Choice and Application of Keypads to Small Classes

1. Choice and Application of Keypads to Small Classes Paul Williams Department of Physics Austin Community College Austin, Texas pwill@austincc.edu

2. Outline • Why use clickers in small classes • Applications of clickers in small classes • Choice of clickers for small classes

3. What do I mean by small?My class environment • Class limit 24 students • Two 1:15 class meetings per week • Followed immediately by two 1:15 lab meetings per week • Same students for both lecture and lab • “Typical” • Community College • High School • Liberal Arts college • …

4. Why use clickers in small classes? • Reasons not to use Clickers • Cost • Development • Cheaper Alternatives • Additional Course Management

5. No Cost Alternatives to Clickers • Flash Cards • Show of Hands • Calling on individual students • General questions given to class • Pen and Paper

6. Reasons to use clickers • Because of the anonymity, students feel safe to participate • Students receive immediate feedback and can compare themselves to the aggregate • Promotes higher quality of engagement • Higher student attendance • Higher student participation • Improved Student Performance? • Students find clickers fun

7. Improved Attendance with Clicker Use • Prior to Clickers 50-75 % of students normally attended class • Attendance data for algebra/trig first semester course (normalized to number of students taking final)

8. Improved Participation • Prior to Clickers typically 75% of students would respond to questions with show of hands or flash cards

9. Student Success Rates • Success Rate defined as # students receiving A, B, or C divided by number of students enrolled 1st day

10. Improvement of FCI scores with addition of clickers FCI gains of Colleague at ACC Teaching 1st Semester Calc-based course

11. Additional Benefits of Clicker Use • Data Collection • Record Attendance • Assign a Participation Grade • Research Tool • Tool to improve instructional practice

12. My Application of Clickers • Present • Concept Tests • Peer Instruction • Interactive Lecture Demonstrations • Assign Participation Grade • Future • TIPERs

13. 0 Sample ILD Task A massive cart, the truck, is pushed towards a light cart, the car, that initially isn’t moving. How does the force exerted by the truck on the car compare to the force exerted on the car by the truck.

14. 0 Results from Spring, 2006 • N3L Subset of FMCE • GP1 Mean Correct 9.5 • EP1 5.8 pre, 7.3 post

15. Considerations in Adopting Clickersto Small Classes • Purchase Model • Hardware • Software Environment • Planned Use

16. Purchase Model

17. Hardware Considerations

18. Software Considerations • Development/Delivery Environment • Stand alone vs. PowerPoint Add-in • Roster Management • Gradebook • Standalone • Data Export • Reports • Availability of Turnkey Curriculum

19. Planned Use • All systems will support basic MC questions • Are other question types supported? • Not all systems support self directed testing • Some systems support games • Adaptability – Future uses

20. My Solution • College owned class set • PowerPoint Add-in • IR (Wish I had RF) • In the future I want to switch to tablet PCs which is supported by system • IR devices don’t support student directed testing