Classroom Clicker Guide

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    Prepared by sta of the CU Science Education Initiativeand the UBC Carl Wieman SEI*

    Clicker Resource

    GuideAn Instructors Guide to the E ective Use of Personal Response Systems (Clickers) in Teaching

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    Connectingstudents

    in an interactive

    classroom experience.

    Layout and Design: Michael WongCover Design: Stefanie Wudel

    Cover Photos and Inside Cover Photos: Zack Lee

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    Executive Summary

    Introduction

    Using Clickers in the Classroom1. Types o clicker questions2. Recommended approach to using clickers3. Writing e ective questions4. Introducing students to the use o clickers5. Logistics6. Coverage o material7. Dealing with unexpected situations

    Multiple Goals o Using Clickers

    Frequently Asked Questions about the Use o Clickers and Clicker Questions

    Appendix

    Re erences

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    * (Carl Wieman, Katherine Perkins, Sarah Gilbert; Li e Sciences CU: Francoise Benay, Sarah Ken-nedy and Kate Semsar, Jenny Knight, Jia Shi and Michelle Smith; Li e Sciences UBC: TamaraKelly, Jared Taylor, Harald Yurk, and Gulnur Birol; Chemistry CU: Laurie Langdon, Tom Pentecost;Chemistry UBC: Jackie Stewart; Geological Sciences CU: Leilani Arthurs, Andrea Bair, and Jen-ni er Stempien; Earth and Ocean Sciences UBC: Brett Gilley, Francis Jones, and Ben Kennedy;Physics CU: Stephanie Chasteen; Computer Science UBC: Beth Simon)

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    Clickers are not a magic bullet they are not necessarily use ul as an end in themselves.Clickers become use ul when you have a clear idea as to what you want to achieve withthem, and the questions are designed to improve student engagement and instructor-studentinteraction.

    What clickers do provide is a way to rapidly collect an answer to a question rom everystudent; an answer or which they are individually accountable. This allows rapid reliable

    eedback to both you and the students.

    Used properly, clickers can tell you when students are disengaged and/or con used, why thishas happened, and can help you to x the situation.

    The best questions ocus on concepts you eel are particularly important and involve

    challenging ideas with multiple plausible answers that reveal student con usion and generatespirited student discussion.

    A common mistake is to use clicker questions that are too easy. Students value challengingquestions more and learn more rom them. Students o ten learn the most rom a questionthat they get wrong.

    For challenging questions, students should be given some time to think about the clickerquestion on their own, and then discuss with their peers.

    Good clicker questions and discussion result in deeper, more numerous questions rom amuch wider range o students than in traditional lecture.

    Listening to the student discussions will allow you to much better understand and addressstudent thinking.

    Even though you will sacri ce some coverage o content in class, students will be moreengaged and learn much more o what you do cover.

    When clickers are used correctly, students overwhelmingly support their use and say theyhelp their learning.

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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    Why is it that every aculty member who is experienced with using clickers e ectively swears by them?

    Why are the students in classes using well-implemented clicker questions dramatically moreengaged and asking more numerous and deeper questions?

    Why do the students in these classes overwhelmingly recommend that clickers should be used in all lecture classes?

    This guide was written to help instructors understand the answers to these questions, and tohelp them use personal response systems (clickers) in their classes in the most com ortableand pedagogically e ective manner. The authors are involved in the Science EducationInitiative at the University o Colorado and the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at theUniversity o British Columbia. We have supported many di erent instructors as they

    introduced or re ned the use o clickers into their courses, several o us have used clickersextensively in teaching, and we have observed a large number o classes both those whichuse clickers and those which do not. Particularly relevant to this guide were our numerousobservations o some expert clicker-based instructors. We have also carried out a number o studies on clicker use and their impact on students and on student opinions about their use.

    The rst point about clickers that must be emphasized is that clickers in themselves are not asolution to anything. Like a chalkboard, they can only serve to extend the capabilities o theinstructor. Although clickers can be, and un ortunately o ten are, used primarily to encourageattendance, they are most e ective when they are used expressly to acilitate intellectualengagement o the student and communication between student and instructor. When usedthis way, the ampli cation o a good instructors capabilities can trans orm a classroom andresult in dramatically improved student learning, particularly in large classes. In the words o one instructor known to be an exceptionally good traditional lecturer when hal way throughhis rst term o using clickers: This is great un. My worst day using clickers is about as good as my best day using standard lectures [in the past].

    INTRODUCTION

    This is great un. My worst day using clickersis about as good as my best day usingstandard lectures [in the past].

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    An experienced insight ul instructor when giving a traditional lecture can tell when many o the students are not engaged and can o ten tell when students do not understand the material.However, it is more di cult to know why they are disengaged and/or con used, and how to xthese problems. Clickers, when used well, can provide the why and how to fx or experiencedinstructors. For other instructors, in addition to serving those unctions, clickers can also helpthem know much better when students are disengaged and con used.

    It is essential to recognize that these bene ts do not happen automatically when oneintroduces clickers to the classroom. These desirable outcomes are only achieved when theinstructor thinks care ully about his or her instructional goals and how clicker questions andrelated discussion can help achieve those goals. In the remainder o this document, we willdiscuss the use o clicker-questions and how they can be used in educationally e ective ways. These questions are normally multiple choice questions posed to the class, where each student

    in the class has their own clicker. Students register their answer by pushing the appropriatebutton, and a computer records their response. A histogram o responses can be shown to thewhole class.

    It can take some time to tap the ull potential o clickers in the classroom. We have commonlyseen instructors ollow the ollowing progression as they learn to use clickers e ectively:

    Seeing [the response rom clickers] is o ten an aha moment or the instructor. They realize how they might use clicker questions in a new way to better promotestudent thinking and learning...Students recognize that they must come to class prepared and must keep up withmaterial throughout the semester, as they must analyze

    and respond to questions on a daily basis.

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    Stage 1) Asking simple, primarily actual, questions as a starting point. These questionsare o ten simple quizzes on material just covered in lecture, or questions derived rom the

    textbook or textbook instructors guide. Little discussion amongst students about thequestions is encouraged or needed, and the great majority (>80%) o the students get thequestion correct. There is little ollow up discussion to the question by the instructor. Thistype o question o ten appears to be driven by instructors concern that asking more di cultquestions would make students eel uncom ortable at missing the answer. The primary impacto the clickers on lecture is improving attendance (assuming students get points i they answerthe questions). On our surveys, students indicate they see much less value to this type o usethan clickers being used as in Stages 2 or 3 below.

    We have seen some aculty members who are new to clickers suddenly switch rom the simpleusage o clickers in Stage 1 to the more e ective approach in Stages 2 or 3 a ter the ollowingexperience. Stimulated by unexpectedly poor per ormance on an exam question or just byaccident, the instructor will create a question that is more challenging. This question creates alarge split in responses that is ollowed by a burst o discussion among the students as to whichanswer is correct and why. Seeing such a response is o ten an aha moment or the instructor. They realize how they might use clicker questions in a new way to better promote studentthinking and learning. They then move to the next stage o clicker question use. Stage 2) Asking more challenging conceptual questions, or questions where the answeris not obvious and critical points could be argued. There is a substantial spread in studentresponses and signi cant student-student discussion o the question is encouraged, with

    ollow up discussion by the instructor. There are occasional changes in the planned lecture toaddress student di culties that are revealed by the clicker question or in response to studentquestions generated in discussion.

    Stage 3) Lecture is structured around a set o challenging clicker questions that largelyembody the material students are to learn. Students are required to prepare or class byreading or carrying out assignments ahead o time, and little class time is spent in providingin ormation to students that is accessible in the textbook or online notes. Students areorganized into 3-4 person discussion groups so that all students must discuss the questions,and student reasoning or their answer choices are elicited and analyzed ollowing thequestion. A signi cant portion o the class time is devoted to discussion o studentsthinking and questions that are revealed and raised during this process. Under the best o circumstances, clicker questions are designed so that student questions actually introduce thenext intended topic (and may even constitute the next clicker question posed to the class).Students recognize that they must come to class prepared and must keep up with materialthroughout the semester, as they must analyze and respond to questions on a daily basis.

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    1. TYPES OF CLICKER QUESTIONS

    Clicker questions can serve many purposes below are some common uses:

    1) Quiz on the reading assigned in preparation or the class2) Test recall o lecture point3) Do a calculation or choose next step in a complex calculation4) Survey students to determine background or opinions5) Elicit/reveal pre-existing thinking6) Test conceptual understanding7) Apply ideas in new context/explore implications8) Predict results o lecture demo, experiment, or simulation, video, etc.9) Draw on knowledge rom everyday li e10) Relate di erent representations (graphical, mathematical, )

    While each mode can be use ul in the right circumstances, those in bold above are the usesthat we have seen the largest direct impact on learning and the uses that students report they

    nd o most value. Not surprisingly, these refect the deepest mastery o a subject and hencehave been shown to be the most challenging or students to learn. We recommend that themajority o questions all into these bolded categories.

    2. RECOMMENDED APPROACH TO USING CLICKERS

    For questions o the bolded type, we believe it is best to usually ollow the ollowing steps:

    Step A: QuestionInstructor poses the question, o ten with some remark about its purpose.

    Step B: Peer DiscussionStudents have time to think about the question individually (possibly answering individuallywith clicker), and then discuss the question in pairs or small groups (peer discussion). 1

    Step C: Vote

    Students submit answer using clicker.

    USING CLICKERS IN THE CLASSROOM

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    Step D: Whole-class DiscussionInstructor and students have ollow-up discussion, usually emphasizing the why o correct

    options and why not or incorrect options. The instructor should also make sure that anyresidual issues or student questions rom the discussion are explicitly addressed be ore movingon.

    Each o these steps plays important roles in students learning processes.

    Step A: Question

    By posing a question to the students, several good things happen:i. Focuses students attention on (what you consider to be) the important ideas,ii. Allows students to try applying ideas they just heard or read about,iii. Allows students to build or make connections between ideas or representations,iv. Gives students an opportunity to analyze a (new) situation or context, andv. Gets students thinking about how to ask questions (that is, it explicitly models the process

    o analyzing ideas or conclusions by asking questions and guring out the answers).vi. Prepares them to learn. Schwartz and Brans ord 2 have shown that when a person tries

    to answer a question on a topic they do not know, even when they are quite unsuccess ul inobtaining a correct answer, they subsequently learn much more rom an explanation o the topic than i they hear the same explanation without preceding the explanation witha question they attempt to answer. This means a clicker question can be valuable when it precedes discussion o a topic.

    When posing a question you might experiment with di erent ways o providing the answerchoices. O ten it can be good to have the students think about the answer be ore the answeroptions are revealed to them. This can discourage them rom using test taking strategies toeliminate possible multiple choice options, rather than reasoning through the question as youintended. We have observed in some cases that not seeing the answer possibilities resultsin students using their notes and making more o an e ort to connect the question to priormaterial. It can also be a good opportunity to make them practice drawing or diagrammingsomething be ore presenting them with drawings to choose rom. Also, listening to studentdiscussions be ore possible answers are revealed can sometimes provide additional insights onstudent reasoning and/or con usion.

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    Step B: Peer Discussion

    Some instructors pre er that students always answer a clicker question individually (withoutdiscussion), be ore discussing in groups and answering the question again. Other instructorsonly ask students to answer individually be ore discussion some o the time, and other timeswill save time by simply encouraging students to think about the question (but not to answerit via clicker) be ore discussing with others. There is no evidence as to the superiority o eitherapproach. We do recommend having at least some questions that students have to rstanswer on their own, particularly at the beginning o the term, so they do recognize they areexpected to think or themselves and not simply depend on getting the answers rom othersaround them. By watching and listening to the class, it is relatively easy to tell i most studentsare rst analyzing the questions independently and expressing their own ideas, instead o automatically accepting the answer o another student in the group. Based on what youobserve, you can readily change how the responses are collected to ensure this happens. Werecommend never showing students the results be ore the end o the voting period, and notshowing students the voting results o the class be ore peer discussion unless the results showa very wide distribution o opinions with no answer being the obvious avourite. Otherwise,many students will simply change their answer to go with the majority. On the other hand, i there is a 50-50 split in votes, showing students that the question has provoked a split responseis an excellent motivator or productive discussion.

    What does peer discussion do or students, instructors, and the classroom environment?

    Peer discussion:i. Actively engages students in thinking about and discussing the concept/skill/idea;ii. Improves both their understanding and their ability to communicate technical ideas;iii. Gives students an opportunity to explain and de end their reasoning, and analyze others

    reasoning (to engage in scienti c argument);iv. Gives you a chance to hear what students are thinking (listen in on group discussions);v. Gives students a chance to voice their questions and hear those o others (realize they are

    not alone in struggling to master the material);vi. Allows students to get help rom others to clear up items o con usion; or example,

    misunderstanding o a technical term that they may have but others around them do not;vii. Builds collegial intellectual atmosphere among students (which promotes learning);viii. Helps students learn technical terminology by using it in discussion.

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    Step C: Vote

    Voting on an answer:i. Gets students to commit to an answer and engages them in knowing the right answer.(They are vested in the outcome, but in a peer-anonymous way);

    ii. Provides eedback to aculty (Have the students mastered this idea? Should I move on orspend more time on this topic?);

    iii. Provides eedback to students (Am I understanding this? How does my understandingcompare to the rest o the class?)

    Step D: Whole-class Discussion

    A ter voting, the instructor leads a whole-class discussion and provides wrap-up or thequestion. This wrap-up:i. Allows you and students to hear students reasoning or various answers;ii. Gives students the chance to hear and respond to each others ideas;iii. Gives you the opportunity to emphasize and support reasoning as important (Why might

    someone pick B? Why is that answer tempting?, or Why did your group choose B? areboth somewhat less threatening ways to get students to o er their thinking. However,also telling students they are expected to come up with reasons in their peer discussions,and then calling on students in an obviously random manner to o er up reasons o theirgroup has proven to be e ective. This urther encourages students to share and critiquetheir reasons during peer group discussions.);

    iv. Allows you to give eedback to the students on their thinking that is both timely andspeci c, the two elements that research has shown are essential or pedagogically use ul

    eedback;v. Promotes understanding o the reasons why an answer choice is correct. I discussion

    ocuses upon the thinking associated with right and wrong options, then students willlearn both about the reasoning underlying the correct answer, and what is wrong withincorrect reasoning. (It is important to make sure this happens correct reasoning or ananswer is NOT typically obvious to students, even or many questions that nearly all o them answer correctly.). Finally, this helps students recognize that understanding ratherthan merely getting a correct answer is what is important both in the course and in the use

    o clicker questions. Data rom our end o term student surveys on clicker use support this.vi. Can generate additional questions revealing di culties that you had not recognized, orintroduce elements or applications o the topic that students nd interesting and use ul.

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    3. WRITING EFFECTIVE QUESTIONS

    Once an instructor has embraced the idea o interactive teaching, having good questions isthe single most important element or having a success ul class using clickers. Ideally youwould like a question that students will interpret properly and will see as interesting andchallenging, will stimulate students to want to hear and analyze the ideas o their classmates,will shape student thinking in desired ways, will reveal unanticipated student di culties orinterpretations, and will accurately reveal whether or not students are mastering the material.However, a question can be more than adequate without achieving all these goals, and it ishard to predict which questions will be great until you try them, so it is best not to spend toolong agonizing over creating the per ect question.

    By ar the most common ailing is to make questions thatare too easy. In this situation, students o ten see thequestions as simply a quiz to keep them awake, and theyare annoyed that they had to spend money on clickersonly or this purpose. There is also some indication that,in the absence o any other orm o eedback, easyquestions may mislead students as to the di culty o thequestions they would expect to see on the exam. Inextensive surveys o students in many di erent classes,students overwhelmingly see challenging questions as themost use ul or their learning. Our observations have also

    supported the conclusions that such questions result ingreater learning.

    Usually, the best starting point or obtaining good clicker questions is to look and see whatmight already be available, either rom an instructor who has used clickers in the classpreviously, or in one o a number o online repositories or such questions. The instructorsguides to many textbooks now o er lists o questions. These can be an easily accessiblestarting point or nding questions, but these textbook questions un ortunately are o ten quitesimple and actual.

    The best way or nding online repositories o questions is to type ConcepTests (the labelchosen by Eric Mazur who developed this method o instruction) into Google. This brings uplistings o question collections in numerous elds. A ew speci c examples are Mazurs sitehttp://galileo.harvard.edu/ ; a collection o links to question banks in physics, chemistry, andearth sciences is at http://www.mines.edu/Academic/physics/classroomcommunicators/assets/ banks.html . A question bank or biology is being created at http://cellbase.ascb.org .

    Studentsoverwhelmingly see challengingquestions as themost use ul or their learning.

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    From in-class observations o instructor lectures, we have noticed several places to nd goodclicker questions. You can try to pick up on these yoursel , or you might nd it help ul to invite a

    colleague or graduate student to observe a ew lectures. A. Questions pro essors pose to the students spontaneously during class. These questionso ten cover the points they want to get across and/or have an interesting example that canhelp students associate what they are learning in class with the real world ( or example: adisease, exercise, aging). To record these questions, pro essors can have TAs sit in on theirlectures and write them down along with any responses o ered by students.

    B. Overhearing student discussions about questions posed in class. Listening to studentsdiscussion and what they are thinking as they generate their answers o ten suggests goodquestions. Also, these discussions o ten suggest points that students are con used aboutand hence would be good incorrect answers to list and subsequently discuss. Pro essors canwander during this time, join a group discussion, and have a TA record and move around theclassroom.

    C. Questions students pose in class can also be turned into excellent clicker questions.Although usually an instructor will make this a question in a subsequent class or term, dont bea raid to do this in real time, by taking a question that a student has asked and throw it back tothe entire class to answer. You can either create your own multiple choice answers on the spot,or get suggestions rom students. This is a particularly good thing to do when you are prettysure that most students can gure out the answer themselves.

    D. Dealing with connections. We requently observe that students ail to make connectionsbetween new and previously learned concepts as well as connecting material with generalthemes in the course as a whole. Clicker questions can make these connections explicit.

    E. Analogies. Pro essors have many great analogies they use in lecture. These can provide agood basis or clicker questions.

    While testing the question with students is the only way to nd out i it is e ective (in terms o promoting student learning, uncovering misconceptions, and generating student engagementand discussion) you can stack the odds in your avour by considering the ollowing points.

    1. De ne your learning goal or objectives .What you want students to be able to do (in terms o using content and skills, etc.)?

    2. Identi y the goal(s) o the clicker question.3. Choose type o question to use (see below or some options under tactics).

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    Example rom Geology 1010:

    1. Learning goal (What you want students to be able to do?) :

    Explain and demonstrate how geologists determine rates o tectonic plate motionrom data on seafoor age.

    Skills: calculating a rate, reasoning like a geologist, developing competence usinggeological data, interpreting a representation commonly encountered (but seldomexplicitly explained) in textbooks

    Concepts: tectonic plates move: the rate o past plate motion at spreading centers(divergent plate boundaries) is known rom the age o oceanic crust making up theseafoor.

    2. Goal(s) o the clicker question

    Promote articulation/discussion, stimulate cognitive processes

    3. Tactic or tactics to use

    Qualitative question, analysis and reasoning, interpret representation, rank variants.

    4. Clicker question

    The resulting clicker question had students to look at a map o the earth showing theages o the seafoors, and students were asked to rank the relative speeds o the platesat various locations.

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    Beatty et al. 3 have discussed tactics to use in designing relatively advanced clicker questions. These are primarily o use to instructors experienced at using clicker questions.

    Question design goals and tactics (Beatty et al., 2006)

    Question design goals Tactics

    Direct attention and raise awareness

    - Remove nonessentials- Compare and contrast- Extend the context- Reuse amiliar question situations- Oops-go-back

    Promote articulation/discussion

    - Qualitative questions- Analysis and reasoning questions- Multiple de ensible answers- Require unstated assumptions- Trap unjusti ed assumptions- Deliberate ambiguity- Trolling or misconceptions

    Stimulate cognitive processes

    - Interpret representations- Compare and contrast- Extend the context- Identi y a set- Rank variants- Reveal a better way- Strategize only- Include extraneous in ormation- Omit necessary in ormation

    Formative use o response data - Answer choices reveal likely di culties

    - Use none o the above

    We add: Connect to the real world - Apply to real world setting- Pose in terms o real world problem

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    4. INTRODUCING STUDENTS TO THE USE OF CLICKERS

    On the rst day, you should talk to your class about why and how you are using clickers andwhat the value is or their learning. This is most important in a setting when students havenever used clickers be ore. You should discuss how clickers will improve your communicationwith them, the well-established value to learning when students actively engaged in thinkingabout the subject and guring out answers to questions, and how clickers make this mucheasier to achieve in a lecture setting. You could mention that extensive surveys o studentswho have completed courses that used clickers in this way have shown that studentsenthusiastically support their use in lectures.

    One approach to making these points is to start with a Why do you think we use clickersclicker question in class, as shown below. Possible answers are all components o activelearning and hope ully you will see a spread o answers. The post question discussion can thenallow you to bring out why these are all good reasons.

    What do you think is the single most important reason that I am using clickers?

    Possible answers:a. promotes your ability to communicate your ideas.b. strengthens your ability to debate and de end your answers, and to suggest improvements.c. promotes peer discussion that is balanced, with ideas put orth evenly rom both partners.d. promotes a sa e environment or you to answer what you honestly think, rather than answering

    what you think the instructor wants.e. gives you eedback on how well you understand a topic.

    . gives me as your instructor eedback on what needs to be taught better, or expanded upon.g. encourages you to mentally engage with the concepts so that the lecture is not just passive

    listening and note taking.h. encourages attendance.

    [Clickers] mentally engage [students] with theconcepts so that the lecture is not just passivelistening and note taking.

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    5. LOGISTICS

    Grading and timing issues (and recommended approaches) are described in the Frequentlyasked questions at the end o this paper.

    Student peer groups: There are three main ways o setting up student peer (discussion)groups. Instructors have discovered pros and cons or each method with respect to set-up,ease and quality o student discussions, and student response, summarized below. In typicaltheatre-style lecture room, maximum group size should be no more than our students inadjacent seats. Discussion involving 3 or 4 people is o ten more substantial than with only two.With ormal groups it can be e ective to announce on some questions that groups are requiredto reach consensus, thus voting the same. This strategy substantially increases the amount o discussion and being able to do this is one o the primary virtues o ormal groups. This workseven i one never checks i group actually did reach consensus.

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    Pros Cons

    - Good student conversation- Focus o discussion more on topic

    - Takes time to set up- Minor student complaints (major i not

    done early in term and reasons doingnot explained rst day!)

    - Early discussions may be sluggish as

    they get to know each other

    Pros Cons

    - Few student complaints- Little hassle - computerized signup- Better discussion than no ormal groups

    - Can be more o -topic discussions

    Pros Cons

    - Few student complaints- No hassles

    - Many students not very involved- More o -topic discussions (about

    weekend)

    Formal group (instructor-defned):

    Formal group (sel -assembled):

    In ormal (neighbours only):

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    6. COVERAGE OF MATERIAL

    Using clickers extensively will reduce the amount o content you can cover during class, as willany classroom intervention promoting mentally active learning. Clickers also typically resultin ar more and deeper questions rom a broader range o students, because they are moreengaged in thinking about the material. Responding to those questions takes additional time.However, while the coverage o material in class may be reduced, there is good evidence thatthe learning will be considerably increased. Multiple studies across a variety o disciplines showthat students in courses incorporating active learning retain and can apply key/central/mostimportant concepts better than students taught in traditional lectures. 1, 4 Clicker use alsopromotes more in-depth learning and understanding. 4

    This provides students witha greater capacity to covertopics on their own; orexample, they can be capableo doing homework questionson topics that were not coveredin class. Having them learnmaterial outside o class inthis way can compensate

    or much o the reducedcoverage in class. Also, much

    o the time in a traditional lecture is spent providing students with in ormation that they caneasily get elsewhere and, in some cases, repeating in ormation students already know. Clickerquestions allow one to better gauge what students know and thereby avoid unnecessaryrepetition o coverage. I used appropriately, the questions can also compel students to readmaterial to learn basic in ormation be ore coming to class.

    While these strategies can increase the amount o material covered in a course, nevertheless,we have seen that most instructors do end up deciding to cover less material in their coursesa ter they have started using clickers e ectively. However, this is usually a choice made asa result o their recognizing that it takes longer than they had realized or the students toachieve the desired learning. This recognition is a result o the improved communication madepossible through their use o clickers.

    [With clickers, students] aremore engaged in thinking about the material...Clicker use also promotes more in-depth learningand understanding.

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    7. DEALING WITH UNEXPECTED SITUATIONS

    An instructor who has not used clickers be ore may encounter three novel situations. These canbe positive experiences i you are ready or them and respond accordingly, but can be quitenegative i you are not.

    1) You have given the clearest explanation you know how, yet it is obvious romresponses to a clicker question that students are not getting it. When you try togive up and go on, students respond assertively, saying that it is obvious they dontunderstand this and you need to teach it right be ore going on.

    In dealing with this situation, the most important thing to keep in mind is thatit happens, so be prepared or it and dont panic. Recognize that it is not entirely

    negative; it indicates that students are taking much more responsibility or their

    learning and setting higher expectations or learning than in a traditional course.Chastising the class or being unprepared, stupid, or inattentive (even i some o this is true) produces quite negative reactions. I you nd yoursel unable to

    gure out in real time how to clari y the point by presenting it in a di erent way,try to nd a student in the class who can clari y and/or address their con usion.I that ails, then just admit to the class that you are stuck, and say you will returnto this point in the next class a ter more thought. Encourage the students to dothe same. Then make sure you do return to the topic as promised.

    2) You are asked a question that is su ciently deep that you do not know theanswer. A good clicker question and discussion generates ar more and deeperquestions rom students than encountered in a non-clicker class, so this is amuch more likely occurrence when using clickers.

    A good clicker question and discussiongenerates ar more and deeper questions romstudents than encountered in a non-clicker class.

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    Deal with this as in case 1. Admit you do not know the answer, say that you willresearch the subject to try to gure out the answer by next class, and encouragethe students to do the same. At start o next class, see i any students came upwith the answer, and i not provide the answer you gured out. It is particularlyvaluable i you are quite explicit in explaining what was challenging about thequestion, and how you went about nding out or guring out the answer. Thismodels expert thinking in a way students very seldom get to see and they o ten

    nd quite memorable when it is displayed in cases like this. O course, explicitlymodeling expert problem solving in this way is also bene cial when answeringclicker questions, but it is seldom as memorable or students as when there is aquestion they saw you could not answer initially.

    3) There are so many good questions that you do not see how you can answer

    them and come close to getting through all the material you planned to coverthat day.

    Again, this should be seen as a positive event. The best indicator o a good clicker question is probably how many thought ul ollow up questionsit generates. For this case o too many questions, the rst thing you should dois analyze how many o the students are asking questions. I it is a relativelysmall number and they are the students who requently ask questions, it is likelyrest o class will be annoyed i too much time is spent on answering questions

    rom that group. Then it is best to tell those students you will talk with themindividually a ter class or during your o ce hours, and move on. However, i youhave a situation that is airly unique to clicker classes, where there are questions

    rom many students, including those who do not ask requent questions, youshould remember that when a substantial raction o the class is interested andasking questions, they will learn much more rom what you tell them in responseto those questions at that time than anything else you can teach them. Alsoremind yoursel that their interest in and learning o the subject is moreimportant than your covering the topics in the order and pace you had originallyplanned. So adjust your lesson accordingly in real time.

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    1. Engage students in active learning: Apply ideas/skills/problem solving immediately in class;

    Predict outcomes; Reason in new contexts; Draw connections between ideas.

    2. Promote student-student discussion Create a collaborative spirit or supporting learning; Practice justi ying a position/responding to arguments; Practice monitoring their own thinking; Aid their learning o technical terminology by using it in discussion.

    3. Provide eedback to the instructor about students understanding.

    4. Provide eedback to the students about their own understanding, both through theirseeing the histogram o responses and in ollow up discussion by instructor.

    5. Use as ormative assessment to guide teaching (measure what students are thinkingand then address it): e.g. probe prior knowledge, probe current thinking, uncover studentmisconceptions.

    6. Listen to students ideas as they discuss and reason about the material.

    7. Give students a voice: e.g., survey what they want to learn about most, when to havehomework due, some grading policies, when and where to have homework study sessions,i and how to review or exams,

    8. Facilitate student accountability or attendance and reading textbook to prepare or class(quizzes on reading).

    9. Model the process o critical thinking through asking questions and guring out answers inorder to promote students doing this themselves.

    10. Ensure instructors have not lost touch with what students are understanding and that paceo class is appropriate.

    11. Get students to commit to an answer (they are vested in the outcome).

    12. Rea rm learning (positive eedback, review material, etc.).

    13. Survey students background.

    14. Send a message that instructors priority is student learning.

    Multiple Goals o Using Clickers

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    1. How much time should I give students to answer a clicker question?

    This depends greatly on the type and di culty o the question: in most cases, it takes studentsbetween 30 seconds and a minute to process a question and be ready to answer individuallyor discuss. It then takes a ew (1-4) minutes or productive discussion. The level o studentdiscussion and the number o votes in is a good guide as to when to move on. When ~3/4o the students have responded it is o ten a good time to announce end is near, then soundwarning gong, count down out loud, or turn lights out to indicate that discussion should stopand students should click in. Instructors who decide when to end the polling based on thediscussion around them o ten wait too long. While discussion around them will continue to

    ocus on the question, in the rest o the room discussion has o ten moved on to non-class-related topics, making it harder to pull students back to class material. It is use ul to poll theclass a ter several weeks to see i they eel you are giving them too little or too much time.

    Using the timer in the countdown mode available with most clicker system so tware is usuallydistracting to students and instructors and can limit discussion. It is better to set the timerto the maximum count down duration or in count up mode, and then just stop the questionmanually when you think it appropriate.

    2. How should clicker questions be graded?

    Most instructors make clicker questions a portion o the total course grade; between a ew %and 15 % is common, although a wide variety o approaches are used. The two most commongrading schemes used are giving equal credit or correct and incorrect responses (participationonly), and giving greater credit or correct than incorrect responses. Some pros and cons tothese grading approaches are listed below. Another approach is to give participation creditonly most o the time, but occasionally grade individual questions or correct responses. Thereis no consensus view recommended by research or convention, but our anecdotal observationslead us to lean towards this latter grading policy o always giving credit or participation andoccasionally giving additional reward or the correct answer.

    Frequently Asked QuestionsAbout the Use o Clickers and

    Clicker Questions

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    Giving credit only or correct responses is not recommended as it distorts the discussion andstudent response strategies in undesirable directions, and it limits the type o question that

    can be asked. For example, you cannot ask questions with multiple justi able answers; yet suchquestions can generate the most educationally productive discussions. Similarly, not havingclicker questions count or any credit is not recommended. 5 This sends the message thatquestions and answers are not important, and students will not take them seriously.

    Although student responses will vary, our observations suggest the speci c grading policiesdo not make very much di erence to students as long as one avoids the extremes that result inundesirable outcomes listed above. As long as there are consistent implicit messages rom theinstructor that the questions matter, students seem to take the questions reasonably seriously.

    Regardless o grading scheme, some clicker questions should NOT be graded or the correctresponse but are very use ul in promoting discussion, student learning, and instructor andstudent eedback. Examples o such questions are those with more than one potentially

    correct response, and those intended to elicit student misconceptions or students priorknowledge.

    We also highly recommend that whatever grading policy is used, a certain number (2-3) o ree days are allowed. These are days or which the student will get credit even i there are noclicker responses recorded or them. This greatly reduces the time student and instructor needto spend dealing with complaints/excuses about clicker not working, being orgotten, missingclass due to any number o catstrophic events beyond students control, etc. An alternativethat is similar in concept is to set a certain percentage o questions students need to answer,such as 80 or 90%, and once above that threshold they receive maximum clicker credit. Wehave also seen that when clickers count or more than 15% o the grade, the amount o timespent dealing with student concerns about being sure they receive credit or clicker responsescan get annoying. Finally we recommend that at the beginning o the course you should veryclearly announce that use o another persons clicker, or having someone use your clicker, isconsidered cheating with the same policies applying as would be the case or turning in illicitwritten work.

    Some clicker questions should NOT be graded or the correct response but are very use ul in

    promoting discussion, student learning, and instructor and student eedback.

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    Common grading policy Pros Cons

    Equal credit or correct andincorrect responses (e.g. 2 ptsper response or 2 pts totalper class)

    - Promotes balanced peerdiscussion, ideas put orthevenly rom both partners

    - Promotes a sa eenvironment or students toanswer what they honestlythink rather than answeringwhat they think theinstructor wants.

    - Less incentive to payattention, think through aquestion, and commit to ananswer.

    More credit or correctresponses, some credit orany response (e.g. 3 ptscorrect / 2pts incorrect)

    - More incentive to payattention and actively work out an answer i thequestion is graded.

    - Students may eel pressuredto get the right answer,less incentive to shareown reasoning and answerhonestly.

    - Promotes unbalancedpeer discussion, moreknowledgeable studentscan dominate discussion.

    - Promotes memorization o answers rom previous

    Terms.- Not appropriate or all typeso questions.

    Mixed:Many participation onlyquestions, some gradedquestions. (e.g. 2 pts per class

    or participation + 1 pt ongraded questions i correct)

    - Promotes process andreasoning o guring outanswer.

    - Allows fexibility to gradeonly questions that aresummative assessments.

    - Having some gradedquestions keep studentsattention.

    - More set-up or post-analysisto identi y which are gradedand which are participationonly (is airly easy withsome clicker so tware, notwith some others).

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    3. How many clicker questions should I give in a lecture?

    Most instructors nd that between our and six questions that involve serious discussion andrefection in a 50-minute class period works well. These should be distributed throughoutthe lecture rather than all clumped at beginning or end. In general, students attention o tenstarts waning a ter about 10 minutes o straight lecturing. I one is using other active learningtechniques in a lecture period, the number o clicker questions will likely be lower. For a reviewbe ore an exam, it can o ten be more e ective to ll the lecture period with many clickerquestions rather than using other types o review.

    4. How do I promote discussion between students?

    Achieving good discussion between students is o ten the hardest but most important partto maximizing the bene t o clickers. This is a change in the culture o the class, and so youshould not expect it to happen automatically. You should not give up i it takes a little while todevelop, and you should actively encourage it, and explain and model scienti c discourse orthem.

    On the rst day and a couple o subsequent days, encourage the students to learn the namesand shake hands with everyone around them (in ront and behind included). Also giving thestudents permission to ask names theyve orgotten can be surprisingly help ul. We may not beable to learn the names o the whole class, but students appreciate knowing someone knowstheir name.

    Students need to eel that the classroom is a sa e place to discuss questions, and everyonecan potentially be wrong without consequences. Instructors can promote this by explicitlyin orming students o what they expect and why the interactive/discussion approach helpsstudents learn. This should be done repeatedly during the term as opposed to just at thebeginning. We recommend that you also tell students that youll be asking them to sharetheir reasoning about the answer so they should discuss it, and then have them share theirreasoning at least some o the time in the ollow up whole class discussion.

    Some techniques or directly encouraging discussion are to require groups to submit

    consensus votes on a question. Calling on students to ask them what reason their groupgave or why an answer is correct or incorrect can also help. Students nd it less threateningto o er the reasoning or an answer the answer is seen as coming rom the group rather thanthem, individually. I possible, its good to also require students to give reasons or answers onhomework and exam answers.

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    5. How do I get students to get back on task a ter a clicker question,and stop talking?

    A good signal that students are nishing their discussions is when the voting gets up towards75% o the class. Having an established signal or when discussion needs to end works well,such as a gong tone, whistle, or switching o the lights.

    6. Dont strong students just give weak students the answer i thereis discussion?

    Research suggests that this isnt a great concern, and that both strong and weak studentsbene t rom interacting in peer discussion. However, one study 6 has suggested that the way

    credit is given or answering questions can impact this. In a class with low stakes grading(equal credit or any response, with questions counting 12.5% o overall grade), peer discussionwas more balanced, withboth students in a paircontributing equally todiscussion and morelikely to vote di erently.In contrast, a class withhigh stakes grading(incorrect responsesearning 1/3 rd the credit earned by a correct response, questions counting 20% o total grade),students earning higher grades dominated peer discussion, and both students in a discussionpair more o ten voted the same. In a small study we did in a di erent course, we ound thecorrelation between students clicker question answers and their course grade was surprisinglylow, indicating that as students were rst learning new material, there was little distinctionbetween weak and strong students. No matter what the achievement level o the student is,encouraging them to articulate their thinking is bene cial.

    7. How much do clickers cost?

    Clickers usually cost students $25-65 to purchase new. O ten, they can be resold at the end o

    the term. Many publishers have clickers bundled with a textbook - in those cases the studentdoes not see a separate ee or the clicker, but there is an additional ee ($10-20) to register ora speci c course. Be sure to ask your publisher about clicker rebates, this can o ten be included

    or very little additional cost. Most institutions have a set brand o clicker so students may usethem in several courses.

    No matter what the achievement level o the student is, encouraging them toarticulate their thinking is benefcial.

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    8. Are clickers any better than simpler technologies such as studentsraising hands or coloured cards to answer question?

    Andrea Bair and colleagues o the CU-SEI conducted a study comparing use o identicalquestions in two sections o the same course, but using clickers in one and raising hands in theother. She ound substantial di erences, all avouring use o clickers. 7 We have also observeda number o courses where coloured cards were used and then the same instructor switchedto using clickers. Although there were very clear bene ts to using questions posed to theclass and requiring students to respond using their coloured cards, attendance and studentengagement was signi cantly higher when clickers were used. Research has also shown thatwhen points (marks) were attached to active learning practices, student learning improved. 8 Ininterviews and surveys, students make it very clear that they see clickers as providing a more

    use ul and legitimate way o determining studentunderstanding, and hence morevaluable than using cards. Thecombination o anonymity andaccountability is a major virtue o clickers. In the words o onestudent, I thought that clickerswere help ul. It made it easier or the teacher to see how many peopleactually understood what we were

    talking about without embarrassinganyone and picking on them.

    9. Will there be student resistance and i so, how do I deal with it?

    Some students will probably resist the change in classroom climate rom a passive to a moreactive environment, particularly as it penalizes absences and requires more e ort. Mostrespond well i the instructor explicitly (and repeatedly!) talks with the class about the purposeo using clickers interactively, and emphasizes the positive results seen in other classes andeducation research. The implicit signals are also very important. When the clicker responsesshow students do not understand something, revising the lecture plan to examine theirdi culties and address them, rather than ignoring this sends a very positive signal. Requiringstudents to spend money on clickers and then using them only once or twice per class to answer very simple questions sends a very di erent signal and can generate considerable student unhappiness.

    I thought that clickers werehelp ul. It made it easier or the teacher to see how many people actually understood what we were talking about without embarrassing anyoneand picking on them.

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    We have done extensive surveys o students in classes that use clickers. In those classeswhere the clickers are used in a manner at all close to what we recommend, the studentsoverwhelmingly say they contribute to their learning and recommend they be used. It helpsboth learning and attitudes i you ensure that the clicker questions, homework, and examquestions indicate in a consistent manner what is important and what the expectations andstandards are or the course.

    There can be a ew very vocal students who strongly oppose clickers, but our surveys haveshown that when clickers are used well, this view is never shared by more than a small minority.I they are troublesome, their complaints can be reduced by surveying the class to show thatthey are a small minority, rather than representing the sentiment o all (as they usually assume).Also, although most students say they like using clickers, even those who do not o ten stillrecognize their value. In the words o one such student we interviewed, Using clickers is like

    broccoli I dont like it, but its good or me.

    Finally, the most e ective way to eliminate student resistance ultimately is simply to useclickers to make the classroom an extremely stimulating place where students are highlyengaged and learning a great deal.

    10. Wont I lose control o the class i I let them talk so reely?

    This is not as big a concern in practice as it is usually eared to be. There certainly is less rigidcontrol o the class, but students also see the class as more supportive o their learning, and

    so they are more on your side rom the beginning. It is help ul to lay out some ground rulesclearly. Along with the reasons or having clicker questions and discussion, make it clear thatdiscussion is supposed to be limited to the subject material (even though it will not alwaysbe), and that when you have signalled it is time or discussion to stop, they should do so, andany questions remaining at that time should be directed at you. As the term progresses andstudents get to know each other better and become more com ortable talking to each other,it usually does get more di cult to cut o discussion. Training students rom the beginningto respond to some signal like a gong or lights fashing markedly reduces the di culties and isnormally adequate.

    I just a ew students continue to talk, ask them directly in ront o the class in a non-con rontational way, i they have a question. I they are discussing non-class related materialthat will quiet them then and in the uture. I they are discussing the class material, which ismore typical, they will ask a question which you can treat like a regular question, and still sendthe message clearly that they were disruptive. It is unlikely, but not impossible that you mayhave an exceptionally unruly class where even these steps are not su cient to quiet

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    them down. (It is not clear whether such classes are made worse or better with clickers.) Areasonable approach we have seen or that case is, i class is not quiet a ter the gong/signal,

    simply stand there looking at them and wait. I they continue to talk, make it clear thatstudents will be responsible or material not covered because o the time you spent waitingor class to quiet down, and then when there are subsequent disruptions, just continue to wait

    them out and rely on student peer pressure to deal with the noisy students.

    11. How do I respond i technical problems arise during class?

    Reassure students that technical problems in no way impact any grading scheme you haveimplemented. Then pose the question anyway and have discussions as originally planned, andask or the show-o -hands approach to answering. Results can be tallied (even i roughly) onpaper, the blackboard, or an overhead projector.

    12. Should I post answers to clicker questions a ter class or not?

    There are varying opinions about this and no data that indicates one way or another. Howeverthe work in re erence 2 shows that when people have the answer explained to them a ter theyhave thought hard about how to answer the question, they learn a large amount rom theexplanation. On the basis o that research, our inclination is that it is probably better to postthe answers.

    13. Do clickers work in upper level courses or are they only good orintroductory?

    We have several examples o instructors who began using clickers in large introductorycourses and then tried them in smaller upper level and even graduate courses. They are veryenthusiastic about the results, and students in upper level clicker courses strongly supportedthis use on our surveys.

    In summary, we have ound the e ective use o clicker questions and discussion can have atrans ormative impact on both teachers and students, particularly in large classes. Studentsend up being ar more actively engaged in the material and they learn more, and both students

    and instructors nd the course much more rewarding as a result. I you are currently usingclickers, we hope this guide will give you ideas on how to use them more e ectively, and i youhave not yet tried them, we hope this will provide you with the encouragement and assistanceto use them e ectively.

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    Examples o good practice

    General Ex. 1 Question that encourages good discussion. The rst question the instructorasks is a question where all the answers are partly right. This produces a nice spread o answers,and students are con dent to discuss with the instructor and argue with their peers about thecorrect answer, (because they were all right) and about what parts o the other answers areincorrect (because they were all partly wrong).

    General Ex. 2. Use o student polls. What topics do you nd most interesting? Would youlike exam review sessions? Such questions are a good way to (a) demonstrate the diversity(or similarities) o opinion in the class; (b) determine directions or uture lessons or activities(thus giving some measure o content-ownership to students); (c) demonstrate a matchbetween opinions or interests and the course itsel (use ul during the rst week o the course).We recommend making results o such poll questions visible to students and using the resultsin some ashion. This could include re erring back to those results in pre- and post-questiondiscussions, or making changes in response to type (b) questions with explicit indications howthe survey results infuenced the changes.

    Examples o specifc good clicker questions rom range o courses.

    Environmental Science course

    This question was presented during the class meeting AFTER students had completed and

    had returned to them a graded homework assignment in which they were asked to plot andinterpret hydrologic data.

    Clicker Question: Who knows more about a set o data?

    Answer choices (results prior to discussion) :(a) the person collects it (~10%),(b) the person who plots it (~90%)

    This clicker question was used as spring board into talking about the HW assignment. During

    the discussion students greatly changed their original opinion about who knew more aboutthe data. That discussion then acted as segue into the next lecture topic on using hydrologicdata to predict fooding.

    Appendix

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    Genetics course

    A series o clicker questions can reveal that although students understand parts o a topic theystill have misunderstandings about it.

    Sister Chromatids Homologous Chromosomes

    1. Do they have the same set o genes? 3. Do they have the same set o genes? A. Yes 100% A. Yes 46%B. No B. No 54%

    2. Do they have the same alleles? A. Yes 100%

    B. No

    4. You grow sweet peas. One o your clients wants purple sweet peas or her wedding. Whichtwo sweet peas should you cross in order to maximize the number o purple sweet peas inthe next generation?

    A. Purple CcPp x Purple CcPpB. White CCpp x White ccPPC. Purple CcPp x White ccPPD. Purple CcPp x White CCpp

    A A#1#1

    F F#2#2

    #2#2

    a a#1#1

    A A#1#1

    F F#2#2

    #2#2

    a a#1#1

    cellmembrane

    cellmembrane

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    Introductory Biology course.

    1. A plasmid containing bacterial DNA and the gene or human growth hormone is introducedinto a bacterium. Which growth hormone protein will be produced?

    A. A bacterial human growth hormone proteinB. A human growth hormone proteinC. A hybrid protein that is part human and part bacterial Answer: B

    2. The production o a human protein in a bacterium can occur because:A. Human and bacteria use exactly the same codons to make amino acidsB. Human and bacteria use almost the same codons to make amino acidsC. Human and bacteria use di erent codons to make amino acids, but there is enough

    similarity that protein production still worksAnswer: A

    3. Which o the ollowing statements is true? All the somatic cells (the cells that do notcontribute to the next generation) in your body contain:

    A. The same DNA sequences and the same proteinsB. Di erent DNA sequences and di erent proteinsC. The same DNA sequences but di erent proteinsD. Di erent DNA sequences but the same proteins Answer: C

    4. I a proteins structure is di erent rom normal, where did the change that led to thisdi erence most likely originate?

    A. In the DNA sequence o the geneB. In the RNA sequenceC. In the amino acid sequenceAnswer: A

    5. Which o the ollowing is a FALSE statement about bacteria and viruses?A. Viruses are cells.B. Viruses replicate inside human cells.C. Bacteria can replicate their own DNA.D. Viruses can have RNA as genetic material.Answer: A

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    6. Should you take an antibiotics i you have a viral in ection?A. Yes, an antibiotic could kill the virus

    B. No, an antibiotic can only kill bacteria Answer: B 7. Draw a representation o the plasma membrane using circles and lines to represent the two

    ends o the phospholipids that comprise the membrane. Indicate the inside and outsideo the cell with respect to the membrane. {Allow students to work on this drawing or a ewminutes. Then, ask the ollowing question:}

    Which o the ollowing illustrations looks most like your own drawing (or looks correct nowthat you see it)?

    Answer: C

    Physics course

    1. You have a ring with a hole in it and a cylindrical plug that is exactly the same size whenboth are at room temperature. I you heat the ring, the plug will

    A. Fit through the hole more easilyB. Be exactly the same size as be oreC. No longer t through the hole

    This question can be ollowed by a demonstration involving actual ring that you heat, i you choose.

    2. When you close the switch, bulb # 2 willA. Get brighterB. Get dimmerC. Stay the same brightnessD. Go out entirely

    Outsideo cell

    Insideo cell

    Insideo cell

    Outsideo cell

    Outsideo cell

    Outsideo cell

    Insideo cell

    Insideo cell

    C

    D

    A

    B

    1 2 3

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    Geology course example Using learning di culties (includingmisconceptions) in teaching:

    Students o ten have di culty identi ying structural eatures which have undergone erosion(and with visualizations that are di erent than the standard textbook block diagrams). Onecommon misconception is that structural eatures will ollow topography; additionally,students generally dont understand what kind o in ormation is necessary to distinguish typeso olds. Heres a ( aculty-developed) clicker question that promotes student examination andexplanation o their own reasoning:

    What additional in ormation would you pre er in order to determine i the exposed geologicormations correspond to an anticline or a syncline?

    A. Formation ages, rock compositions

    B. Strike and dip measurements,ormation ages

    C. Rock compositions, ossilcontent

    D. None o the above Why this works The above gure could be interpreted as either a syncline or an anticline [types o olds in rocks;

    synclines occur when rock layers curve upwards, and anticlines are characterized by rock layerscurving downwards] , and cant bedetermined based only on thegiven in ormation. This

    ormulation helps studentsidenti y their conception thattopography ollows structure. A

    ollow-up example is givenon the le t, which helps studentssolidi y the use o correctreasoning, identi y types o geologic in ormation necessary

    or solving this problem, and gainexperience interpreting di erentrepresentations o geologic

    eatures.

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    General re erencesE. Ribbens, Case Study: Why I like clicker personal response systems, J. o Coll. Sci. Teaching,

    pg 60, Nov. 2007.Duncan, D., 2005. Clickers in the classroom: how to enhance science teaching using classroomresponse systems, San Francisco: Addison Wesley and Benjamin Cummings.

    1 C.H. Crouch, J. Watkins, A.P. Fagen, and E. Mazur, Peer Instruction: Engaging StudentsOne-on-One, All At Once, Research-Based Re orm o University Physics, 1 (1) (2007);E. Mazur, Peer Instruction: A Users Manual (Prentice Hall, NJ, 1997).

    2 D. Schwartz and J. Brans ord, A time or telling, Cognition and Instruction, 16, 475 (1998)3 I.D.Beatty, W.J. Gerace, W.J. Leonard, and R.J. Du resne. Designing e ective questions or

    classroom response system teaching, American Journal o Physics, 74(1): 31-39 (2006).4 How People Learn; Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (expanded edition), edited by

    J. Brans ord, A. Brown, and R. Cocking (NAS Press, 2000); E.F. Redish,Teaching Physicswith Physics Suite (John Wiley & Sons, NY 2003); R.R. Hake, Interactive-engagementversus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey o mechanics test data orintroductory physics courses, American Journal o Physics, 66(1), p. 64 (1998). Knight,J. K., and Wood, W. B. (2005). Teaching more by lecturing less. Cell Biol. Educ. 4, 298310

    5 S. Freeman et al, Prescribed Active Learning Increases Per ormance in Introductory Biology,CBE Li e Sci Educ. 6(2), pp. 132-9 (2007).

    6 M.C. James, The e ect o grading incentive on student discourse in Peer Instruction,

    American Journal o Physics, 74(8), pp. 689-691 (2006).7 Poster available at: http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/papers.htm

    Re erences

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    For an electronic copy of this Guide, plus information and resources

    including videos of clickers in action please visit:

    STEMclickers.colorado.edu

    This guide was prepared by staff & associates of the Carl Wieman ScienceEducation Initiative (CWSEI) and The Science Education Initiative at theUniversity of Colorado (CU-SEI):

    CWSEI

    University of British Columbia Vancouverhttp://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/

    CU-SEI

    University of ColoradoBoulderhttp://www.colorado.edu/sei/

    http://stemclickers.colorado.edu/http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/http://www.colorado.edu/sei/http://www.colorado.edu/sei/http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/http://stemclickers.colorado.edu/