3 - Scientific Teaching in Action

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

• articulate the benefits of using student response systems like clickers in your class
• compare and contrast the various ways to implement a clicker question
  • when do you re-poll
  • when do you ask students to discuss
  • when do you explain the answer vs have students explain their reasoning
• describe 5 best practices of clicker implementation

Effective Use of Clickers: Using Clicker to Maximize Student Learning

Article by Smith et. al (Science, 2009): Why Peer Discussion Improves Student Performance on In-Class Concept Questions

Clickers have the potential to:

• Engage students
• Give students practice on important concepts
• Give the instructor insight into what students are thinking
• Give students insight into what they do not understand

Challenges implementing clicker questions:

• Student buy-in:
  • Explain why you are doing this (show research, etc...). Remind the students that sharing ideas is learning.
  • Demonstrate why you are doing this (let them practice peer discussion).
• Student fear/motivation:
  • Make it safe - value all answers that students are willing to share.
  • Give low-stakes incentives:
    • Participation points vs. points for correct answers
    • At the end of a semester, substitute average clicker score for the worst homework score if it is better
    • At the end of a semester, give full points if they've answered 75% of clicker questions

Implementation Tips

Implementation Tip #1: Use clicker questions to focus on important learning objectives

• Low-order questions rarely promote meaningful discussion/learning, and encourages overconfidence.
• High-order questions - questions that really challenge students - maximize learning, and are a better use of class time.

Implementation Tip #2: Use peer discussion

Implementation Tip #3: Do not show the histogram after a vote unless students are evenly split - wait until after student reasons have been shared

• Students are 30% more likely to switch to a popular vote if they see the histogram (Perez et al., 2010).
• Students that picked an unpopular choice may be reluctant to participate in discussions.

Implementation Tip #4: Whenever you value student reasoning, cue them to discuss their ideas

• Kinds of Cues:
  • Answer Centered: "Discuss your answers, we will talk about the correct answer afterwards."
  • Reasoning Centered: "Discuss your answers focusing on the reasoning, we will share your ideas afterwards."
• When students were prompted to use reasoning, they were significantly more likely to engage with their groups.

Implementation Tip #5: Follow up - make sure many voices are heard

• Possible Techniques:
  • Ask for volunteers to describe why they chose an answer
  • Put students into informal groups, and randomly call on groups to articulate why they chose an answer

Additional References:

• Student Buy-in / Framing a class

  • http://www.colorado.edu/sei/fac-reso...s/framing.html

• Videos of Effective Use of Clickers
  • http://stemvideos.colorado.edu/
• Clicker Resource Page
  • http://stemclickers.colorado.edu/
• Plickers: http://www.plickers.com

• iClickers: https://www.iclicker.com

Session Slides: