Daniela Gachago, Educational Technology UnitFundani Centre for Higher Education Development, CPUT

Clickers in HE – Research and practice

Source: http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimages/c/cp/cput_cape_town_campus.jpg

Kay, H. K. & LeSage, A. (2009). Examining the benefits and challenges of using audience response systems: A review of the literature. Computers & Education, 53 (2009), 819-827.

Simpson V. & Oliver M. (2007).Electronic voting systems for lectures then and now: A comparison of research and practice. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2007, 23(2), 187-208.

Caldwell J. (2007). Clickers in the Large Classroom: Current Research and Best-Practice Tips. CBE—Life Sciences Education. Vol. 6, Spring 2007.

More stuff on clickers: http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/docs/classroom-response-system-clickers-bibliography/#reviews

Interactive, instructing questioning as teaching method is nothing new…

New technology…CLICKERS!

Anonymous Instant feedback Variety of question

types Record of data

Assumptions*

1. Content transmission is not the most effective way of learning

2. Students active engagement with ideas and applications support learning

3. Quality feedback should be provided to students

* Simpson V. & Oliver M. (2007). Electronic voting systems for lectures then and now: A comparison of research and practice. Australasion Journal of Educational Technology 2007, 23(2), 187-208.

Main research areas*

* Caldwell J. (2007). Clickers in the Large Classroom: Current Research and Best-Practice Tips. CBE Life Sciences Education, Vol. 6, Spring 2007.

A boat carrying a large boulder is floating on a lake. The boulder is thrown overboard and sinks. The water in the lake with respect to the shore

1. Rises2. Drops3. Remains the same

1 2 3

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The figure below presents three corridors to be used for traversing a road connecting two termini Mbazwana and Sodwana Bay

Quickly gathering information

How many semesters of calculus have you had?

How many countries outside South Africa have you visited?

Icebreaking questions: how are you feeling today? How was your weekend?

Who am I?

Recall questions: Beginning of class

Who has read the assigned material?

Source: visual.dichotomy, www.flickr.com

Testing pre-knowledge of students

Q2: The earth is flat.

1. It is not flat, I can convince someone who says it is flat

2. It is flat, and I can convince someone who says it is not flat

3. It is not flat, although I do not know how to convince someone who says it is flat

4. It is flat, although I do not know how to convince someone who says it is not flat

Lecturer’s feedback…

Generally most students got all the questions right- which really surprised me, as I thought they had no idea of the concepts I was gonna teach. I had got this impression from the lecturer whom I took this topic from, and who has taught it for over 20 years. She said was certain, from her experience, that the students know nothing, hence my surprise at the consistently correct answers. ….

This also made me re-think my teaching approach, and I have been able to spend less time on the basics, go faster in class (I gave the students typed notes), and I've had time to include videos for teaching (which the students have loved very much!).

Comparing class survey with survey results from

published studies

Source: Dr R James, UGA, http://www.slideshare.net/rnja8c/using-clickers-in-the-classroom-posted

How many Grade 11 students in Cape Town’s most deprived areas regularly access the Internet through their mobile phones*

1. Less than 20%2. 20-40%3. 40-60%4. 60-80%5. Nearly everyone

1 2 3 4 5

0% 0% 0%0%0%

Kreutzer T. (2009). Generation Mobile: Online and Digital Media Usage on Mobile Phones among Low-Income Urban Youth in South Africa

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Study results…

…majority of respondents (68%) have used a mobile phone on the previous day to access the Internet,

while half of all respondents (49%) used the mobile Internet to access the Web on the previous day.

Interpersonal communication remained the most common use of phones, with 87% of respondents making calls or sending SMS messages on a typical day.

Predict the outcome of an experiment

Source: Dr R James, UGA, http://www.slideshare.net/rnja8c/using-clickers-in-the-classroom-posted

Steve Draper, University of Glasgow

* Draper S. (n.d.) Electronically enhanced classroom interaction.

“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.* ”

5. We read (in par. 5) that Sonto enjoyed working in groups and did not enjoy the competitive spirit in some of his classes. This suggests that Sonto: 

1. believes that power is distributed unevenly in society

2. has a collectivist orientation to society

3. is task-orientated4. is from a culture

that supports individualism  1 2 3 4

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According to the poet, what is the main benefit of the World Cup:

1. Improved infrastructure

2. Improved stadia3. Creation of

permanent jobs4. Boosting the

economy sustainably

1 2 3 4

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5

Mazur Sequence

“You can forget facts but you cannot forget understanding” Prof. Eric Mazur, Harvard

Strathclyde video

Source: Bates S., Howie K. & Murphy A. (2006).

Enter question text...

1. Answer12. Answer23. answer3

Why bother*?

Benefits: studies on... *

Classroom environment benefits: increasing attendance, attention, anonymity and participation, engagement

Learning benefits: interaction, discussion, contingent teaching, learning performance, quality of learning

Assessment benefits: feedback, formative assessment, comparing responses with others

Kay, H. K. & LeSage, A. (2009). Examining the benefits and challenges of using audience response systems: A review of the literature. Computers & Education, 53 (2009), 819-827.

UoE staff perception

UoE (staff): Ranked by importance, clickers seem to be most useful to…

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Score (max 5...

Challenges from staff perspective

Technological challenges Responding to student feedback Coverage Development of questions

Students perception*

Overall trend in literature: most students like using clickers More consistent when asked about enjoyments

than helpfulness Main benefit: instructor has improved

awareness of students’ needs and teaching style is viewed as more “immediate”

Features liked best: anonymity, potential to reinforce learning and possibility to compare your answer with rest of the class

* Caldwell J. (2007). Clickers in the Large Classroom: Current Research and Best-Practice Tips. CBE Life Sciences Education, Vol. 6, Spring 2007.

CIVIL Engineering CLASS

Clickers are cool…

1. Strongly Agree2. Agree3. Neutral4. Disagree5. Strongly

Disagree

1 2 3 4 5

0% 0% 0%0%0%

Clickers help me most…

1. To keep my attention2. To keep me

entertained3. To help me

understand concepts4. To show me whether

I understood a question or not

5. To give the lecturer feedback on what I know

1 2 3 4 5

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Communication class

Graphics Design Class

However: students are also critical

Clickers require cognitive energy and cooperation from students

“stop messing around with technology and get back to good basic teaching” (d’inverno, 2003)

Less content is covered when using clickers Increased confusion in discussions When used in a non-anonymous way:

resistance to being monitored

Clicker fatigue?

Potential: extensive change of teaching practice

Towards a more discursive, segmented, tutorial style approach (Nicol & Boyle, 2003)

Contingent teaching (Draper & Brown, 2004)

Re-design of physical teaching spaces which allow collaboration / debate between students

References Bates S., Howie K. & Murphy A. (2006), Electronic voting systems; from one way

transmission to two-way conversation, the Journal of the Higher Education Academy Physical Sciences Centre (ISSN 1740-9888) - Issue 2 Dec 2006.

Caldwell J. (2007). Clickers in the Large Classroom: Current Research and Best-Practice Tips. CBE—Life Sciences Education. Vol. 6, Spring 2007.

Draper, S. W. & Brown, M. I. (2004). Increasing interactivity in lectures using an electronic voting system. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 20, 81-94.

Kay, H. K. & LeSage, A. (2009). Examining the benefits and challenges of using audience response systems: A review of the literature. Computers & Education, 53 (2009), 819-827.

Nicol, D. & Boyle, J. T. (2003). Peer instruction versus class-wide discussion in large classes: A comparison of two interaction methods in the wired classroom. Studies in Higher Education 28(4), 457-473.

Simpson V. & Oliver M. (2007).Electronic voting systems for lectures then and now: A comparison of research and practice. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2007, 23(2), 187-208.

Huge resource database: http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/docs/classroom-response-system-clickers-bibliography

Thank you!

Daniela Gachagogachagod@cput.ac.zawww.edutechcput.wordpress.com/

clickers