Do They Aid Learning?
Classroom response systems, also know as 'clickers', are a set of hardware and software that facilitate teaching and learning.
Activities include:
Posing a multiple choice question to the students via an overhead or computer projector.
Each student then answers using a hand held transmitter (a 'clicker') that relays a signal attached to the teacher's computer.
Software on the teacher's computer collects the student's answers and produces a bar chart showing how many students chose each of the answer choices. This can be kept private to the teacher or it can be shared to the class.
The teacher can then make 'on the fly' instructional choices in response to the bar chart of student answers by, for example, leading a collaborative discussion about the merits of the students' answer choices, and by discussing the answer in small groups.
Some might say that multiple-choice questions can be rather limiting in testing knowledge, so the oweness is fixed very firmly with the teacher in choosing the right questions. This is of paramount importance in determining positive outcomes. This device will only work well if the teacher chooses the right questions. Specific, targeted questions can serve many purposes in class, including assessing students' higher order thinking skills. Questions can not only be used to assess students, but also to engage them, since effective questions are different to the multiple-choice type questions that typically appear on an exam paper.
Here are a few types of effective clicker questions:
Recall Questions: These ask students to recall facts, concepts, or techniques relevant to class. They can be used to check whether students have done the reading, remembered important points from prior classes, or have memorised key facts. These don't generally generate discussion and don't require high order( on Bloom's taxonomy) thinking skills.
Conceptual Understanding Questions: These questions go beyond recall and assess students' understanding of important concepts. Answer choices can be based on students' misconceptions , so these questions work well to identify and address those misconceptions. Asking students to classify, match characteristics with concepts, select the best explanation for a concept, or translate different ways of looking at an idea are examples of conceptual understanding questions.
Application Questions: These require students to apply their knowledge and understanding to particular situations and contexts. Application questions often ask students to make a decision; connect course content to 'real life' situations in a given scenario, implement procedures, predict outcomes, or even predict their peers' responses to specific questions.
Critical Thinking Questions: These questions operate at the higher level of Bloom's taxonomy, on the 'deep' learning level. They require students to analyse and synthesise relationships among multiple, and often abstract concepts, and make evaluations based on specific criteria.
Student Perspective Questions: These ask students to share their opinions, experiences, ideals and values, or demographic information. They don't have correct answers, but by surfacing various perspectives, they can help both student and teacher better understand those perspectives, which can generate rich discussion; particularly those questions that deal with ethical,legal, moral or religious issues. They can also help students connect their personal experiences to more abstract course content. The anonymity that clickers provide can be an essential ingredient in being able to ask certain questions.
Confidence Level Questions: Prompting students to assess and monitor their confidence levels in their ability to problem solve, can aid in their own metacognition.
Monitoring Questions: These types of questions provide the teacher with information about how each student is approaching their learning and their course.
I think these are great, and I can't wait to implement them into my lessons. The problem is that our college doesn't have any of these devices. However, smartphones can be used with applications like Socrative. I will look at Socrative in my next blog.
Teaching with these classroom response systems can take a number of directions. Teachers must though, match the activities to the relevance of the course material, time constraints,learning objectives, and their own teaching styles.
Here are some other possible Clicker activities:
Attendance: Clickers can be used (especially for a big class) to take attendance directly, by simply asking students,"are you here today?"
Summative Assessment: They can be used for graded activities, such as multiple-choice qizzes or tests throughout the different stages of the course.
Formative Assessment: Clickers can be used to pose questions to students for the purpose of collecting 'real time' information about their learning. Students can then use the feedback to monitor their own learning, and teachers can use it to change how they manage their class in response to students' needs.
REFERENCE:
Younie,S and Leask,M. Teaching with Technologies (2013) Oxford University Press
http://www.brown.edu/about/administration/sheridan-center/teaching-learning/course-design/learning-technologyhttp:
//www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/educators/higher-education-resources/default.aspx#fbid=syPC2RYijyl
http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/clickers/
