Made by Teachers, for Teachers

Call on every student knowing they’re confident and prepared

PrepPanel helps teachers build smarter, more engaging classrooms by giving every student a voice without the stress of random cold-calling.

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The Challenge Teachers Face

Cold-calling creates anxiety and shuts down voices
The same few students dominate discussions
Teachers juggle too many tabs and tools during class
Participation feels unfair or unpredictable
Discussion protocols get stale and repetitive
Forming groups takes time and often feels inequitable
Personalized learning requires complex, custom, or expensive systems to manage student progress
Gradebooks weren't built to track mastery, they were built to manage compliance

How PrepPanel Helps

Students know their turn is coming — no surprises
Every voice is included in class conversations
Teachers save time with all-in-one classroom tools
Participation is fair and transparent for everyone
Fresh, ready-to-use prompts keep discussions lively
Groups are created instantly and equitably
Manage a self-paced classroom with public pacing tracker and teacher dashboard
Use a purpose built competency-based learning system with our Mastery Tracker

The Things You Do Daily, Simplified

PrepPanel is like a Swiss Army knife for classrooms — all your essential teaching tools in one place.

📌 Lineup Picker

Fair, transparent student selection that eliminates cold-calling anxiety.

🪑 Seating Chart

Auto-balanced tables that honor your rules—keep students together or apart and distribute students according to levels you set.

🎯 Daily Learning Targets

Keep students focused with clear, visible learning objectives.

⏱ Timers

Perfect timing for activities, discussions, and transitions.

👥 Group Creator

Instantly create balanced, randomized student groups.

🗣 Conversation Prompts

Fuel meaningful dialogue with engaging, student-friendly discussion protocols.

📊 Progress Tracking

Monitor participation and engagement patterns.

📈 Mastery Tracking

Monitor student progress by learning objective, not assignment.

📅 Pacing Tracker

Using a self-paced classroom? Use our built-in, customizable pacing tracker.

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★★★★★

Verified on Chrome Web Store

“It was super easy to use. I pasted my student first names from a spreadsheet, and I tossed my popsicle sticks. The posting of the discussions and timers help keep my students on track as well. I will be sharing this with other teachers.”

— Deborah P. Read on Chrome Web Store

Why I Built PrepPanel

As a former teacher, I know the stress of managing classroom participation. Relying on volunteers meant the same confident voices dominated every discussion. Cold calling, on the other hand, created fear and anxiety.PrepPanel grew out of a simple belief: every student deserves the chance to participate with confidence, and every teacher deserves tools that make their job easier, not harder. By giving students time to prepare, we create classrooms where learning thrives.What started as a smarter student picker to replace jars, popsicle sticks, and index cards has become so much more. With PrepPanel, you can set timers, generate groups, track participation, post learning targets, freshen up your discussion protocols, make the perfect seating chart every time, and even run a student self-paced classroom and mastery learning tracker.... all in one place. Think of it as your classroom multi-tool: ready whenever you need it.

1

Install PrepPanel

Add PrepPanel from the Chrome Web Store in seconds

2

Set Up Your Class

Open PrepPanel, set up your classes, rosters, and group rules

3

Teach with Confidence

Every student gets a voice, watch participation grow!

Confident students, easier teaching — ready to get started?

Start using PrepPanel today, it's free in the Chrome Web Store.

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Blog

Beyond the "Gotcha": The Pedagogical Case for Warm Calling

By combining random selection with "Up Next" forewarning and intentional wait time, Warm Calling creates the optimal balance between high accountability and low anxiety.

The Participation Trap

In most classrooms, participation follows the "Pareto Principle": 20% of the students do 80% of the talking. This is often driven by "hand-raising," which favors fast processors and extroverts over deep thinkers.

While traditional "Cold Calling" (randomly picking a student) solves the equity issue, it creates a new problem: Cognitive Shutdown. When a student is ambushed, the brain's stress response inhibits working memory.

"If you are allowing students to raise their hands to answer questions, you are making the achievement gap worse, because the students who are raising their hands are the ones who are getting smarter."
— Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment [1]

Methodology Comparison

How does Warm Calling compare to traditional methods? The data below synthesizes findings on equity, anxiety, and rigor.

Metric	Volunteers	Cold Calling	Warm Calling
Equity of Voice	Low	High	High
Student Anxiety	Low	Very High	Optimal
Wait Time	< 1 Second	Variable	3-5+ Seconds
Response Quality	Surface	Fragmented	Deep

Table synthesis based on Lemov (2015), Wiliam (2011), and Dallimore et al. (2012).

The Data on "Think Time"

A Warm Calling system doesn't just queue students; it solves the "awkward silence" problem. Mary Budd Rowe's seminal research found that while teachers know they should wait for an answer, the average wait time is only 0.9 seconds because silence feels socially heavy.

How the Queue "Hacks" Wait Time

When a student sees they are "On Deck" or "Up Next," silence is instantly rebranded as Processing Time. The student isn't staring blankly; they are actively drafting their answer.

Figure 2: Impact of Wait Time on Answer Quality

Data Source: Rowe (1972) / Stahl (1994) [2]

Avg Classroom (< 1s Wait)

35%

Failure

45%

Recall

15%

Inference

Logic

Peer

Result: High failure rates ("I don't know") and simple fact recall.

Warm Call (3s+ Wait)

Failure

15%

Recall

30%

Inference

35%

Logic

15%

Peer

Result: 700% increase in speculative/logical thinking.

"To surrender the floor to a student is a risk. To remain silent after a student speaks is a risk... But when wait-times are increased to three seconds or more, there is a pronounced change in the logic and completeness of student language."
— Mary Budd Rowe, Wait Time: Slowing Down May Be A Way Of Speeding Up! [2]