Clickers in Context - Department of Physics | Oregon State University

Clickers in Context
HOW THEY ARE USED, WHAT
STUDENTS WANT, AND WHAT WORKS
Scientific Teaching:
If we approach teaching the same way
we approach scientific research, we
can make informed decisions about
how to improve student learning.
(Handelsman et al, 2004)
One Common Reform
A Peer Instruction question
Another example
A. Yes, left
B. Yes, right
C. No
D. Don’t know
Anatomy of Peer Instruction
See also Mazur, “Peer Instruction, A User’s Manual”
Why is Peer Instruction helpful?
But how is PI actually used?
Dancy & Henderson, Pedagogical practices and instructional change of faculty, Am. J. Phys., 78(10), Oct
2010.Web survey of 722 physics faculty at various institutions, initial sample of 2000.
% of faculty reporting to be familiar with RBIS
“RBIS”= Research-Based Instructional Strategy
* Research-Based Instructional Strategy
Dancy & Henderson, Pedagogical practices and instructional change of faculty, Am. J. Phys., 78(10), Oct 2010.
% of faculty reporting as current user of RBIS
“RBIS”= Research-Based Instructional Strategy
~ 50%
* Research-Based Instructional Strategy
Dancy & Henderson, Pedagogical practices and instructional change of faculty, Am. J. Phys., 78(10), Oct
2010.Web survey of 722 physics faculty at various institutions, initial sample of 2000.
In particular:
% of instructors who report using Peer Instruction and also
report including the following elements of Peer Instruction:
Students discuss ideas in class*
Students discuss qualitative/quantitative
problems in class*
Whole class voting*
Conceptual questions*
27%
27%
38%
64%
Is this a problem?!
* Every class
Dancy & Henderson, Pedagogical practices and instructional change of faculty, Am. J. Phys., 78(10), Oct
2010.Web survey of 722 physics faculty at various institutions, initial sample of 2000.
Three
threads:
Clickers
in
context
Three threads: Clicker use in context
How are
instructors
using PI?
What do students
prefer?
What are researchers
finding works best?
Image: Dvotygirl on Wikimedia
Three
threads:
Clickers
in
context
Three threads: Clicker use in context
How are
instructors
using PI?
What do students
prefer?
What are researchers
finding works best?
Image: Dvotygirl on Wikimedia
Followed-up faculty interviews
722
Physics
Faculty
Surveyed
51
Faculty
invited
to
parCcipate
in
PI
interviews
46
Faculty
invited
to
parCcipate
in
WP
interviews
35
Faculty
interviewed
about
PI
(69%)
35
Faculty
interviewed
about
WP
(76%)
Henderson, Dancy & Turpen, in preparation
Perceived Affordances of PI
Dissatisfaction with lecture
Evidence of effectiveness from personal
experience
Gets students active
Departmental support or encouragement
Evidence of effectiveness from data
Intuitively makes sense to me
Provides feedback to the instructor
Gets students working together
Encourages depth of understanding
Students learn by hearing a peer’s explanation
Students learn by giving an explanation to a peer
Forces more students to participate
% total
57.1
54.3
48.6
45.7
42.9
37.1
34.3
31.4
25.7
25.7
22.9
20.0
Henderson, Dancy & Turpen, in preparation
Users
Non-users
Perceived Constraints of PI
Requires time and energy to change
Content coverage concerns, personal belief
Difficulty in getting students engaged
Student deficiencies
In personal experience it did NOT work Structural, lack of resources
Structural, class size
Structural, lack of appropriate classroom
Trouble finding good questions
Difficulty getting student buy-in
Current practices are effective
Intuitively don’t think that PI will work
Content coverage concerns, external requirements
Content coverage concerns, institutional
expectations
% total
57.1
48.6
48.6
37.1
34.3
34.3
31.4
31.4
31.4
28.6
25.7
25.7
22.9
20.0
Henderson, Dancy & Turpen, in preparation
Nine Peer Instruction Features
20
Adapts: Instructor adapts to student responses to in-class tasks
Answers not graded: Students are not graded on in-class tasks
Commit to answer: Individual students have a dedicated time to think about in-class
tasks and commit to answers independently
Conceptual questions: Uses conceptual in-class tasks
Tasks draw on student ideas: In-class tasks draw on common student prior ideas or
common student difficulties
Multiple choice questions: In-class tasks have discrete answer options
Questions interspersed: In-class tasks are interspersed throughout class period
Students discuss: Students discuss their ideas about in-class tasks with their peers
Vote after discussion: Students commit to an answer after peer discussion
Henderson, Dancy & Turpen, in preparation
How do faculty use PI features?
★
★
★
★
★
Henderson, Dancy & Turpen, in preparation
How do faculty use PI?
Self-reported use
10
Users
Former Users
Non-Users
9
Ave 4
features
used
# of interviewees
8
Ave 1 feature
used
7
Ave 6 features
used
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
# of PI features used
7
8
9
The take-home message
  The perceived challenges of using Peer Instruction
(before trying it) may be different from actual
challenges (faced by users)
  When someone says they use “Peer Instruction,” it
may have little meaning. What features are they
using?
  Features that may be essential to student learning
are being dropped:
Committing to an answer before discussion
  Revoting after discussion
  Conceptual questions based on student difficulties
 
Is this a problem?!
Three threads: Clicker use in context
How are
instructors
using PI?
What do students
prefer?
What are researchers
finding works best?
Image: Dvotygirl on Wikimedia
Student survey data
  Using clickers at CU-Boulder in lower and upper-
division since 1995
  Surveyed 14 upper-division and 2 graduate classes
on attitudes towards clickers, 400 responses
  Study by Kathy Perkins and Chandra Turpen
"Student Perspectives on Using Clickers in Upper-division Physics Courses"
Katherine K. Perkins & Chandra Turpen, PERC Proceedings 2009, AIP Press (2009)
Students Find Clickers Useful
Q:
How
useful
for
your
learning
is
the
addiCon
of
clicker
quesCons
compared
to
pure
lecture
with
no
clicker
quesCons?
Lecture
with
clickers
much
more
useful
82% of
students
Lecture
with
clickers
more
useful
Same
77% recommend using in
upper-division courses
Pure
lecture
more
useful
Upper‐div
courses
using
clickers:
16
courses,
400
student
responses
Pure
lecture
much
more
useful
0%
10%
20% 30% 40% 50%
Perkins & Turpen, 2009
% of students
Students’ recommendation for implementation
N=11 courses, 224 responses
Why are clickers seen as useful (or not)
Ways
to
improve
mastery
Common
categories
of
why
clickers
help
or
not
#
of
responses*
(out
of
Code
70)
PosiCves
64
Improved
mastery
35
Focus
of
AcIvity
31
AcIve
processing/acIvity
44
Discussion
with
others
20
Feedback
to
students
20
Time/pause
to
think,
OR
Immediacy
18
Engagement
16
NegaCves
Waste
of
Time/Unnecessary
Inappropriate
Timing/Premature
Reduced
Mastery
Babying/Too
much
hand
holding
*Responses
can
be
coded
into
mulIple
categories.
9
7
3
1
1
%
91%
50%
44%
63%
29%
29%
26%
23%
13%
10%
4%
1%
1%
Perkins & Turpen, 2009
Preferences for vote and/or revote
91% prefer peer
discussion as
part of clicker
use
Doesn't matter
Directly to peer discussion
Individual thinking, then
peer discussion, then vote
Individual voting, then peer
discussion, then revote
No discussion, just vote
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
% of students
Perkins & Turpen, 2009
Preferred question types
Very useful
Prefer 2-5
questions (83%),
challenging &
interspersed with
lecture (87%)
Useful
Somewhat
useful
Challenging conceptual questions
Recalling a fact
Recalling a fact just stated
Plugging numbers into equation
Mostly
useless
Completely
useless
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
% of students
Perkins & Turpen, 2009
Take-home messages
  Students like clickers & feel they help their learning
  Their descriptions of why they help them learn are
consistent with the research literature
  Many of student preferences for clicker use align
with the recommendations of Peer Instruction
method and with recommendations of developers.
So what?!
Perkins & Turpen, 2009
Three threads: Clicker use in context
How are
instructors
using PI?
What do students
prefer?
What are researchers
finding works best?
Image: Dvotygirl on Wikimedia
Talking brings convergence
33
  Eric Mazur -
Harvard U.
Before
discussion
Why
do
you
think
this
happens?
AZer
discussion
A
B
A
C
(A)
Students
are
ge]ng
answers
from
the
‘smart’
kids
(B)
They’re
learning
from
their
discussions
(C)
They
just
needed
more
Ime
to
think
about
it
B
C
Mazur, 1997
The
hypothesis:
If
students
learn
from
peer
discussion,
they
should
show
beaer
performance
on
a
similar
quesIon.
Ask
a
second,
similar
quesIon
without
any
instructor
input:
Q2
Undergrad
introductory
geneIcs
course.
16
Q1/Q2
pairs.
Research
by
Michelle
Smith,
Bill
Wood,
Wendy
Adams,
Carl
Wieman,
Jenny
Knight,
Nancy
Guild,
Tin
Tin
Su,
MCDB.
Smith et al., Science. 2009, 323(5910):122.
Are they learning from peers?
100
1) Students answer
Q1 individually.
80
Percent
60
Students talk to
2)
neighbors and
answer Q1 again
(Q1AD = Q1“After
Discussion”).
3)
40
20
0
Q1
Individual
Q1AD
After
Discussion
Q2
Individual
Students answer Q2
individually . Q2 tests
same concept as Q1.
Then explain answers to Q1 and Q2
n= 350 students
Smith et al., Science. 2009, 323(5910):122.
Can
students
answer
difficult
quesCons
correctly
aYer
discussion?
100
Q1
90
Q1aYer
discussion
Percent
correct
80
Q2
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Easy
(5
quesCons)
Medium
(7
quesCons)
Smith
et
al.,
Science.
2009,
323(5910):122.
Difficult
(4
quesCons)
Very
few
students
knew
correct
answer
to
Q1,
but
aYer
discussion,
many
more
answer
correctly:
students
are
construcCng
their
own
knowledge
Discussion helps students learn: students who correct their
initial answer to Q1 are much more likely to answer Q2
correctly
All Students Individual Q1
After
Discussio
n
Q1AD
52%
correct
92%
correct
Individual Q2 90%
correct
48%
incorrect
8%
incorrect
42%
10%
incorrect correct
42%
correct
77%
58%
incorrect correct
58%
incorrect
23%
44%
incorrect correct
56%
incorrect
Professors
like
to
talk…
does
this
research
mean
we
shouldn’t?
(peer
discussion
is
enough?)
or,
why
does
it
maaer
if
they
got
the
answer
from
talking
to
their
peers,
couldn’t
the
professor
give
the
students
the
answer
to
Q1
and
have
the
same
effect?
Compare
peer
discussion
to
instructor
explanaCon,
and
to
a
combinaCon
of
both
Combination
Instructor
explanation
Peer discussion
Skip instructor
explanation
Vote
individually
Peer Discussion
Skip peer
discussion
Intro genetics course
Majors & nonmajorsQ
Tested learning with Q2-Q1 diff.
<c>=100(mean Q2-mean Q1)/(100-mean Q1)
Instructor
explanation
only
Instructor only
Smith, Krauter, Wood and Knight (2011), CBE Life Sci Educ 10, 55-63
How
does
peer
discussion
compare
to
instructor
explanaCon
only?
The
combinaCon
mode
results
in
the
highest
increase
in
learning
<c>=100(mean Q2-mean Q1)/(100-mean Q1)
<c> change between Q1 and Q2 calculated for each student for
questions in that category, then averaged for all students
Smith, Krauter, Wood and Knight (2011), CBE Life Sci Educ 10, 55-63
How
might
strong,
medium,
and
weak
students
respond
to
these
techniques?
What
would
you
predict?
Which
students
will
have
the
highest
gain
on
Q2?
a.  Weak
(<33%
correct)
b.  Medium
(33‐66%
correct)
c.  Strong
(>66%
correct)
Student classification
Majors:
combinaCon
is
becer
for
all
students
Non‐majors:
combinaCon
is
becer
for
moderate
and
strong,
not
weak
Really fascinating:
Instructor explanation is particular un-helpful for strong students
Smith, Krauter, Wood and Knight (2011), CBE Life Sci Educ 10, 55-63
Take-home messages
•  Asking
quesCons
in
class
is
a
pedagogical
tool
that
will
produce
student
learning,
especially
if
students
are
given
a
chance
to
discuss
their
ideas
•  When
students
are
challenged
(with
difficult
quesCons),
they
learn
from
the
process
of
solving
such
quesCons
•  The
instructor
explanaCon
+
peer
discussion
is
the
most
effecCve
approach
to
understanding
the
ideas.
Three threads: Clicker useSo
in context
what?!
How are
instructors
using PI?
What do students
prefer?
What are researchers
finding works best?
Image: Dvotygirl on Wikimedia
THANK YOU!
  More about our research at http://per.colorado.edu
  Resources on clickers at http://STEM.colorado.edu
  Podcast & resources on PERusersguide.org/podcasts
  My blog: http://blog.sciencegeekgirl.com
Kudos to the people who actually did
this research: Henderson, Dancy,
Turpen, Perkins, Knight, Smith,
Wood, Guild, Wieman & Su.