Using clickers to facilitate development of problem-solving skills

Classroom response systems, or clickers, have become pedagogical staples of the undergraduate science curriculum at many universities. In this study, the effectiveness of clickers in promoting problem-solving skills in a genetics class was investigated. Students were presented with problems requiring application of concepts covered in lecture and were polled for the correct answer. A histogram of class responses was displayed, and students were encouraged to discuss the problem, which enabled them to better understand the correct answer. Students were then presented with a similar problem and were again polled. My results indicate that those students who were initially unable to solve the problem were then able to figure out how to solve similar types of problems through a combination of trial and error and class discussion. This was reflected in student performance on exams, where there was a statistically significant positive correlation between grades and the percentage of clicker questions answered. Interestingly, there was no clear correlation between exam grades and the percentage of clicker questions answered correctly. These results suggest that students who attempt to solve problems in class are better equipped to solve problems on exams.     

What are Middle School Students Talking About During Clicker Questions? Characterizing Small-Group Conversations Mediated by Classroom Response Systems

There is a growing interest in using classroom response systems or clickers in science classrooms at both the university and K-12 levels. Typically, when instructors use this technology, students are asked to answer and discuss clicker questions with their peers. The existing literature on using clickers at the K-12 level has largely focused on the efficacy of clicker implementation, with few studies investigating collaboration and discourse among students. To expand on this work, we investigated the question: Does clicker use promote productive peer discussion among middle school science students? Specifically, we collected data from middle school students in a physical science course. Students were asked to answer a clicker question individually, discuss the question with their peers, answer the same question again, and then subsequently answer a new matched-pair question individually. We audio recorded the peer conversations to characterize the nature of the student discourse. To analyze these conversations, we used a grounded analysis approach and drew on literature about collaborative knowledge co-construction. The analysis of the conversations revealed that middle school students talked about science content and collaboratively discussed ideas. Furthermore, the majority of conversations, both ones that positively and negatively impacted student performance, contained evidence of collaborative knowledge co-construction.     

A Campus-Wide Investigation of Clicker Implementation: The Status of Peer Discussion in STEM Classes

At the University of Maine, middle and high school teachers observed more than 250 university science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classes and collected information on the nature of instruction, including how clickers were being used. Comparisons of classes taught with (n = 80) and without (n = 184) clickers show that, while instructional behaviors differ, the use of clickers alone does not significantly impact the time instructors spend lecturing. One possible explanation stems from the observation of three distinct modes of clicker use: peer discussion, in which students had the opportunity to talk with one another during clicker questions; individual thinking, in which no peer discussion was observed; and alternative collaboration, in which students had time for discussion, but it was not paired with clicker questions. Investigation of these modes revealed differences in the range of behaviors, the amount of time instructors lecture, and how challenging the clicker questions were to answer. Because instructors can vary their instructional style from one clicker question to the next, we also explored differences in how individual instructors incorporated peer discussion during clicker questions. These findings provide new insights into the range of clicker implementation at a campus-wide level and how such findings can be used to inform targeted professional development for faculty.     

Clickers in college classrooms: Fostering learning with questioning methods in large lecture classes

What can be done to promote student–instructor interaction in a large lecture class? One approach is to use a personal response system (or “clickers”) in which students press a button on a hand-held remote control device corresponding to their answer to a multiple choice question projected on a screen, then see the class distribution of answers on a screen, and discuss the thinking that leads to the correct answer. Students scored significantly higher on the course exams in a college-level educational psychology class when they used clickers to answer 2 to 4 questions per lecture (clicker group), as compared to an identical class with in-class questions presented without clickers (no-clicker group, d = 0.38) or with no in-class questions (control group, d = 0.40). The clicker treatment produced a gain of approximately 1/3 of a grade point over the no-clicker and control groups, which did not differ significantly from each other. Results are consistent with the generative theory of learning, which predicts students in the clicker group are more cognitively engaged during learning.     

Rapid Feedback Assessment Methods: Can We Improve Engagement and Preparation for Exams in Large-enrollment Courses?

Scratch-off immediate feedback assessment technique (IF-AT) forms and classroom response systems (clickers) can increase student engagement and interaction and help students prepare for exams by indicating the type and level of questions they will encounter. We used the IF-AT throughout the semester in three sections of a lower-division biology class; in two, students worked on IF-AT questions in small permanent groups, and in one, students alternated between IF-AT and clickers each week. At the end of the semester, students answered surveys about instant feedback techniques. Students appreciated prompt feedback on their understanding of course material, enjoyed the group interaction and opportunities to learn from each other, and continued to have positive perceptions of instant feedback activities and to take them seriously throughout the semester. While appreciating the versatility of clicker questions, we find that the ease of use, low cost, effectiveness, and improved classroom climate of the IF-AT method are particularly commendable.     

The use of clickers in Instrumentation and Control Engineering education: a case study

ABSTRACT

This paper presents results from a small-scale study of third-year Instrumentation and Control Engineering (n?=?37) at the University of Plymouth. The aim of the study was to enhance student learning and increase participation via the use of clickers. Clickers allow for student participation anonymously. The lecture content was modified to embed clicker questions at regular intervals to test knowledge, understanding and cognitive skills. Largely, the students preferred interactive lectures to traditional didactic lectures and using clickers increased student engagement and participation. Interestingly, compared to assessment results from the previous year, the increased level of engagement did seem to lead to an overall improvement in grades of approximately 10% in the subject of Control Engineering. However, in Instrumentation, the average fell by approximately 20%. One possible contributory factor of this drop could be the changed exam format for Instrumentation only. This year, the multiple choice section was removed from the Instrumentation examination paper. Furthermore, an analysis of variance showed that in addition to using clickers in the lectures, attendance plays a key role. Results of this small-scale study show that for a more complex subject like Control, student learning, engagement and attainment can increase by the use of clickers.     

Prescribed active learning increases performance in introductory biology

We tested five course designs that varied in the structure of daily and weekly active-learning exercises in an attempt to lower the traditionally high failure rate in a gateway course for biology majors. Students were given daily multiple-choice questions and answered with electronic response devices (clickers) or cards. Card responses were ungraded; clicker responses were graded for right/wrong answers or participation. Weekly practice exams were done as an individual or as part of a study group. Compared with previous versions of the same course taught by the same instructor, students in the new course designs performed better: There were significantly lower failure rates, higher total exam points, and higher scores on an identical midterm. Attendance was higher in the clicker versus cards section; attendance and course grade were positively correlated. Students did better on clicker questions if they were graded for right/wrong answers versus participation, although this improvement did not translate into increased scores on exams. In this course, achievement increases when students get regular practice via prescribed (graded) active-learning exercises.     

Students’ perceptions of clickers as an instructional tool to promote active learning

The purpose of this study was to evaluate students’ perceptions of clickers as an instructional tool to promote active learning in a Physical Geography undergraduate class. A convenience sample of 24 undergraduate students registered in a physical geography course was assigned clickers to answer chapter quizzes in class for 15 weeks during the semester. Data from student interviews, student surveys, and exam grades were used to analyze the findings. Overall, students were satisfied and gave high approval ratings for the use of clickers, particularly for enhancing their participation and engagement in class lectures. The study findings show that clickers promote student engagement in the teaching and learning process. However, students did not find clickers to be a motivating factor to study more for the course. The implications for the use of clickers as instructional tools to improve active teaching and learning in technology-rich classrooms are also discussed.     

Identifying Cognitive Processing Events during Clicker Exercises and Exploring Their Relationship with Student Learning

The use of clickers in the classroom has been linked to student learning. However, studies that examine the effects of clickers on learning often conceptualize a clicker exercise as a single, homogeneous cognitive processing (CP) event. We offer a conceptualization of sequenced cognitive activities that unfold during a clicker exercise. An inductive approach is adopted to identify three CP events that occur during a clicker exercise: an investigation event, a confirmation event, and a ratification event. We then use data collected from a sample of 187 students in an undergraduate business capstone course to explore the relationships between the three CP events and student learning. Contrary to expectations, not all CP events contribute positively to student learning. We discuss the implications of these findings and offer directions for future research that advance the understanding of clicker‐enhanced student learning. These insights afford instructors new options for optimizing the contributions of clicker exercises to student learning in their courses.     

How clicker use facilitates existing pedagogical practices in higher education: data from interdisciplinary research on student response systems

This article identifies how clicker use can support or augment existing principles of good teaching across different disciplines in higher education. While many of these principles will be familiar to instructors, the link between student response system (SRS) use and existing pedagogical methods is still often unclear, even for scholars who are well read in the literature. Functioning as a resource for both novices and instructors who have already incorporated clickers into their courses, this article synthesizes existing literature and offers empirical data from five courses in three disciplines to show how SRSs can be used to support contemporary pedagogical goals. The authors discuss five exemplary practices, providing sample clicker questions along the way, to show how clickers can be used to facilitate active learning in large courses.     

Clickers in the flipped classroom: bring your own device (BYOD) to promote student learning

Flipped classrooms continue to grow in popularity across all levels of education. Following this pedagogical trend, the present study aimed to enhance the face-to-face instruction in flipped classrooms with the use of clickers. A game-like clicker application was implemented through a bring your own device (BYOD) model to gamify classroom dynamics in the spirit of question-and-answer competitions. A series of flipped learning lessons were created for the study, with clickers integrated into question-and-answer activities associated with each of the lessons as formative assessments to assist students in the learning of English as a foreign language. In this quasi-experimental research, the data were gathered using a summative assessment, a perception survey, and individual interviews. The collected data were then analyzed to compare the students’ flipped learning experiences, with or without clicker use. The results indicated that the gamified use of clickers had positive influences on student learning, with regard to their performance, perceptions, and preferences. This study thus suggests that the emerging generation of clicker technology allows for a cost-effective BYOD integration model in flipped classrooms, through which it is possible to seamlessly bridge pre-class and in-class activities and to effectively promote student learning.     

Preparing students for future learning with Teachable Agents

One valuable goal of instructional technologies in K-12 education is to prepare students for future learning. Two classroom studies examined whether Teachable Agents (TA) achieves this goal. TA is an instructional technology that draws on the social metaphor of teaching a computer agent to help students learn. Students teach their agent by creating concept maps. Artificial intelligence enables TA to use the concept maps to answer questions, thereby providing interactivity, a model of thinking, and feedback. Elementary schoolchildren learning science with TA exhibited “added-value” learning that did not adversely affect the “basic-value” they gained from their regular curriculum, despite trade-offs in instructional time. Moreover, TA prepared students to learn new science content from their regular lessons, even when they were no longer using the software.     

Using clickers in nonmajors- and majors-level biology courses: student opinion, learning, and long-term retention of course material

Student response systems (clickers) are viewed positively by students and instructors in numerous studies. Evidence that clickers enhance student learning is more variable. After becoming comfortable with the technology during fall 2005-spring 2006, we compared student opinion and student achievement in two different courses taught with clickers in fall 2006. One course was an introductory biology class for nonmajors, and the other course was a 200 level genetics class for biology majors. Students in both courses had positive opinions of the clickers, although we observed some interesting differences between the two groups of students. Student performance was significantly higher on exam questions covering material taught with clickers, although the differences were more dramatic for the nonmajors biology course than the genetics course. We also compared retention of information 4 mo after the course ended, and we saw increased retention of material taught with clickers for the nonmajors course, but not for the genetics course. We discuss the implications of our results in light of differences in how the two courses were taught and differences between science majors and nonmajors.     

Descendants of “Ruth:” black Girls Coping Through the “Black Male Crisis”

This article presents the complex relationship between how black male and female identities have been constructed dichotomously in response to the gender framed “crisis” in black America. The ethnographic research study was conducted in an secondary African American History course, located in an urban school district in the southern portion of the United States. A case study of one black female student in a class of fourteen black male students was developed to deconstruct opposition and the use of resistance and empowerment by the female student. The classroom interactions among the male students, teacher, and Nicole were presented and analyzed from Nicole’s perspective. Analysis centralizes how Nicole interprets the class community, social interactions, and language used reflecting the needs of the African American males at the expense of her own social, cultural, and gender identity.     

The features of moral judgment competence among Chinese adolescents

In this paper, we used the “Moral Judgment Test” (MJT), an instrument that was developed by German psychologist, Georg Lind in 1976, along with some additional items, administered after the standard MJT. The participants were 724 Chinese adolescents whose ages ranged from 14 to 27 years of age. The results show that there was considerable fluctuation between grades in C scores, without the regularity seen in prior studies conducted in Western cultural contexts, but with senior college students generally showing higher C scores than freshmen. No significant differences in C scores were found between male and female students, between students with various professions, between key schools and the regular schools and between the two-year and the four-year college students. The possible implications of these findings for Chinese moral education are also discussed. This research was supported by a grant to Yang Shaogang from the Scientific Research Creation Team Project of GDUFS (GW2006-TA-008).     

Vibrant student voices: exploring effects of the use of clickers in large college courses

Teachers have begun using student response systems (SRSs) in an effort to enhance the learning process in higher education courses. Research providing detailed information about how interactive technologies affect students as they learn is crucial for professors who seek to improve teaching quality, attendance rates and student learning. This study investigates social, educational and emotional effects of the use of SRSs – clickers – at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Methods include participant observation, survey data from over 2000 students enrolled in three semesters of General Chemistry, and in‐depth interviews exploring the nature of student experiences with clickers. Findings suggest clickers significantly alter the social environment experienced by students as they learn. Clickers create learning environments characterized by greater activity, cooperation and conceptual application compared to traditional, lecture‐based instruction. Gender also influences whether students choose to work with peers during clicker‐prompted interaction. The qualitative analysis presented here extends upon themes identified in existing research on the effects of clickers for learning.     

The Psychometric Properties of Classroom Response System Data: A Case Study

Classroom response systems (often referred to as “clickers”) have slowly gained adoption over the recent decade; however, critics frequently doubt their pedagogical value starting with the validity of the gathered responses: There is concern that students simply “click” random answers. This case study looks at different measures of response reliability, starting from a global look at correlations between formative clicker responses and summative examination performance to how clicker questions are used in context. It was found that clicker performance is a moderate indicator of course performance as a whole, and that while the psychometric properties of clicker items are more erratic than those of examination data, they still have acceptable internal consistency and include items with high discrimination. It was also found that clicker responses and item properties do provide highly meaningful feedback within a lecture context, i.e., when their position and function within lecture sessions are taken into consideration. Within this framework, conceptual questions provide measurably more meaningful feedback than items that require calculations.     

Combining peer discussion with instructor explanation increases student learning from in-class concept questions

Use of in-class concept questions with clickers can transform an instructor-centered "transmissionist" environment to a more learner-centered constructivist classroom. To compare the effectiveness of three different approaches using clickers, pairs of similar questions were used to monitor student understanding in majors' and nonmajors' genetics courses. After answering the first question individually, students participated in peer discussion only, listened to an instructor explanation only, or engaged in peer discussion followed by instructor explanation, before answering a second question individually. Our results show that the combination of peer discussion followed by instructor explanation improved average student performance substantially when compared with either alone. When gains in learning were analyzed for three ability groups of students (weak, medium, and strong, based on overall clicker performance), all groups benefited most from the combination approach, suggesting that peer discussion and instructor explanation are synergistic in helping students. However, this analysis also revealed that, for the nonmajors, the gains of weak performers using the combination approach were only slightly better than their gains using instructor explanation alone. In contrast, the strong performers in both courses were not helped by the instructor-only approach, emphasizing the importance of peer discussion, even among top-performing students.     

Argumentation and indigenous knowledge: socio-historical influences in contextualizing an argumentation model in South African schools

This forum considers argumentation as a means of science teaching in South African schools, through the integration of indigenous knowledge (IK). It addresses issues raised in Mariana G. Hewson and Meshach B. Ogunniyi’s paper entitled: Argumentation-teaching as a method to introduce indigenous knowledge into science classrooms: opportunities and challenges. As well as Peter Easton’s: Hawks and baby chickens: cultivating the sources of indigenous science education; and, Femi S. Otulaja, Ann Cameron and Audrey Msimanga’s: Rethinking argumentation-teaching strategies and indigenous knowledge in South African science classrooms. The first topic addressed is that implementation of argumentation in the science classroom becomes a complex endeavor when the tensions between students’ IK, the educational infrastructure (allowance for teacher professional development, etc.) and local belief systems are made explicit. Secondly, western styles of debate become mitigating factors because they do not always adequately translate to South African culture. For example, in many instances it is more culturally acceptable in South Africa to build consensus than to be confrontational. Thirdly, the tension between what is “authentic science” and what is not becomes an influencing factor when a tension is created between IK and western science. Finally, I argue that the thrust of argumentation is to set students up as “scientist-students” who will be considered through a deficit model by judging their habitus and cultural capital. Explicitly, a “scientist-student” is a student who has “learned,” modeled and thoroughly assimilated the habits of western scientists, evidently—and who will be judged by and held accountable for their demonstration of explicit related behaviors in the science classroom. I propose that science teaching, to include argumentation, should consist of “listening carefully” (radical listening) to students and valuing their language, culture, and learning as a model for “science for all”.     

Sample, Random and Variation: The Vocabulary of Statistical Literacy

This paper considers the development of school students’ ability to define three terms that are fundamental to statistical literacy: sample, random, and variation. A total of 738 students in grades 3, 5, 7, and 9 were asked in a survey to define and give an example for the word “sample.” Of these, 379 students in grades 7 and 9 were also asked about the words “random” and “variation.” Responses were used to describe developmental levels overall and to document differences across grades on the understanding of these terms. Changes in performance were also monitored after lessons on chance and data, emphasizing variation for 335 students. After 2 years, 132 of these students and a further 209 students who were surveyed originally but did not take part in specialized lessons, were surveyed again. The difference after 2 years between the performance of students who experienced the specialized lessons and those who did not was considered, revealing no differences in performance longitudinally. For students in grades 7 and 9, the association of performance on the three terms was explored. Implications for mathematics and literacy educators are discussed.