Particularly in the Social Sciences, but in any class, it is sometimes useful to have students conduct a survey (this works great for a statistics lesson in a Math class as well!). Allow students time during class to brainstorm what types of questions would elicit responses surrounding the topic from class, then create the Form in class. Homework assigned: share your form, being sure to collect at least 15 responses by class next time. Class discussion will be much more interesting once you have real world results to analyze!
This can even work with little ones. In the last school in which I worked, the 1st grade teacher would often take students around to ask other students and teachers questions about the lesson they were studying. I remember being asked things like, “what is democracy?”, while their tiny hands wrote furiously to take notes of all commentary gleaned. Once back in class, they were able to share and compare the results.
One easy way to implement this using Google Forms is to have students create a Google Form with all the questions they would like to ask, and then share it with their friends and family. Sharing can be via email or social media, using the “Send” button within Google Forms, or students can post a shortened link (obtainable at goo.gl), or turn the form link into a QR code (or whatever other means they find helpful for sharing). Once results are collected, students can take the lead sharing their insights with the class, or in the case of a Google Form created by the whole class, the teacher can lead discussion in looking at the results and what they may mean.
Amanda M. Orozco 