Classroom teachers face a daunting task: They often have 30 or more students in a class period and are expected to not only design learning experiences that differentiate for different levels of student readiness but also provide practice opportunities, provide timely feedback, and assess progress while adjusting instruction accordingly.
For a long time, this has understandably felt like a tall order. It’s definitely still difficult, but fortunately, AI is beginning to offer practical solutions to this challenge. One such AI option is Snorkl.
What is Snorkl, and what does it do?
Snorkl is an AI feedback tool that allows you to create a student task and then share it with them to complete. When students click the link to the task, they’re prompted to complete the activity by following the directions on the screen. They have the ability to draw out an answer on an integrated whiteboard, type a response, and record themselves speaking and solving a problem or answering a question presented to them.
When they are finished, they submit their answer, and then the magic happens. Snorkl’s AI assesses the students’ work based on criteria that the teacher has preapproved. It then provides students with feedback about what was done well, mistakes that are noticed, and suggestions for improvement. Students can try again, and teachers can review the AI-generated feedback.
Essentially, Snorkl acts like a classroom teaching assistant, providing personalized feedback to each student while you’re circulating through the class and helping as many students as you have time to meet with.
How do I get started?
First, you need to set up your free Snorkl account. To do this, navigate to snorkl.app and click on the “Sign Up” button. You’ll have two options to sign up, either with Google or Microsoft. Snorkl says that it has limited registration to these two choices to improve security. From there, indicate if you are a student or a teacher. With the teacher option, you’ll be prompted to enter your school and job title.
Once your account has been created, you can try a sample activity, select one from the thousands of standards-aligned activities that are included in the library, choose to create your own activity, or set up a class.
How do I create, assign, and review an activity?
To begin, click on the “Create an Activity” option. Here, you’ll fill out the text fields presented to you.
Add a title at the top, and then click the question field to open the whiteboard space and add your questions or directions. When you click on the whiteboard, you’ll see the same workspace that students will see. At the top, there will be a toolbar with a pointer, pencil, highlighter, magic pen, eraser, text tool, math equation creator, shapes tool, line tool, and an option to add images. An undo and redo feature is also available.
As the teacher, you’ll set up the task in this space for the students to complete. For example, you could insert a passage of text and then ask the students to respond to corresponding questions, include a math problem to be solved, have students label parts of a cell, or have them create a historical timeline. There are many options here.
When you’re finished, click on the “Done Editing” selection. From there, you can click on the “AI Feedback” button on the left to either set up feedback manually or, as is recommended, click on the “Generate From the Question” option. With this latter option, AI will generate the correct answer as well as criteria for solving the problem or answering the question in the best way. You can accept these as generated or edit them to add more detail and feedback on your own.
There are additional options available to the teacher, with one being the ability to choose a student’s default language. Students will receive feedback in the language selected, with over 40 different languages available. The teacher can also choose to show the answer as correct or incorrect and whether or not to show the student their AI-generated score on the task.
Once you’re finished with the problem, click “Assign” to assign an activity. You’ll be prompted to either create a new class or select a class from your list. From there, you can schedule a start and due date, allow a guest log-on so that students don’t even need to set up their own account, and determine whether students can view and comment on each other’s anonymous responses.
Once assigned, you can share the activity with a join code or provide a link from the teacher dashboard. Snorkl also allows you to try the activity yourself. This is great, as it allows you to see what your students will be experiencing, and you can test it ahead of time to make sure that it aligns with your expectations.
When previewing an activity, you will be greeted with a “Whiteboard Recording Activity” welcome screen that provides instructions for adding your ideas, explaining your thinking, and submitting your work to receive feedback.
You will be able to click the “Record Screen and Voice” button to begin solving the problem. If you do this, you will be prompted to allow the microphone for the site. If permitting, you can record, review, cancel, redo, continue recording, or submit your response.
Once a response has been submitted, Snorkl gets to work analyzing. When it is finished, it shares feedback on the right-hand side of the recording that was submitted. The feedback is time-stamped and includes praise for what is correct, suggestions for rethinking mistakes that may have been made, and a follow-up question to prompt rethinking of the answer if it’s incorrect.
Students can click a little speaker next to each chunk of text to have it read aloud to them. Then, there’s an option at the top to respond again if the student wants another try at it.
Back in the teacher dashboard, you can see all student responses, as well as an “Insights” tab, which provides AI-generated summaries of performance trends, top student exemplars, and common mistakes. It’s a great way to get quick formative feedback on how students are doing in your classroom.
There is also an option for the teacher to go back and edit the activity to make it stronger.
Other Options and Features
If you don’t feel ready to create your own activity, you can pick one from the Snorkl library. There are activity options ranging from kindergarten through 12th grade, with standards-aligned activities for a variety of subject areas, including math, science, and world languages. Notices on the page indicate that more activities will be coming soon.
Even if you don’t end up using any of these premade activities, reviewing them can give you excellent models from which to reference when crafting your own activities.
Finally, Snorkl is COPPA and FERPA compliant and claims to protect student privacy. As always, it’s best to contact your local experts and leadership to determine if Snorkl is acceptable and appropriate for the students in your school and district.
If you’re looking for ways to provide personalized feedback to your students, Snorkl might be the option for your classroom.
AVID Connections
This resource connects with the following components of the AVID College and Career Readiness Framework:
- Instruction
- Rigorous Academic Preparedness
- Student Agency
- Insist on Rigor
- Break Down Barriers
- Align the Work
- Advocate for Students