Astronomy Education Review paper on "Clickers" - D. Duncan
Contents
1. some instructors argue that these are students who would prefer a class that allows them to pass by memorizing what the instructor says and feeding that information back on tests without ever having to demonstrate conceptual understanding or explain themselves to another student Regardless it is important to explain to all students why you are having them use clickers Section 5 on avoiding potential problems suggests how Table 1 shows the Trees and Jackson 2003 data disaggregated into three astronomy classes two communications classes and two physics classes In this survey 5 corresponds to strongly agree and 1 to strongly disagree Each class typically had 200 students Note that these are self report data and represent what students think the clickers did for them Measured learning gains are reported in the next section Scores are on a scale from 1 lowest to 5 highest Table 1 Student responses to a large survey of clicker use Results Student Perceptions Overall ASTRO Learning Processes 1 By using clickers in this class I got feedback on my understanding of class material Mean 3 62 3 99 3 69 3 55 2 46 2 85 4 43 2 Clicker questions helped me to know how well I was learning the material Mean 3 57 3 88 3 70 3 48 2 60 2 86 3 Clicker questions were helpful for preparing me for the2. Burnstein R A amp Lederman L M 2001 Using a Wireless Keypad in Lecture Classes The Physics Teacher 39 8 Byrd G G Coleman S amp Werneth C 2004 Exploring the Universe Together Cooperative Quizzes with and without a Classroom Performance System in Astronomy 101 Astronomy Education Review 3 1 26 http aer noao edu cgi bin article pl id 91 Duncan D K 2005 Clickers in the Classroom New York Pearson Addison Wesley Duncan D K 2006 Clickers in the Astronomy Classroom New York Pearson Addison Wesley Hake R R 1998 Interactive Engagement vs Traditional Methods A Six Thousand Student Survey of Mechanics Test Data for Introductory Physics Courses American Journal of Physics 66 64 Mazur E 1997 Peer Instruction A User s Manual Upper Saddle River NJ Prentice Hall Trees A amp Jackson M 2003 The Learning Environment in Clicker Classrooms Student Processes of Learning and Involvement in Large Courses Using Student Response Systems Communications Department University of Colorado Weiman C amp Perkins K 2005 Transforming Physics Education Physics Today 58 11 36 R Innovation
3. make them an important part of your class The regular use of clickers can transform the classroom in a very positive way Students become active participants not merely passive listeners to a lecture They ask more questions As described in the section 4 if students are allowed to discuss their answers with their neighbors before responding the impact is even stronger At the University of Colorado astronomy planetary science and physics faculty found that class attendance increased substantially after the introduction of clickers from 60 70 to 80 90 The Illinois Institute of Technology Burnstein amp Lederman 2001 reported 80 90 attendance in classes where clickers were in use Other universities have reported similar results The Colorado numbers have fallen slightly recently but remain higher than in preclicker days The first use of wireless response systems was at IBM corporate headquarters with a custom built system Duncan 2005 Many companies now market wireless response systems and the price is rapidly falling Clicker use is growing very rapidly because of the benefits that clickers can bring and their ease of use The University of Massachusetts at Amherst reported 8 000 students using clickers and the University of Colorado 6 000 Clicker use started in science classes but is spreading to other fields 1 2 What Clickers Can Do Clickers can a Measure what students know before you start to teach them preassessm
4. problems are time consuming to solve so it is important to be accurate right from the start no matter what procedure is used to register students In old style systems students have to find their clicker IDs on a screen to know their answer has been counted Figure 6 In RF or 2 way IR systems the receiver sends a signal back to a student s transmitter when his or her response has been counted lighting an LED and eliminating the need to look for a number Figure 6 This screen shows who has been counted 2 3 Grading Any grading of student responses is done separately not as a part of data collection You use data analysis software provided free by the clicker company that assigns whatever grades you specify You might assign 1 point for the correct answer and 0 for any other Many instructors prefer to give partial credit for wrong answers I concur I give 1 point for wrong answers and 2 points for correct ones Why My questions are not easy and one of my main goals is to get more student participation When students know they get substantial credit for contributing they are less afraid to give an incorrect answer Clicker responses do not have to be graded but most students feel that when they have done work they should receive a grade Most instructors have clickers represent about 10 of the total class grade Students usually take their clicker grade very seriously sometimes even obsessing over it perhaps because it i
5. ake also found that the poorest interactive results all came from classes in which the instructor was not well trained in interactive methods or if there were serious equipment problems Such problems are addressed in section 5 Using clickers does not mean that your class will immediately achieve the results of an interactive education course The Hake data are for physics classes many of which included labs and were developed over many years to encourage student thinking Some though used peer interaction with clickers Mazur 1997 Clickers are especially well adapted to this Byrd Coleman and Werneth 2004 reported the use of clickers and student student interaction in an astronomy class that was taught one year in conventional lecture style a second year with cooperative quizzes in which students could work together before submitting a quiz and a third year that was like the second except that clickers were used to collect quiz answers The convenience of clickers permitted more quizzes with less overhead time Class average on a closed book final exam was 57 the first year 80 the second and 83 the third Most of the learning gains were realized without the clickers presumably from the students engaging with each other However clickers made the process of recording student answers much easier This is very similar to Mazur s 1997 peer instruction experience described in section 4 Mazur had students debate with each other before a
6. are particularly effective with peer discussions Mazur 1997 as described in section 4 Those of us who have aspired to the Carl Sagan model of inspiring teaching may find it difficult to accept that students learn significantly more if during part of our classes we are completely silent and let the students do the talking thinking and teaching Nevertheless that s what the data show Hake 1998 used the Force Concept Inventory FCI to survey the learning gains of 6 000 students in 62 physics classes in a number of institutions Because students start with different levels of knowledge results are reported as normalized learning gains Normalized gain is the fraction of possible improvement a student achieves 1 00 means that he or she learned everything that was taught A key result from Hake s article is reproduced here where T marks courses taught only with traditional lectures and IE marks courses taught with a variety of interactive methods Figure 8 ET Courses OJE Courses 0 S 0 4 0 3 Fraction of Courses 0 2 ANIA 0 0 08 0 16 0 24 032 04 O48 0 55 0 64 0 72 lt g gt Figure 8 Learning gains during the term in interactive courses IE can be double what they are in pure lecture courses T In even the best traditional lecture courses students only learned about 30 of the new concepts taught Even the worst of the more interactive classes produced greater student learning than most of the lecture classes H
7. case students must register their clickers so that the unique serial number each clicker carries is associated with a particular student Students register their clicker ID along with their name and student ID This can be done via e mail clicker software systems typically have a program that automatically reads registration e mails if they are written in a specified format Registration can also be done at a Web site No matter how it is done students register during the first few days of class An example of Web site registration is shown in Figure 5 Top of Form Submitted N Please fill out this form to register your clicker Class None First Name No spaces Last Name No spaces 9 digit Student ID No spaces or dashes Re Enter your Student ID Numerical Clicker ID No spaces or dashes Look under the battery cover Enter the numbers only not leading letters Re Enter your Clicker ID Your email Address Only colorado edu emails are permitted REGISTER in aa Figure 5 Sample Web site clicker registration This Web site generates a list of students and their clicker IDs for use with the clicker software Note that students are asked to enter their student ID and clicker ID twice if either number is off the student will not receive credit Careful registration is essential or students will approach the instructor weeks into term and say Your system isn t giving me credit for my clicker answers These kinds of
8. cturers are not compatible with each other Figure 3 Infrared transmitters top and radio RF receiver and transmitter bottom In use a multiple choice question is put in front of the students It can be in PowerPoint Microsoft Word or other formats or simply written on a board or shown on an overhead projector In the system shown in Figure 4 a green button is selected to start collecting student responses To stop collecting and show the results a red button is selected H ITT 1 3 3 Copyright 2001 2002 H ITT LLC Demo Mode Jane Doe z aloi x Fie Queston Sides Hep C 10 00 EERE T e a e 205 BAR Who is this president Abraham Lincoin Bill cnton George Bush Georae Washington James Madison Class Response To Question 2 10 10 C Response Figure 4 Typical data collection screen and results screen These are usually shown to the class with an LCD projector 2 1 Cost of Clicker Systems Infrared clickers typically cost around 25 Campus stores add a markup to the price Discount coupons may be ordered with many astronomy textbooks that give a rebate of around 25 to students who return the coupons In most cases the coupons must be requested when ordering textbooks Receivers cost between 200 and 300 Current infrared receivers can handle about 50 students The limitation is how many responses can be counted per second A classroom for 200 students would need between four and six receivers and the
9. d eight of their lowest scoring clicker answers will be dropped from their grade Such a policy saves lots of time that otherwise would be spent dealing with student requests for a makeup due to personal problems 5 2 Cheating Like almost any technology clickers can be used to cheat The most straightforward way is for one student to give another his or her clicker One professor observed a student sitting near the front using a handful of clickers belonging to his sleeping roommates When questioned he responded You didn t say we couldn t An important step to preventing cheating is to discuss your expectations for clicker use and your grading policy Point out that students in previous classes have said that they like how clickers give them feedback help them learn and get better grades on exams However this only works for students who think for themselves and actively participate in the discussions Be explicit about the consequences of cheating 5 3 Student Expectations Clickers alter the dynamics of your classroom mostly in a positive way But generations of students have entered large classes with the expectation that they would be anonymous unless they sat in front Clickers change that Absences from class are automatically recorded Students can t easily hide in the back of a large lecture hall not paying attention sleeping if every student is questioned and their answers recorded several times per class Don t expect
10. edit to encourage student participation as recommended in section 2 2 students must know this The first few times the procedure will seem strange to them because they have been told for years to be quiet in class After practice your biggest problem will be getting them to stop The ambience of the classroom changes dramatically becoming something like that of the introductory cocktail party at a professional scientific meeting There are dozens of simultaneous conversations and if your questions are good some become quite passionate Your classroom becomes much louder and more chaotic than you have ever seen it Your students are all talking about science Many instructors find that initially the most difficult part of peer instruction is standing silently before a large class Students are doing lots of talking you are not Your role has changed from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side and it takes considerable self confidence to move from the role of an expert to that of a provocateur Students will encourage you to tell them the answer That is what they are used to and it is easier than having to figure out the answer themselves Teaching this way may be more difficult if you are a dynamic speaker or have won teaching awards because these are almost always given based on what the teacher does rather than on how much the students have accomplished something that is much harder to measure On reflection though isn t stud
11. enerally not necessary Here s an example 1 If you were on the Moon would the Earth a Show no phases b Show phases that are the same as the Moon s when it is full Moon it is full Earth etc c Show phases opposite to the Moon when it is full Moon it is new Earth etc d None of the above For a student to answer the question correctly he or she must conceptually understand the idea of phases Memorization will not suffice because phases of the Earth are not discussed in most textbooks If it is important to you that your students understand a concept ask a clicker question before and after you teach it and include peer instruction in between Conceptual questions are particularly effective when about half the class understands the correct answer Mazur considers 40 80 a good range If too few answer correctly you need to do further explaining before proceeding or student discussions will falter And if almost all students understand the concept you may choose to move on Otherwise you proceed to step 2 of peer instruction Ask your students to turn to their left and right in the lecture hall form a group of three and convince each other which answer is correct Tell them how much time they have e g two to three minutes and that you will ask the clicker question again at the end of that time It is essential that you explain how you expect peer discussion to work before trying it In particular if you give partial cr
12. ent b Measure student attitudes c Find out if students have done their assigned reading d Get students to confront common misconceptions e Transform the way you do any demonstrations f Increase students retention of what you teach g Test student understanding formative assessment h Make some kinds of grading and assessment easier i Facilitate testing of conceptual understanding j Facilitate discussion and peer instruction k Increase class attendance Several of these topics are described in more detail below Figure 1 Clickers address the age old problem of audience engagement 1 3 What Ordinary Lectures Can t Do One reason for using clickers derives from what lectures can t do The lecture format itself imposes limits on one s ability to teach Data show very clearly that the success of even an exemplary lecture is limited by the passive role that students take in an ordinary lecture Studies also indicate that the full attention of most students falls off remarkably fast in minutes or tens of minutes see Figure 1 An interactive system such as clickers can maintain a higher level of student involvement leading to greater learning and often more student enjoyment It is possible to present an inspiring lecture and still find that students retain a disappointingly low amount of understanding The results presented here are primarily from physics education researchers who have thoroughly investigated student learn
13. ent learning something we are trying to maximize And as good data based scientists it is difficult for us to argue with the findings of Mazur and the many physics education researchers who have demonstrated the strong correlation between more active students and better long term learning In peer discussion students are being taught by nonexperts other students and it may seem counterintuitive that they could learn more from peers than from us The words of one of Mazur s articulate students are instructive Professor Mazur is a good and dedicated teacher and he is very smart But it is clearly better to learn from one of my classmates because they think more like me Mazur private communication 2004 Peer instruction doesn t replace our teaching it augments it And the use of clickers makes students commit to their answers and gives them immediate feedback For some of us it is difficult to separate our personal experience when we were students from that of our students today We were typically students who took notes worked on difficult problems at home and perhaps even formed study groups and discussed difficult ideas with our classmates all on our own In other words we were active learners and we succeeded but it is important not to conclude that what was sufficient for us is necessarily the best way for all students to learn Data show that peer instruction tends to significantly improve learning for all students from above a
14. every student to welcome this change It is essential that you discuss with students the benefits that clickers bring otherwise they may concentrate on the disadvantages and be unhappy If you give partial credit for wrong clicker answers as recommended in section 2 2 point out to students that if they regularly come to class and participate they are almost certain to get a decent clicker grade The use of clickers with conceptually based questions and peer discussion strikes at an even more fundamental student expectation that of what it means to learn Unfortunately there are still many science classes taught in such a way that students can memorize what the teacher says repeat this back on an exam and get an excellent grade Many students think that this is all there is to learning They often think that they ve mastered a subject Scientists know that genuine understanding means you can take a concept and apply it to different situations or different kinds of problems and explain it to someone else Clickers make it relatively easy to test if students can do so It is extremely useful to discuss right at the start of the term what you expect your students to know and what you expect them to be able to do with their knowledge 5 4 Instructor Discomfort and Lack of Preparation Doing two things at once is difficult Even though clicker software is generally very easy to run it can distract you from your teaching It is very important to
15. exams in class Mean 3 27 3 66 3 24 2 81 2 29 2 63 Classroom Culture The use of clickers helped my experience in this class to be more like that of a smaller class Mean 3 10 3 54 3 17 2 94 1 89 2 33 3 76 3 46 Clicker Points as Motivation to Attend Class Earning clicker points motivates me to come to class 4 agree 29 27 24 5 5 agree strongly 55 50 41 5 Total 84 771 66 It can immediately be seen that student opinion about clickers is much more positive in the astronomy and physics classes than in the communications classes The former classes were taught by instructors who had used clickers before but the communications faculty had little clicker experience and minimal practice time Astronomy and physics faculty explained the reason for clicker use in some detail used more clicker questions and made their use more central to the course These differences should serve as a warning to those contemplating clicker use for the first time Additional warnings are given in section 5 3 2 Learning Gains A large body of research shows that classroom methods that make students active result in substantially greater learning than pure lecturing does Clickers are a relatively easy way to introduce an active learning component into a large lecture class Clickers
16. ing Hake 1998 and references therein 1 4 A Remarkable Example of How Ordinary Lectures Fail Anyone who still doubts that traditional lectures fail to produce as much long lasting learning as we would like should carefully consider the following example from Carl Weiman A Nobel Prize winner in physics and a good teacher Weiman has become a strong advocate of the use of clickers during lectures and demonstrations Weiman amp Perkins Physics Today 2005 an excellent review He reported the following example of trying to teach how a violin works that the body of a violin is essential for amplifying the sound of the strings Most students have the misconception or preconception that the strings make all the sound Explaining about sound and how a violin works I show class a violin and tell them that the strings cannot move enough air to produce much sound so actually the sound comes from the wood in the back I point inside violin to show how there is a sound post so strings can move the bridge and the sound post causes back of violin to move and make sound 15 minutes later in the lecture I asked students a question the sound they hear from a violin is produced by 1 mostly strings 2 mostly by the wood in the violin back 3 both equally 4 none of the above What fraction of students do you think answered the multiple choice question correctly a 0 b 10 c 30 d 70 e 90 The correct answer was b Only 10 of the stude
17. licker adoption has occurred department by department In many cases different systems are in use and these are incompatible with each other The result is that students may have to buy several different clickers increasing cost and inconvenience The obvious solution is to communicate and coordinate with other campus departments The University of Colorado has just produced an internal report Dubson 2006 that recommends adoption of one clicker system probably RF campuswide with support from the university s A V and computer staff QUERY 3 Please provide a reference list entry for Dubson 2006 6 ARE CLICKERS JUST ANOTHER EDUCATIONAL FAD Anyone who has taught for years has seen many highly promoted innovations that were supposed to improve education Most eventually disappear Are clickers another fad In the opinion of the present author no This opinion has nothing to do with the technology of clickers which is not very from that of TV remote control units that have been around for years It is the functionality of clickers that is important They address aspects of a class that are fundamental to learning things that good teachers always want to do assess what students are thinking and engage students during class In other words they are appropriate technology Before working on the remodeling of Chicago s Adler Planetarium in the early 1990s the author visited a wide variety of science museums to study how they created their
18. nswering conceptual questions posed in class and he did this for several years before clickers were available Year after year he observed significant learning gains compared with when he taught the same classes with unbroken lectures Mazur now routinely uses clickers because it makes collection of students responses so much easier and faster Additionally students now see results immediately in class rather than having to wait for answers to be graded and handed back 4 CLICKERS AND PEER INSTRUCTION Particularly good results are achieved when clickers are used in conjunction with peer discussions Peer instruction is based on two ideas 1 ask conceptual questions that probe students understanding of a topic and 2 get students to discuss argue debate and try and convince each other of the correct answer Mazur has used this approach at Harvard since the early 1990s His book Peer Instruction A User s Manual 1997 is highly recommended Mazur attributes his students impressive learning gains to this procedure in which they teach and debate with each other The present author experimented with peer instruction in astronomy classes at the University of Chicago in the mid 1990s and surveyed student attitudes documenting very positive results Duncan 2005 2006 Both instructors now use clickers to facilitate peer learning Conceptual clicker questions are ideally suited to peer instruction because complex calculations are g
19. nts answered correctly 15 minutes later in the same lecture Explaining what causes the sound in a stringed instrument like explaining the seasons is particularly difficult because most students enter with the wrong idea in their minds Nevertheless the example illustrates the limitations of a traditional passive lecture When Weiman augmented his violin lesson with peer discussion section 5 and a clicker question and tested students a week later the majority gave the correct answer Figure 2 After being told that the body of a violin is essential for amplifying the sound of the strings 15 minutes later only 10 of students answered a related question correctly QUERY 1 Doug I added this caption for Figure 2 Please feel free to change 2 HOW DO CLICKERS WORK Here s how the clicker system works Each student has a transmitter clicker that looks very much like a small TV remote control Figure 3 The clicker has a number of buttons typically labeled a b c d and e The classroom has one or more wall mounted receivers that pick up the signals generated when a student pushes one of the buttons and a computer equipped with software to record each student s response Results are presented without student names attached typically as a bar chart that can be projected in front of the class to show the percentage of various answers Some transmitters work at infrared frequencies some at radio RF Systems from different manufa
20. practice and you may want to get a student or TA to run the clicker system Although the software may only require clicking a green button and then a red one adequate preparation will make life easier for the novice user Practice with the system and with your TA before you try clickers in class Generating good conceptual discussion questions is another issue Thinking up good thought provoking questions has never been easy and with clickers the quality of the questions you ask is important Publishers are beginning to offer collections of clicker questions and individual faculty members can exchange them as well It is certainly not necessary to use a lot of clicker questions all at once Plan on using one or two per lecture in the beginning see how that goes and increase usage when you feel ready 5 5 Covering Less Material When you take three to five minutes for conceptual clicker questions several times each lecture you will cover less material But by engaging with the material more completely the students will actually learn more Because detailed studies show that students only learn about one third of what is covered in even the best lecture see section 3 2 it makes sense to slightly reduce the material covered if the result is students learning more 5 6 Cost to Students As described in section 7 many astronomy texts can now be ordered with discount coupons that reduce the cost to students However in most universities c
21. programs The best Exploratorium Ontario Science Center always began by asking What do we want to accomplish for what audience Technology was chosen to enable the desired outcome Interestingly this is very similar to the course development process advocated in the first article published in the Astronomy Education Review Brissenden Slater amp Mathieu 2002 If your teaching goals include engaging students and being aware of what they are thinking clickers will not be a fad but rather a resource to always keep at hand Of course as section 5 warns you need to use them purposefully to achieve your desired results 7 MANUFACTURERS AND DISCOUNTS The classroom response system used at the University of Colorado is H ITT or Hyper Interactive Teaching Technology http www h itt com Other popular systems include EduCue http www EduCue com and eInstruction http www einstruction com sometimes referred to by the name of their system CPS classroom performance system These are usually one way systems that transmit infrared signals One way means that students transmit a signal to the receiver it does not transmit back As described above students need to check their transmitter s serial number on a screen to be sure their answer has been recorded A second type of classroom response system is two way in which the receiver also transmits back to the student confirming that the vote has been recorded H ITT now uses t
22. s concrete and they see it every class unlike exams As discussed in section 5 on potential problems it is essential that you explain why you are using clickers and what you expect from the students when they use the clickers 3 WHAT RESULTS CAN YOU EXPECT IF YOU USE CLICKERS 3 1 Student Attitudes Students overwhelmingly like clickers unless you make some of the mistakes described in section 5 Reasons typically cited by students include the instant feedback for them and for the professor breaking up the lecture with something interesting and allowing them to participate Figure 7 is based on student responses from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where 8 000 clickers are in use Rogers 2003 QUERY 2 Please provide reference list entry for Rogers 2003 My experience has been positive and encourage you to keep PRS Agree Ne ral Disagree Strongly disagree Figure 7 Student response to clickers is usually strongly positive Trees and Jackson 2003 surveyed 1 500 clicker users Their key findings include Most students think that clickers give them valuable feedback Many students enjoy the interaction that clickers provide A group of students dislikes clicker use Explaining how clicker use can benefit students and how it supports your class goals improves students attitudes toward using clickers Some students say that they would prefer to remain anonymous and dislike using clickers In response
23. se must be dispersed around the room because with an infrared clicker students must point the transmitter at the receiver The angle of acceptance is wide but the receiver should be in front of the students so that they don t have to turn around to register their responses The common IR system from H ITT http www h itt com is simply wired with Ethernet cables Half a dozen receivers plus cables plus installation add up to a cost of several thousand dollars for a large lecture hall Radio RF systems have the advantage that they do not require that receivers be mounted on the classroom wall The single small receiver has an antenna and it may sit right next to the instructor s computer anywhere in the room It can handle 500 1 000 students Students do not have to point their clickers to be counted The popular system elInstruction http www einstruction com sells RF clickers for 15 Students pay a registration fee of 35 if a university has standardized on elnstruction products for all classes or 50 if it has not The new company iClicker was started by professors from the University of Illinois physics department They produce only RF clicker systems Clickers sell for 25 and there is no registration fee The small receiver is convenient and portable 2 2 Registration and Data Collection Most instructors want to associate particular answers with the students who gave them in order to give credit and track progress In that
24. stronomy Education Review Volume 5 Issue 1 Clickers A New Teaching Aid with Exceptional Promise by Douglas Duncan University of Colorado Received 05 03 06 The Astronomy Education Review Issue 1 Volume 5 2006 2006 Douglas Duncan Copyright assigned to the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc Abstract Wireless student response systems clickers address two of the oldest and most fundamental challenges in teaching how to engage students and how to determine if they are learning what you are teaching Clickers are relatively low cost and easy to use Data show that when they are used well in large lecture classes clickers increase the engagement of students and improve their learning This is particularly true when students are encouraged to debate answers with their neighbors before answering Students overwhelmingly like using clickers and believe that they increase their learning Clicker use also increases class attendance Like any technology it is possible to misuse clickers Common mistakes made by new clicker users and how to avoid them are described As of 2006 clicker technology is changing in a way that favors radio RF rather than infrared transmission Those installing clicker systems should profit from these changes 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1 Why Use Clickers You re a good teacher You really care about whether your students learn so as you lecture you watch their faces for clues Do
25. they get it Are they enthusiastic about what you re saying You stop and ask Does anybody have any questions Students nervously look at each other No one raises a hand Good you think to yourself no one has a question They must be following my presentation and understanding the subject If you re experienced you know this isn t enough Many students will not call attention to what they don t know especially in a large class Some students particularly those at the back of the class may not be engaged at all with your presentation Now there is a straightforward relatively inexpensive and easy to use solution wireless student response systems or as they are often called clickers Clickers give students and teachers immediate feedback about what each student is thinking The teacher asks a multiple choice question and the students choose an answer and click a button on a small transmitter A receiving unit counts all the answers and displays them on the instructor s computer usually as a histogram The histogram may be projected for the class to see The instructor can decide whether to proceed or to spend more time on a particular topic Equally valuable the student learns immediately whether he or she understands the concept that the teacher is presenting without waiting for a test The changes that clickers produce in a classroom are small if you only use them occasionally but profound if you use them more regularly and
26. unted 8 SUMMARY In the opinion of the author clickers are the most promising teaching technology to come along in decades They can change the dynamics of a lecture so that students become more engaged active learners They provide immediate feedback to the instructor and to each student about what other students are thinking They are relatively easy to learn to use and inexpensive After investigating clickers thoroughly enough to write a short book on their use Duncan 2006 this opinion has only been strengthened The advantages documented in section 3 were reinforced by personal experience However like any technology clickers can be misused and it is important to be aware of the problems discussed in section 5 before starting to use them You should know that even after you start to use clickers successfully your skill with them is likely to improve over time Figure 9 Rogers 2003 The best advice is to start simply with a limited number of clicker questions evaluate how happy you are with the results and proceed from there Effectiveness Improves with Use First time PRS Users 40 bela average Experienced PRS Users Figure 9 Effectiveness of clicker use improves with experience References Brissenden G Slater T amp Mathieu R 2002 The Role of Assessment in the Development of the College Introductory Astronomy Course Astronomy Education Review 1 1 1 http aer noao edu cgi bin article pl id 1
27. verage to below average The compensation for giving up a sage on the stage role is the new enthusiasm of your students You will get more participation more questions and more variety This can be quite refreshing especially if you have taught the same class many times While the students discuss their clicker questions you can circulate throughout the room and listen to their arguments This will bring you new insight into their thinking and it is sometimes quite eye opening The best peer instruction carefully integrates into the overall curriculum the conceptual questions that students are asked to discuss and answer Midterms and finals should also be designed to test conceptual knowledge 5 COMMON PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS 5 1 Technical Problems The failure rate for most clickers has decreased and is now perhaps a few percent per semester Nevertheless this means that you can expect a handful of failures Companies readily replace bad clickers at no cost but when a student registers a new clicker the association of student ID versus clicker will change Be prepared to handle that Students sometimes forget to bring their clicker to class although as clickers become common they are treated like pencil and paper something you bring to every class You may choose to accept a small number of submissions on paper and enter them later Another common strategy is to tell the students that a certain number say between four an
28. wo way infrared transmitters Other systems transmit radio RF rather than infrared signals Leading RF manufacturers include Reply The Fleetwood Group http www replysystems comh eInstruction and iClicker http www iClicker comp If it is essential to confirm that all answers have been recorded e g the administration of high stakes tests or exams a two way system has obvious advantages over a one way system Most companies provide their software at no charge Although most instructors report that the software is relatively convenient to use and easy to learn a significant minority disagree and this opinion varies from system to system It may be worth your while to download the software from a manufacturer before buying in order to evaluate it for yourself The University of Colorado s original choice was influenced by ease of use of the software but the lower cost no classroom wiring of RF systems is likely to mean a change Dubson 2006 Clickers can be purchased at reduced prices There is a rapidly developing trend for textbook companies to include discount coupons redeemable by students who purchase clickers These can be for 25 nearly the full price of some clickers However textbooks must be ordered to have the discount coupons bundled with them The clicker companies also sell the receivers used in the classroom In most cases the installation is relatively simple although receivers for IR systems usually must be wall mo
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