by Jocasta Williams
Dr Luli Faber teaches in the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of Queensland, specialising in physiology and neuroscience. She teaches to a diverse group of students, including those in Allied Health, Science, and Medicine programmes. Like many educators, she found the traditional lecture format limiting, with students passively absorbing information without real-time engagement. To address this, she turned to EchoPoll, a tool that has since re-shaped her teaching approach.
“I started using EchoPoll because I was increasingly dissatisfied with the traditional passive lecture format where I was simply delivering information to students sitting in front of me. I had no real insight into whether they were listening, let alone understanding. I wanted a way to truly engage with them, check their understanding in real time, and address misunderstandings and misconceptions during the lecture itself.”
The impact of EchoPoll on her students has been significant. Rather than leaving lectures feeling drained, students now actively participate in activities and discussions, creating a more dynamic, collaborative, and engaging learning environment.
“Instead of everyone being tired and drained at the end of a 50‑minute lecture, there’s a much lighter, more positive atmosphere. Most students in the room engage with the polls, and they’ve given me really strong feedback through their evaluations. They’ve said the polls help them understand what they’re learning, where to focus their study, and whether they’re actually retaining the information.”
While it’s challenging to directly measure the isolated impact of polling on grades—especially as she has introduced several new teaching strategies at once—Dr Faber is confident that the more active learning environment is contributing positively to students’ comprehension and long‑term retention.
A common concern among educators is how to balance interactive activities like polling with the pressure to “get through” large volumes of content. Dr Faber has found that intentionally prioritising deeper learning over breadth of coverage is a worthwhile trade‑off. Beyond reinforcing subject knowledge, she also sees polling helping students build critical skills such as teamwork, communication, and analytical thinking—capabilities that are essential for their future careers.
Dr Faber unpacks this further by explaining how she uses polling in group work activities: “If I put up a poll that asks them to assess a picture, or establish which one of these pictures doesn’t belong in a certain context, that will stimulate discussion with others that will help their communication skills, their group teamwork, their social learning, and also their critical thinking where they start having to think critically and practise creating argument and evaluating their thinking in communication with others.”
To create a safe and inclusive learning environment, Dr Faber uses EchoPoll’s anonymous mode, allowing students to respond freely without fear of judgment. “I use the anonymous feature for students so that they feel safe to engage. I don’t want to deter them from participating because of a fear of exposure or getting something wrong.”
While Dr Faber records her lectures using EchoVideo to support student revision and flexibility, she sees EchoPoll as a key tool for transforming the live classroom experience. By integrating real-time polling into her lectures, she fosters an interactive, student-centred learning environment where engagement, discussion, and critical thinking take centre stage. Through this approach, her students don’t just passively receive information – they actively shape their own learning.
