Clickers and active engagement sociology - jeff loats
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This document discusses using clickers or classroom response systems to increase active engagement in large sociology courses. It provides evidence that clickers can improve learning outcomes when used consistently with good questioning techniques. Examples of effective questioning techniques include peer instruction, polling, and adding metacognition. The document encourages starting small with clickers and providing support and incentives to demonstrate their value for both instructors and students.
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Clickers and active engagement sociology - jeff loats
- 1. CLICKERS AND ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT @ MSU DENVER SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENT DR. JEFF LOATS Name DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS School Department
- 2. 2 THE TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGE • Not a magic bullet • Increase personal contact • Fundamentally new opportunities
- 3. 3 TECHNOLOGIES VS. TECHNIQUES iClickers Peer Instruction Colored cards Factual recall Hands Polling/survey Poll-Teach-Poll Thought Questions Teach-Test-Retest … adding metacognition
- 4. 4 Are you currently using clickers or another classroom response system in your courses? A) I have never used them. B) I have used them before, but don’t currently. C) I use them currently in at least one class.
- 5. 5 PHYSICS EDUCATION REVOLUTION Eric Mazur, Physicist at Harvard:
- 7. 7 University of Washington University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Colorado
- 8. 8 MAZUR’S PERSONAL REVOLUTION (added) Pre-class reading, enforced (removed) Most sample problems (removed) Derivations (modified) Lecture broken up into small bites (added) Depth over coverage (added) Concept Tests with Peer Instruction
- 9. 9 PEER INSTRUCTION • Multiple choice questions – Conceptual – Hard 1. Students answer Individually 2. Discussion with peers 3. Students answer post-discussion 4. Class-wide discussion
- 10. 10 Students have developed a robot dog and a robot cat, both of which can run at 8 mph and walk at 4 mph. A the end of the term, there is a race! The robot cat must run for half of its racing time, then walk. The robot dog must run for half the racing distance, then walk. Which one wins the race? A) Robot cat B) Robot dog C) They tie
- 11. 11 MAZUR AFTER 1 YEAR
- 12. 12 ELSEWHERE?
- 13. 13 WHY CLICKERS? • Alternatives: – Hand raising – Numbered/colored cards • Anonymity + secrecy honesty • Inclusive • Fast • Credit for learning
- 14. 14 TECHNOLOGIES VS. TECHNIQUES iClickers Peer Instruction Colored cards Factual recall Hands Polling/survey Poll-Teach-Poll Thought Questions Teach-Test-Retest … adding metacognition
- 15. 15 FACTUAL RECALL • Rated poorly by students • High stakes? • Reading quiz or diagnostic?
- 16. 16 What is the correct expression for the area of a circle? A) e∙r B) e ∙ r2 C) π∙d D) π ∙ r2 E) π∙r
- 17. 17 POLLING/SURVEY • Share without risk • Comparison statistics • Controversial topics are engaging
- 18. 18 Do you feel you were treated fairly at all levels of review when you had your most recent professional review (renewal, tenure, promotion, etc.)? A) Yes B) No First: Women only Second: Men only
- 19. 19 How large of an effect does bias have in the social sciences? [Measurement was of faculty responsiveness to prospective student emails.] A) Women/minorities do worse by ~11%) B) Women/minorities do worse by ~3% C) No difference across gender/ethnicities D) Caucasian males do worse by ~3% E) Caucasian males do worse by ~11%
- 20. 20 POLL-TEACH-POLL • Poll but don’t show results • Teach • Poll again to explore shifts in attitudes • Peer sharing for added metacognition • Insightful results for instructor
- 21. 21 Which best describes your feelings about female circumcision/female genital mutilation? A) I am writing letters to the WHO to protest. B) To each their own… we shouldn’t interfere with another culture. C) What is the big deal… males around the world are circumcised. D) I don’t know anything about it.
- 22. 22 THOUGHT QUESTIONS • Choose a relevant open-ended question. • Small group discussion • Presentation & defense by a single group • Class votes: Agree/Disagree/Don’t know • Majority disagrees? Next group presents! • Repeat until majority agrees Created by Teresa Foley & Pei-San Tai from the CU Integrative Physiology Department
- 23. 23 Endocrinology: What would you predict would happen to the ovulatory frequency if one ovary were removed? Immunology: Given that all blood cell types derive from the pluripotent hemopoietic stem cell, why are there so many different types of cells in the immune system?
- 24. 24 TEACH-TEST-RETEST • Skill focused questions • Diagnostic and formative assessment • Repeated testing beats repeated studying!
- 25. 25 ADDING METACOGNITION “… and I can explain why” “… but I don’t know why” • Good for two-choice questions • Adds to formative assessment value
- 26. 26 THE EVIDENCE STANDARD • Quick/easy attendance in large class sizes. • Provides anonymity (Banks, 2006). • Every student participates (Banks, 2006). • Encourages active learning (Martyn, 2007).
- 27. 27 THE EVIDENCE STANDARD • Improved concentration (Hinde & Hunt, 2006) • Improved learning and retention (Moreau, 2010). • Improved exam scores (Poirier & Feldman, 2007) • Efficient use of class time (Anderson, et al. 2011).
- 29. 29 BEST PRACTICES • Start small – 5 min of each hour of class • Sell it – Be explicit about why • Be consistent – Nearly every class • Engage students – Wait for explanation • Demonstrate value – Focus on wrong answers • Follow up – Assessments must change • Credit – 2%-15% for participation… mostly.
- 30. 30 GET SUPPORTED! • Try it… but be smart! • Resources: – Center for Faculty Development – Metro’s TLT Conference (Oct. 26th) – Teacher Scholar Forum (Feb. 22nd) – Me (visit, email, chat, etc.) – Colleagues!
- 31. 31 YOUR SUMMARY For yourself… or to share? What part of how or why to use clickers is the fuzziest for you after this talk? What is the biggest reason you might not give clickers a try in one course next term? Contact me: Jeff.Loats@gmail.com Presentation: www.slideshare.net/jeffloats
Editor's Notes
- “Learning technologies should be designed to increase, and not to reduce, the amount of personal contact between students and faculty on intellectual issues.”(Study Group on the Conditions of Excellencein American Higher Education, 1984)“The challenge is not simply to incorporate learning technologies into current institutional approaches, but rather to change our fundamental views about effective teaching and learning and to use technology to do so.” (Higher Education in an Era of Digital Competition, Donald E. Hanna)
- Asking
- About ~20 years ago, physics teachers began treating education as a research topic!Their findings were pretty grim"But the students do fine on my exams!“It appeared that students had been engaging in “surface learning” allowing them to solve problems algorithmically without actually understanding the concepts.
- Was this just at Harvard (silly question)!Data from H.S., 2-year, 4-year, universities, etc.0.23 Hake gain on the FCI means that of the newtonian physics they could have learned in physics class, they learned 23% of it.Conclusion: Traditional physics lectures are all similarly (in)effective in improving conceptual understanding.
- Enter Physics Education Research:An effort to find empirically tested ways to improve the situation.
- Students had fragile knowledge from engaging in surface learningObviously this isn't what he thought he was teaching.Very “learner centered” moveClass time is now almost entirely focused on tackling tough conceptual questionsLater shifted to JiTT instead of reading quizzes
- Carefully chosen questionsIdeally: 30-70% correct on first try)In 95% of cases, students “migrate” towards correct answer, often dramatically.Explanation and discussion by instructor follows the second “vote”, as necessary.In my class, participation is required (5% of final grade) but correctness is not required.
- Asking
- Is this just about new energy being put into an old class?(This is a difficult confounding factor in assessing new teaching techniques.)
- Is this just about new energy being put into an old class?
- Can occasionally serve as a reading quiz or as a lecture diagnostic.Students rate these questions as much less valuable compared to harder, deeper questions.If these are “high-stakes,” technical difficulties become even more problematic.
- Not asking
- Polls or surveys provide a way for students to express their opinion on topics, when they otherwise might remain quiet. Polls or surveys can be used as a comparison with statistics in the text.Students enjoy voting on controversial topics. The classroom can quickly become more animated after viewing the results.
- Not asking
- AskingActual results:Social science faculty responded 2.5% more to white men (71% vs. 68.5%)Natural, physical sciences and math responded 5.9% more (69.8% vs. 63.9%)
- Polling first (without showing the results), then teaching, then polling again allows tracking of changes in student attitudes or opinions. Can enhance critical thinking (analyzing, evaluating).Increases metacognition (partner/peer share).Provides quick checks on knowledge and understanding of material.
- Not asking
- Start by choosing a learning goal to assess.Develop an open-ended application/prediction question for the goal.Present the question, organize groups of 3-4 students and allow 5-7 minutes for discussion.One group presents their answer and rationale.Class votes on rationale: Agree/Disagree/Don’t know.If the majority of the class disagrees, another group gets to offer their answer and rationale.Repeat 5 & 6 until the majority agrees.
- Hee-mo-poe-ee-dic
- Reference for repeated testing beating out repeated studying is: Roediger & Karpicke, 2006
- Hinde & Hunt: We survey 219 first-year business studies students tackling introductory economics, and find that the technology enhances learning in lectures because, among other things, it improves concentration, provides instantaneous and more effective student feedback, and allows students to make comparisons on how well they fare relative to their peers. Moreau, 2010: Overall, the experimental group scored higher on the posttest than the control group, and weak students in the experimental group made more improvement as measured by the posttest than similar ability students in the control groupPoirier & Feldman, 2007: There are reports of modest increases in exam grades when instructors use clickers to test concepts and probe opinions in large sections of introductory psychology .Anderson, et al. 2011: Compression (dropping topics that are well understood) based on group, or individual-level performance caused no decrease in learning compared to no compression.
- Hinde & Hunt: We survey 219 first-year business studies students tackling introductory economics, and find that the technology enhances learning in lectures because, among other things, it improves concentration, provides instantaneous and more effective student feedback, and allows students to make comparisons on how well they fare relative to their peers. Moreau, 2010: Overall, the experimental group scored higher on the posttest than the control group, and weak students in the experimental group made more improvement as measured by the posttest than similar ability students in the control groupPoirier & Feldman, 2007: There are reports of modest increases in exam grades when instructors use clickers to test concepts and probe opinions in large sections of introductory psychology .Anderson, et al. 2011: Compression (dropping topics that are well understood) based on group, or individual-level performance caused no decrease in learning compared to no compression.
- The 10% rule or 5 min/hour.Clicker questions should be worth credit (2% - 15%)Give 2-3 “free days” to reduce complaints/excusesGrading based on correctness:Distorts student discussion and learning strategies.Limits question types.Leads to technology/human issues: “I meant to hit, C!”Grade based on participation (mostly?)Immediate feedback without penalty seems key to learning.Allows for “bad” questions that are still great for learning.Occasional “must be correct” questions can motivate.
- Asking