Try Boom Cards!

As technology continues to advance, more and more educators are looking for ways to integrate it into their classrooms to enhance the learning experience for their students. One such tool that has gained popularity in recent years is Boom Cards. When I decided to try Boom cards, it was with the intent of creating fast and easy digital flash cards for my middle school students, but they have grown to be much more than that.

What are Boom Cards?

Boom Cards are an innovative, interactive digital tool designed to enhance the learning experience for students of all ages. They are essentially digital task cards that can be used by teachers to create engaging, interactive learning activities for their students.

Boom Cards are designed to be used on digital devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones. They can be accessed through a web browser, and they are compatible with many learning management systems such as Google Classroom and Canvas.

The cards are created using a platform called Boom Learning, which allows teachers to create custom decks of cards that can include text, images, audio, and video. The cards can be used to teach a wide range of subjects, from math and science to language arts and social studies.

What can you use Boom Cards for?

Here are my 5 favorite ways to use Boom cards in my 7th and 8th grade science classrooms:

1. Practice and review – Great for rote memorization and practice, Boom cards have the added benefit of providing instant feedback both to my students and to me.
2. Bellringers and Exit tickets – Boom cards are great for those 5 minutes at the beginning or end of class when you want a quick formative assessment.
3. Assessments: Teachers can create assessments using Boom Cards. The immediate feedback feature of Boom Cards allows students to receive feedback as soon as they complete a task. This means that teachers can use Boom Cards for formative assessments to see how well their students are understanding the material.
4. Centers or Stations: Boom Cards can be incorporated into center or station rotations. Teachers can create decks of Boom Cards that are focused on specific skills or topics and assign them to a center or station. Students can work through the decks at their own pace while the teacher works with other students.
5. Interactive Notebooks: Boom Cards can be used as interactive notebook activities. Teachers can create Boom Cards that require students to input their responses directly into the card, and these can be downloaded and printed out as part of a student’s interactive notebook.
6. Escape rooms – Boom cards can be set to act like a series of puzzles guiding students through a digital escape activity. 

Benefits of Boom Cards

These interactive digital task cards offer many benefits for middle school science teachers and their students.

1. Engaging and Interactive Learning  – Boom Cards are designed to be interactive and engaging. Students are presented with a question or task, and they must use their critical thinking skills to come up with an answer. The cards can include images, videos, and audio, which makes learning more exciting for students.
2. Self-Paced Learning – With Boom Cards, students can work at their own pace. They can repeat a card as many times as they need to understand the material or move on to the next card if they have a firm grasp of the content. This self-paced learning is particularly beneficial for middle school students who may have varying levels of knowledge and understanding.
3. Immediate Feedback – Boom Cards offer immediate feedback to students. They are notified if they have answered a question correctly or incorrectly, and they are given an explanation of why their answer was right or wrong. This instant feedback helps students to learn from their mistakes and to reinforce their understanding of the material.
4. Personalized Learning – Boom Cards can be customized to meet the needs of individual students. Teachers can create decks of cards that are tailored to a particular student’s learning style or ability level. This personalized learning approach can help to ensure that every student is challenged and engaged in their learning.
5. Easy Assessment – With Boom Cards, teachers can quickly and easily assess their students’ understanding of the material. They can see how many cards each student has completed, which cards they struggled with, and which cards they aced. This information can be used to identify areas where students need more support and to adjust lesson plans accordingly.

Want to read more? Read my earlier blog post on basic Boom cards and Advanced Boom cards.