5 Fun Ways to Randomly Select Students

In an ideal world, we’d get equal engagement from every student during every class. However, teachers know this isn’t usually the case. While some students reliably raise their hands, there are also those who are shyer to answer a question or volunteer for a task. 

One constant challenge for teachers is finding ways to involve everyone in the lesson. When it comes to selecting students for class participation, a good strategy is to randomize which student is selected. That way, students won’t feel like they’re being singled out unfairly. But be mindful that students often need reflection time or a quick turn-and-talk before they will feel prepared to respond in a whole-class discussion.

Having a variety of fun ways to randomly select students is useful for the whole class, not just the ones that rarely volunteer. Random selection can help engage the whole class, reminding them that they could be chosen at any time. All students then have a greater incentive to pay close attention, as they can’t rely on their more outgoing peers answering every question. Better still, when students know that they may have to participate at any time, they become active participants rather than passive ones. With all this in mind, let’s take a look at ways to randomly select students.

5 easy ways to randomly call on students

1. Name cards (physical or digital)

A simple way to randomly call on students is to create cards with each student’s name on one, then choose a card at random. There are many online tools that can do this as well, including Classcraft’s embedded Student Picker. You can also have the students make their own cards, which creates a short, fun task that gives them a little ownership in the idea of random selection.

The suspense of choosing a name can be made fun with sound effects like a drumroll or having the students take a card from out of a hat. Cards can be different colors too—and students can even sort themselves based on what the colors mean. Imagine your classroom having “houses” like in a fantasy story! For example, red cards could be the “house of cats,” blue cards the “house of dogs,” green cards the “house of snakes,” and so on.

2. Number cards

Instead of making cards from scratch (or using custom digital “cards”), you could take preexisting cards with numbers on them and write a student’s name on each one. If the cards have other features such as suits or colors, you can even get creative and make use of those features, similar to the idea of color-coding cards if making your own. A certain color or suit, for instance, can be used to decide which group has to answer a question in a team activity or determine the type of question they have to answer. Plus, if you’re adept at shuffling a deck of cards, you can select students with flair by shuffling the cards each time!

3. Spinner

A spinner is a versatile way of calling on students randomly. The most straightforward approach is to create a wheel (having your class help out, ideally) with every student’s name featured on it. Then, when you want to choose a student, you spin the wheel and call out the name of the student it lands on. Not only does it choose a student at random, but it also adds a bit of fun into your classroom as your students wait for it to stop spinning.

That said, it’s far easier to use a digital spinner, which are freely available on many websites and mobile apps. With those, all you have to do is load up the wheel, enter your students’ names, and click away. Better yet, most allow you to save the names you entered, so you only have to enter them once.

Adding colors to the spinner adds more than pretty visuals. You could, for instance, have two wheels: one for selecting a student and another for determining the kind of question you’ll ask. You can then create a series of categories denoted by color and write questions on colorful cards of the corresponding category.

4. Number cubes

If you haven’t managed to get around to creating your color wheels, a simple alternative is to use number cubes. Unless you have exactly six students, you’ll have to be a little creative about how to use them. One solution is to split the class into segments, with each number on the cube corresponding to a particular table or group of students. You could then roll again to see which member of that selected group has to answer the question.

You can also have some fun with it, giving one or more of the numbers a special function. For example, once you’ve determined the group by an initial throw, rolling a three could mean that the respondent then has to ask a follow-up question. Many students will be familiar with this method of random choice from board games they’ve played and might enjoy a little added gamification to the classroom.

5. Let the students choose

If you’re engaged in a task that everyone in the class has to do one at a time, you could have each student pick the person to go next. Granted, this isn’t strictly random and you’ll have to do a little stewarding, but it does mix up the order of volunteers and gets all students to participate eventually, so it does the job! Besides, in my experience, it’s fun and gives the students some agency, an important component of classroom management.

Engage more students in each lesson

There are plenty of creative and fun ways to randomly call on students, especially with a little prep beforehand. By making good use of these strategies, you’ll consistently engage more of your class in each lesson. Over time, these methods might even help some students to gain confidence and volunteer more frequently—which is one of the greatest gifts you could possibly give a young student.

This article was adapted from a blog post initially developed by the education technology company Classcraft, which was acquired by HMH in 2023. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.

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