribution.
Once you hit Find Volunteer, the player screens, presenter screen and remote control will update:.
- The player screens will show a summary of the available awards, and give players the option to opt in or out with a thumbs up or thumbs down. For group tasks, anyone in the group can decide whether to opt in or out, and the screens of all group members will update in real-time to show the current choice of the group. You may see arguments quietly play out as the group toggles between opting in or out.
- The presenter screen will show a summary of the available awards, and a progress bar showing the proportion of the class that has opted in (in green) or opted out (in red).
- The remote control will update to show the decisions of each individual or group by giving each player a green or red halo if they have decided to opt in or out.
The default rewards will be fine for most tasks, but consider increasing the rewards for larger or more intimidating tasks (for example if the volunteer needs to give a short presentation).
Feel free to point out the inherent risk-reward setup to students. Students can earn points for doing nothing if they opt-in but aren't randomly chosen to volunteer. Just make sure the rewards are scaled so that students who get a poor rating end up back at 0.
If you are asking for something above-and-beyond or that only some students in the class are qualified for, them make sure you make the task a bonus one. Otherwise, students who can't opt-in will lose participation points, and resent you for it.
Try not to show any frustration or desperation if you don't get any or many volunteers for a particular task. Instead, consider ways you can explain the task more clearly, or look for ways you can scope the task to be less difficult or intimidating.
Selecting a volunteer
Once you have at least one individual or group opting in, you can proceed by hitting the dice icon on the presenter view or the pick a player/group button on the remote control. At this point all players/groups who opted in will receive a reward, and a single player or group will be randomly selected to volunteer.
The player screens will update to show either "you're up" or "someone else is in the spotlight" depending on whether the player was chosen or not. The presenter screen will highlight who was chosen, and the remote control will update to show a larger image so you can identify the lucky student(s) and direct your attention to them.
The way the app chooses volunteers isn't completely random. It is biased towards choosing people who have low understanding scores, for a few reasons:
- Being volunteered is a good opportunity for these students to regain understanding points (as long as they get good feedback for you).
- Student's may be tempted to opt-in simply for the participation points, without actually having any contribution to make. This bias increases the likelihood that they will be selected and caught out.
- It's nice to hear from people in class who are struggling, and to get contributions that the class can discuss and improve upon. Without a tool like Gameface you generally only end up hearing from the "know-it-alls" who may jump straight to ideal answers that don't give much for the rest of the class to discuss/debate/learn from.
It is also strongly biased against choosing the same volunteers repeatedly, so you get a good diversity of contributions.
Pay attention to the progress bar on the presenter view (is it still moving around a lot?) and read the room before you proceed to selecting a volunteer. Students will lose participation marks they take too long to decide whether they are opting in or not, and may resent you for it if you move to fast.
Giving feedback to a volunteer
Once you have heard the volunteer out you can use the emoticons on either the presenter view or the remote control to rate their contribution as either poor, ok or good, and give out the corresponding reward. The volunteer task concludes (and all screens return to their default state) once you provide your feedback.
Give your good, ok or poor rating via the remote control rather than the presenter view; that way the feedback will be confidential.
Always give at least a little oral feedback to justify your ratings.
Be very careful when giving negative feedback. Make sure your words, tone and body language stay very friendly and respectful, and go out of your way to find positive things to say.
Just the act of volunteering can be intimidating, and people's willingness to volunteer will wither if they see anyone getting feedback that is blunt or insensitive.