clickers
Post on 15-Nov-2014
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Click it to stick it… or how UMD adopted the Personal Response System
The challenge
Image from: http://www.english.ucla.edu/faculty/mcgurl/bored%20students%202.JPG
Goals for large lecture classes
Increase student engagement
Increase learning and retention
Early target classesBiologyEducationPsychology
Largest class at UMD: 320
Our intrepid crew – stage 1
Faculty technology teamCross functional, multi-college team
Information Technology ConsultantsInstructional Development ServicesFaculty membersCollegiate academic directors
Advise on purchase and development of teaching technology
Technology training development
PedagogiesPose a questions for class to answer in writing …
answer revealed during class as mini-lectures or as the culmination of the lecture
Having students solve a problem in pairs, answer passed forward, then worked by the professor
DrawbacksDifficult to evaluate
class responses while in class
If students don’t see results of their interaction, engagement drops off
Technical SolutionPersonal/student
response system (aka “clickers”)
Overview of clicker systems
Image from: http://www.essex.ac.uk/elen/student/images/prs-image.gif
Phase 2 - Pilot ProjectsFaculty from the Faculty Technology Team start
testing with help from the Classroom Management team
Small classrooms
Wired systems first
Infra-red systems for checkout
Successful and began to spread over a couple of years – Chancellor’s small grants, tech fee grants
Great! …. But ……Different departments bought different systems
– hard to support and train
Registration of clickers done each class
Moving around and setting up time
Loss of response units
Difficult for faculty to assess individual students
Infra-red systems often did not read accurately
Phase 3 - Time for a campus solution
Systems had become robust and attractive Integration with PowerPointRadio units available and reasonably pricedTextbook and clicker bundlesSystem vendors willing to talk about standard file
formats
Campus buzz
Commitment from our original departments
But which one? Radio vs. IR
Cost to student Size Range/accuracy in large lecture halls
Type of inputs (multiple choice, T/F, numbers)
Ease of use for instructors
Registration of units
Integration with PowerPoint
Integration with other systems
Textbook vendors bundles
New players take overClassroom technology management team
Information Technology staffWork closely with facilities management
How to decide??Asked faculty currently using systems
Vendors presentations in open meetingsAttendees at these meetings rated each vendor
Example sets loaned out for department meetings
Bookstore manager recruited to work on bundled/unbundled options
In the background …..Application developers worked on
how to register each clicker for a classHow to import scores from a class session into the
campus-wide grade calculation and reporting program
Phase 4 - Integration and Training phase
Instructional Development Service offers workshops on teaching with clickers
Online training materials on how to use the tools developed
Clickers added as a instructional topic in Tech Camp
Experienced faculty do presentations or discussions at other events
But did we succeed???Anecdotal evidence from
faculty is positiveMore students participate
in the large lecture classesFaculty have a better
sense of the class’s understanding during class
Grades or other measures??
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