While cold calling is practice that most students dread, from a teacher’s perspective, it’s an effective way to encourage students to prepare for and participate in class.
We’ve all been on the wrong side of this situation at least once in our lives, coming to class completely unprepared. And the natural thing to do when unprepared is to attempt to lower our odds of being called on, either by avoiding eye contact, sitting in the back of the classroom, or just not showing up. When students get away with this, it lowers the incentive to prepare and basically allows some of your students to slack off.
The only way to fix this problem is to make cold calling completely random. All you need is a list of your students’ names and the following Excel template.
Download the Excel Random Student Name Generator by clicking below:
Excel Random Student Name Generator
Instructions for Setup
The template is simple to use. All you have to do is go to the ‘Student Input’ tab and paste in the names of your students. This current template allows for a list of up to 300 student names.
How it Works
As you can see above, each student on the list is assigned a random number with Excel’s RAND() function.
The MAX() function is used to determine which student has been assigned the highest number. Then it performs an INDEX MATCH lookup on that maximum number to determine the student name.
For you Excel nerds out there, those higher on the list do technically have a higher probability of being selected. With the way the INDEX MATCH formula works, if two students receive the exact same number from Excel’s RAND() function, the student higher up on the list will be selected. However, those of you who’ve used RAND() before know that the likelihood of two numbers being the same is extremely low.
Once you have the data loaded, the template transposes the list into a table on the ‘Random Student Generator’ tab. This is done using the TRANSPOSE() array function.
From here, all you have to do is hold down the F9 key to shuffle between different student names. Conditional formatting has been setup so that the selected student will be highlighted in red within the table.
Hello, great work..that is that what i needed. Is it possible to get the password, because i want to add some features and pictures. greets
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for reading. Per policy with the co-founder of this website, we don’t distribute passwords for branded templates. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Best,
Matthew
This document here is absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing. I am wondering, however, how would one organize the code so there are no duplicates when shuffling through the names.
THE WORK IS GOOD
i really like how you did it,its quite impressing
keep it up ,its cool
is it possible that this sheet only show the number once. doesn’t repeat the name again.
Is it possible to put more than 300 names?
Or wil it not work then?
Hi Kevin,
Not currently. The base format is just 300. To put in more names, you would need to update the TRANSPOSE() array formula that is built into the template.
Best,
Matthew
Is it possible to have the students’ GPA appear with the name selected in the random generator? (instead of it being hidden when randomly selecting name)
Also, is there any way to track (by week) the students that have been selected in the random generator??
Thank you very much for sharing an excellent template with us but the problem arise when we see there is a password, if you really want to teach someone then I think you must not apply the password on it, because if prospective person want to apply this format somewhere or he wants to learn further then how can he do this so as far as my concerned is that you must teach all the tricks you have applied in the sheet or sheets, it is my humble request with you, now it is totally on you, but once again thank you very much for sharing an excellent template with us
How do we update the transpose array if we want to add more than 300?