2. What are they?
• Mobile voting devices
(IR/RF)
• Question asked,
Students vote, response
displayed as graph
• Integrated with
powerpoint, or
standalone
• Vote mapped to
student… or not!
3. 3. Status indicator Lets begin
1. Switch your clicker on
2. Register to a channel,
e.g. type in 51
light should stop
flashing
4. Green light should
4. Incorrect
show you your
answer
response got
received
1. Power Button 5. Incorrect answer –
red light
4. Familiarity?
1. Never heard of them
3. Heard about them never seen them
5. Seen them used by someone else
7. Used them before
5. Clickers in the
CSE
• Used since 2004/2005
• Big push through
College Learning and
Teaching Strategy
Project
• Currently 2500
clickers in 18 lecture
theatres
• 60 lecturers involved
6. Clickers in the
MVM (july2008)
• 1 x receiver and 262
crickets for Lecture
Theatre A at
Chancellor's Building,
The Medical School at
Little France
Contact: Prof Allan Cumming
• 1 x receiver and 214
crickets in Western
General Hospital
contact: Mike Ford
7.
8.
9. Why use clickers
• To increase interaction
and engagement
• To gather feedback
• To understand
• To wake us up
10. How to use them
• Assess understanding
• Contingent teaching
• Initiate discussion
• Ongoing course
evaluation
11. Staff perspective … Student perspective….
“Students engage better with “I still think that they are really
material if challenged to answer. useful, they let you know when you
They then learn the perception of haven’t quite grasped a certain
the rest of the class as does the concept and help to keep me more
lecturer who can judge whether the alert in the lectures!”
issue has been learned or needs (Physics student)
reinforced.”
Dr Heather McQueen, Biology
12. The Challenges
• Technical issues
• Consistent use
• Low response rates
• Necessity to reduce
content in lectures
“A lot of time spend trying to
fix technical difficulties,
instead of proceeding with
lecture”. (Biology student)
13. In Practice ...
• Clickers in CSE are
managed by the
library (2008)
• Treated as a book
loan, with £25
replacement fee
• Students buying their
own clickers?
14. Do you think clickers could be
useful in Medicine?
1. Yes
2. Yes, in some subjects
3. No
4. Not sure
How would you use them?
15. Further Information?
• jon.jack@ed.ac.uk
• s.beasley@ed.ac.uk
• Book kit via audio.visual@ed.ac.uk
• Training via elearnhelp@ed.ac.uk
http://www.scieng.ed.ac.uk/ltstrategy/clickers.html
http://www.elearn.malts.ed.ac.uk/services/CAA/PRS.phtml
“Possibly the most productive application, however, and the one with the
largest body of existing research, is in using the equipment to initiate a
discussion.” (Steven Draper, Glasgow University)
Editor's Notes
1 x receiver and 262 crickets for Lecture Theatre A at Chancellor's Building, The Medical School at Little France. Contact: Prof Allan Cumming. 1 x receiver and 214 crickets for lecture theatre in Western General Hospital, contact: Mike Ford
To increase Interaction and engagement to increase interaction between lecturers and students Session where technology failed, reverted to a show of hands we had almost 100% response and it dropped to Around a 1/3 “ good learning is so highly correlated with engagement, that we might just as well measure engagement, and assume that where engagement is, learning is taking place.” To gather Feedback to get feedback on students’ understanding of content to give feedback to lecturers about they’re own lecture content Understanding to reveal common misconceptions amongst students to help students understand difficult concepts better Wake us up Reset our attention span, which research suggests is around 15 – 20 mins. And cheer us up, its fun.
Assess understanding Simple questions to check understanding: to give "formative feedback" to both students and presenter. Ask a question take feedback then ask to discuss with peers then poll again. Contingent teaching Using responses (e.g. proportion who got it right) to switch what you do next: "contingent teaching" that is adapted on the spot to the group. Initiate discussion Ongoing course Evaluation In the college of science and engineering there is a definite feeling of the students being bombarded with questionnaires. And a very bad response rate from them. You can use clickers to quickly poll large audiences for example at the end of lecture. If you ask the questions and quickly move on you could easy achieve 5 or 6 questions in 5 minutes.
Make time in class for clickers. You need to significantly redesign your course to accommodate them. Be prepared! Have a back up plan, if they don't work;
