Why a Fan?

A fan is a strip of card with four or five panels, folded accordion-style, each panel bearing a different answer option (A, B, C, D — or True/False/Not sure — or numbers 1 to 5). The teacher asks a question. Every child simultaneously holds up the panel that shows their answer. In ten seconds, the teacher can see every child's response at once.

The problem with hands up

Traditional "hands up" questioning has a fundamental flaw: it only shows you who volunteers. Confident children raise their hands; uncertain children don't. The teacher receives a skewed sample and often calls on the same few students repeatedly. Hands-up questioning tells you about confidence, not comprehension.

The fan as formative assessment

When every child must show an answer simultaneously, the teacher gets a true picture of the class. If twenty-five fans go up and twenty show "C" and five show "A," the teacher knows immediately: most children understand, but five need attention. This information can shape the next five minutes of teaching.

Reducing anxiety

The fan reduces the anxiety of individual public exposure. Every child answers at the same time — there is no single child standing alone with a wrong answer. Mistakes are distributed and anonymous at the group level, even though each child can see their own response. This makes it safer to answer honestly.

Making the fans

Strip of card, fold accordion-style, write the options on each panel, done. Children can make their own in five minutes. Once made, they last the whole year. The simplicity is part of the point: no technology required, no charging, no setup. The fan is always ready.

When to use it

Use fans for quick comprehension checks, for opinion questions with multiple options, for true/false responses to vocabulary items, or for self-assessment ("How confident are you about today's topic? 1–5"). Use them frequently — once a class becomes practiced with the routine, a fan check takes under a minute and provides rich data.