Give Your Learners the Extra Cognitive Boost: Box Them!

Inge de Waard3 November 2010 – 11 am – 11.40

Click fast and win …

a 4GB USB stick at the end of this session! And a priceless hug from the presenter

The What

• Clickers

• Audience Response system (ARS)

• Voting boxes

The options

• Different brands

• Mobile phone polls for online courses

• Use a web-based survey or quiz software (e.g. polleverywhere or surveygizmo).

• After you have build your quiz or survey you either make a QR-code for it (easy to get users to the right location via their mobile), or you send them a link (use software that shortens links like TinyURL, for easy access.

• And ask them to take the survey… simultaneously

Let’s go old school & raise hands

• Who likes cats?• Who likes dogs?• Who has not raised

their hands?

Difficult to keep track as a teacher: after the course no useful post-data

(unlike interactions in LMS’s which can help adjusting training or learning)

As trainers/teachers we want to interact & know what is going on

Pedagogical reasons to use voting boxes

• Increases interactivity in the classroom or learning environment

• It can be used individually or in group (stimulating peer-to-peer discussion)

• All of the learners must reflect before using it. • Reflection increases cognitive impulse in all the students• Thinking is out in the open, no more hiding behind peers

Let’s look at 12 benefits!

What does it feel like?

Take your boxes, voting begins…

1. Use it to: gather live information

Create questions and offer them to the learners in order to get immediate feedback

What is your gender?

1. 2.

50%50%1. Female

2. Male

What is your age group?

17%

17%

17%17%

17%

17%

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

1. 18 – 25

2. 25 – 35

3. 35 – 45

4. 45 – 55

5. 55 – 65

6. 65 - …

2. Use it to: assess prior knowledge

Picture by ComedyNose TonyNetone

Multiple responses: What do you use your mobile for?

1. Learning

2. Communication

3. Games

4. Augmented reality

Select All That Apply

Multiple responses: What do you use your mobile for?

25%

25%

25%

25%

25%

25%

25%

25%

Augmented r...

Games

Communication

Learning

Female Male

3. Use it to: recall questions from earlier learning prerequisites

Who has read the material?Followed by a quick assessment

Picture by TonyNetone

4. Use it to: adjust teaching speed and topics

Immediate trainer/instructor feedback

Great overall response => move on

Poor overall response => dig into the content, discuss, adjust

5. Use it to: assess what is learned after the class or course

If a sub-topic scored low, it can be picked up again or used in an online spaced education topic. Understanding can be compared.

6. Use it to: predict the outcome of an event & link to more information

7. Use it to: let learners indicate when they finished with a task

• Shows when an assignment or task is completed• This can be used to motivate completion by

other learners

8. Use it to: vote on topics for discussion

• Readiness for organizational change can be measured

• Group discussions can be given a direction by peers (more participatory topics)

• Vote on which learner’s work is excelling (best instructional video, best showcase)

In order of importance rank your mobile learning interests?

20%

20%20%

20%

20%

1 2 3 4 5

1. Educational Games

2. Mobile Courses

3. Continued Education

4. Augmented Reality

5. Communication

9. Use it to: evaluate a class or course

• Instantaneous evaluation connects with the quality of immediate feedback

• This can also be used for formatively evaluating a course or a teaching experiment

10. Use it to: jump to another viewpoint of a topic

Whenever learners indicate the previous content was unclear (= measure confusion)

11. Use it for Socratic questioning

• You do need to link names to the boxes: “Tell me, why do you think mobile learning is on the rise?”

12. Use it to: start a contest, yes!

Divide all learners into meaningful groups (depending on the goal of the contest)

Running against one another

Or turning off boxes with each wrong answer

Extra motivation

• Give an extra point to the most dynamic voter• Real time tracking to give them an insight of who

knows what and where they fit in

What is the adult attention span at the end of a standard lecture?

1. 3-4 minutes

2. 7-10 minutes

3. 12-15 minutes

4. 18-20 minutes

5. More than 20 minutes

6. I don’t know

0% 0% 0%0%0%0%The "Change-Up" in Lectures

Joan Middendorf and Alan KalishTeaching Resources Center

Indiana UniversityPublished NTLF, January 2006, Vol. 5, #2

Fastest Responders (in seconds)

0 Participant 1

0 Participant 2

0 Participant 3

0 Participant 4

0 Participant 5

So: Increase the quality of your learners, and box them

Possible problems

• A broken voting box

• One learner having access to many boxes

• ID connection fails or is not put in correctly

• But overall, it is safe and quick

References for boxing learner’s• Kay, R.H., Lesage, A. (2009) A strategic assessment of audience

response systems used in higher education. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2009, 25(2), 235-249.http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet25/kay.html

• Cain, J., Black, E.P., Rohr J. (2009). An Audience Response System Strategy to Improve Student Motivation, Attention, and Feedback. Am J Pharm Educ. 2009 April 7; 73(2): 21 :https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690899/

• Derek Bruff from the Vanderbilt University, Essays on Teaching Excellence: Toward the Best in the Academy, Volume 21, Number 3, 2009-10. A publication of The Professional & Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (www.podnetwork.org).

Contact

E-mail: idewaard@itg.be

Blog: ignatiawebs.blogspot.com (click the ‘mobile’ tag)

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ignatia Slideshare (ppt): http://www.slideshare.net/ignatia

linkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ingedewaard