Engaging Students and Peer Instruction

(or Merging the Affective & Cognitive Domain)

Using Clickers

Teaching Geodesy in the 21st Century WorkshopBoulder, CO - March 8, 2010

Dr. Valerie Sloan

The Affective Domain in Teaching

As science faculty, we naturally emphasize the cognitive domain in our teaching. After all, students think and learn with their brains (we hope!). Yet the affective domain can significantly enhance, inhibit or even prevent student learning. The affective domain includes factors such as student motivation, attitudes, perceptions and values. Teachers can increase their effectiveness by considering the affective domain in planning courses, delivering lectures and activities, and assessing student learning.

What is the relevance of the affective domain in education?

If we are striving to apply the continuum of Krathwohl et al. to our teaching, then we are encouraging students to not just receive information at the bottom of the affective hierarchy. We'd like for them to respond to what they learn, to value it, to organize it and maybe even to characterize themselves as science students, science majors or scientists.

We are also interested in students' attitudes toward science, scientists, learning science and specific science topics. We want to find teaching methods that encourage students and draw them in. Affective topics in educational literature include attitudes, motivation, communication styles, classroom management styles, learning styles, use of technology in the classroom and nonverbal communication. It is also important not to turn students off by subtle actions or communications that go straight to the affective domain and prevent students from becoming engaged.

In the educational literature, nearly every author introduces their paper by stating that the affective domain is essential for learning, but it is the least studied, most often overlooked, the most nebulous and the hardest to evaluate of Bloom's three domains. In formal classroom teaching, the majority of the teacher's efforts typically go into the cognitive aspects of the teaching and learning and most of the classroom time is designed for cognitive outcomes. Similarly, evaluating cognitive learning is straightforward but assessing affective outcomes is difficult. Thus, there is significant value in realizing the potential to increase student learning by tapping into the affective domain. Similarly, students may experience affective roadblocks to learning that can neither be recognized nor solved when using a purely cognitive approach.

Source: http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/index.html

Clickers in the ClassroomClickers are wireless personal response systems that can be used in a classroom to anonymously and rapidly collect an answer to a question from every student. This allows rapid reliable feedback to both the instructor and the students.

Used well, clickers can influence and draw on student motivation, attitudes, perceptions and values (the affective domain) by making increasing the student’s engagement in the class, perception of the class, and interest in the course. Once students have had a class where clickers were used for peer instruction and class discussion of concepts, they often find it hard to go back to sitting passively in traditional lectures.

Clickers are not a magic bullet – they are not necessarily useful as an end in themselves, and it is hard to write good clicker questions and different from writing test questions. They become useful when the instructor has a clear idea as to what they want to achieve with them, and the questions are designed to improve student engagement, student-student interaction (on-topic), and instructor-student interaction. Below are some resources to help instructors use clickers effectively in a classroom.

Clicker Resource Guide:An instructor's guide to the effective use of personal response systems ("clickers") in teaching

prepared by University of Colorado Science Education Initiative (CU-SEI) and University of British Columbia Science Education Initiative (CWSEI) staff & associates. This guide was written to help instructors use clickers in their classes in the most comfortable and pedagogically effective manner. It includes a section on frequently asked questions about the use of clickers and

clicker questions and several good examples of clicker questions.

Videos:

Collection of videos on:

Using clickers in the classroom -- benefits & practical tips

Using clickers in upper division courses More to come!

All videos produced by the University of Colorado Science Education Initiative (CU-SEI) and the University of British Columbia Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI)

Videos produced by Eric Mazur's Group:

From Questions to Concepts: Interactive Teaching in PhysicsA short video showing Eric Mazur (Harvard University) conducting interactive teaching techniques, including clicker questions.

Mazur Group Project Galileo Video FAQs on Interactive TeachingShort videos addressing FAQs about interactive teaching techniques, such as clicker ConcepTests, on Eric Mazur's Group's Project Galileo portal.

Other materials included on the UBC & CU web page include:

Clicker Question Collections (a.k.a. Concept Questions)

Useful Articles and Links

Workshops, Talks, and Posters

Interactive Engagement

Interactive engagement is a broad term encompassing many aspects of student-centered instruction. Interactive engagement has been well-established in 30 years of education research in physics and other disciplines to improve student learning.

Clickers are a tool that can be used in many ways that do not encourage interactive engagement. Based on research at CU and elsewhere, we recommend the following question cycle to promote student learning.

Each of these stages has their own challenge.

Clicker Question Cycle

1. Learning Goals2. Ask question3. Peer Discussion4. Vote5. Whole Class Discussion6. Interpret & use results

A Personal Account & Tips Some of the best advice I got when I started using clickers was to “start slow.” Just use

one or two clicker questions at the outset to start learning how to use them. Give points for wrong answers (e.g. 2), and another for right answers (e.g. 3) It’s recommended to make clicker question grades worth only 5-10% of a grade or even

better, a bonus grade (they love that and are motivated by it). The biggest challenge I have had is writing good clicker questions. More often than I

would like, my questions (or answers) turn out to be ambiguous, which can lead to great discussions, but moreso when the professor has made them ambiguous on purpose and isn’t caught off-guard!

Rather than getting hung up on mainly using clicker questions, also focus on other ways to engage the students.

Walk around the lecture hall as you lecture. Ask questions as you walk around, and get the students talking When a student asks a question, put it back to the class and ask for an answer Ask for their name (“Tell me your name again?”) Use the board to explain a concept – it is more dynamic than a static diagram, and

students will draw and write it down. Lead into concepts with a question first. For example, lead the 3 rock types unit with a

slide of photos of each rock type and ask the class to describe what they see in each rock and what is different between them. This actually gets the student invested in what the answer is . . .

Test the students’ understanding of a concept first. This gives you a lot of good information, and, as in the point above, gets them interested in the right answer.

Get someone to proof-read your questions. Having bad clicker questions can make for an awful time teaching! (trust me!)

Do one-minute papers after you’ve covered a concept in class, and spot grade 5 of them each time.

There are a lot of good ideas out there . . . these are just a few suggestions.

A. Mostly along the margins of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans

B. Mostly along the margins of the Pacific Ocean

C. Mostly in warm climates D. Mostly on continents

E. Mostly on islands

The Geoscience Concept Inventory at Michigan State UniversityThe Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI) is a multiple-choice assessment instrument for use in the Earth sciences classroom. Go to the website to access ~70 questions which have been carefully reviewed.

Example question: The following maps show the position of the Earth’s continents and oceans. The ‘s on each map mark the locations where volcanic eruptions occur on land. Which map do you think most closely represents the places where these volcanoes are typically observed?

https://www.msu.edu/~libarkin/GCIinventory.html

Tips for Successful “Clicker” Use © Dr. Douglas Duncan, University of Colorado, 2008

Including recommendations from members of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative

More than 1,000,000 clickers are in use nationwide, and over 17,000 at CU. Data gathered during the past few years makes it clear which uses of clickers lead to success, and which lead to failure. Success means that both the faculty member and students report being satisfied with the results of using clickers.

Clickers have many possible uses: Find out if students have done assigned reading before class; measure what students know before you start to teach them and after you think you’ve taught them; measure attitudes and opinions, with more honest answers if the topic is personal or embarrassing; get students to confront common misconceptions; facilitate discussion and peer teaching; increase student’s retention of what you teach; transform the way you do demonstrations; increase class attendance; improve student attitudes. None of these are magically achieved by the clicker itself. They are achieved – or not achieved – entirely by what you do in implementation.

TECHNICAL POINTS: Try and get your school to adopt one clicker brand. Students hate being forced to buy

more than one clicker! RF (radio) clickers are easier and cheaper than infrared ones. Simpler clickers (e.g. iClicker) have fewer implementation problems. Test your registration system before students do. Deliberately make some mistakes and

see what happens. Check early in the semester that all responses are getting credited.

Practices that lead to Successful Clicker Use Have clear, specific goals for your class, and plan how clicker use could contribute to

your goals. Do not attempt all the possible uses described above at one time!

You MUST MUST MUST explain to students why you are using clickers. If you don’t, they often assume your goal is to track them like Big Brother, and force them to come to class. Students highly resent this.

Practice before using with students. Remember how irritated you get when A/V equipment fails to work. Don’t subject students to this.

Make clicker use a regular, serious part of your course. If you treat clicker use as unimportant or auxiliary then your students will too.

Use a combination of simple and more complex questions. Many users make their questions too simple. The best questions focus on concepts you feel are particularly important and involve challenging ideas with multiple plausible answers that reveal student confusion and generate spirited discussion. Show some prospective questions to a colleague and ask if they meet this criteria.

If one of your goals is more student participation, give partial credit, such as 1 point for any answer and 2 for the correct one, for some clicker questions. With some questions it

is appropriate to give full credit to all students, such as when multiple answers are valid or when you are gathering student opinions.

If your goal is to increase student learning, have students discuss and debate challenging conceptual questions with each other. This technique, peer instruction, is a proven method of increasing learning. Have students answer individually first; then discuss with those sitting next to them; then answer again.

Stress that genuine learning is not easy and that conceptual questions and conversations with peers can help students find out what they don’t really understand and need to think about further, as well as help you pace the class. Students tend to focus on correct answers, not learning. Explain that it is the discussion itself that produces learning and if they “click in” without participating they will probably get a lower grade on exams than the students who are more active in discussion. My students came up with the phrase, “No brain, no gain.”

Use the time that students are discussing clicker questions to circulate and listen to their reasoning. This is very valuable and often surprising. After students vote be sure to discuss wrong answers and why they are wrong, not just why a right answer is correct.

Compile a sufficient number of good clicker questions and exchange them with other faculty. The best questions for peer discussion are ones that around 30-70% of students can answer correctly before discussion with peers. This maximizes good discussion and learning. There is value in discussion even if a question is difficult and few know the answer initially.

If you are a first-time clicker user, start with just one or two questions per class. Increase your use as you become more comfortable.

Explain what you will do when a student’s clicker doesn’t work, or if a student forgets to bring it to class. You can deal with that problem as well as personal problems that cause students to miss class by dropping 5-10 of the lowest clicker scores for each student.

Talk directly about cheating. Emphasize that using a clicker for someone else is like taking an exam for someone else and is cause for discipline. Explain what the discipline would be.

Watching one class or even part of a class taught by an experienced clicker user is a good way to rapidly improve your clicker use.

Practices that lead to Failure Fail to explain why you are using clickers. Use them primarily for attendance. Don’t have students talk with each other. Use only factual recall questions. Don’t make use of the student response information. Fail to discuss what learning means or the depth of participation and learning you

expect in your class.Think of clickers as a testing device, rather than a device to inform learning.

If you believe that the teacher, not the students, should be the focus of the classroom experience, it is unlikely that clickers will work well for you.

Be prepared . . . Effective clicker use with peer discussions results in a livelier and more interesting class, for you as well as the students! Expect good results immediately but

better results as you become more experienced with clickers. This is the usual experience nationwide.

Further information and references will be put in http://casa.colorado.edu/~dduncan/clickers . I’d like to hear about your experiences, good and bad, and perhaps include them in future editions of my book on how to teach with clickers. dduncan@colorado.edu.

Stages of Practice

New users to clicker systems tend to become more sophisticated users of this teaching technique by moving through several stages. We cover these in our workshop. Feel free to use the spaces below to make some notes for yourselves. Be patient – it is hard to do many new things well at once. You may wish to feel comfortable at one stage before working hard on your practice at the next one.

Stage of Practice

Some main points Notes

Tech

nolo

gy

Registering clickers Instructor clicker Showing and hiding

histograms Operating clickers and

integrating with powerpoint and other systems.

Writ

ing

ques

tions

Writing at the right level of difficulty

Writing clear questions Choosing good

distractors

Dis

cuss

ions

Facilitate peer and whole-class discussions

Getting students to talk Student misbehavior

Inte

rpre

ting

re

sults

Using the information in your teaching

Integrating questions with rest of the class

Prepared by staff of the CU Science Education Initiative and the UBC Carl Wieman SEI*

Clicker Resource GuideAn Instructors Guide to the Effective Use of Personal Response Systems (Clickers) in Teaching

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY• Clickers are not a magic bullet – they are not necessarily useful as an end in themselves. Clickers become useful when you have a clear idea as to what you want to achieve with them, and the questions are designed to improve student engagement, student-student interaction, and instructor-student interaction.

• What clickers do provide is a way to rapidly collect an answer to a question from every student; an answer for which they are individually accountable. This allows rapid reliable feedback to both you and the students.

• Used well, clickers can tell you when students are disengaged and/or confused, why this has happened, and can help you to fix the situation.

• The best questions focus on concepts you feel are particularly important and involve challenging ideas with multiple plausible answers that reveal student confusion and generate spirited student discussion.

• A common mistake is to use clicker questions that are too easy. Students value challenging questions more and learn more from them. Students often learn the most from a question that they get wrong.

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

• Good clicker questions and discussion result in deeper, more numerous questions from a much wider range of students than in traditional lecture.

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

• Even though you will sacrifice some coverage of content in class, students will be more engaged and learn much more of what you do cover.

• When clickers are used well, students overwhelmingly support their use and say they

help their learning.