Transcript Keynote Talk: Innuagural Conference on Clickers

Clickers: A New Teaching Tool of
Exceptional Promise
Dr. Douglas Duncan
University of Colorado, Boulder
[email protected]
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
How many of you:
A. Have never used clickers
B. Have used clickers once
C. Have used clickers more than once
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
I primarily:
A. Teach college-level science, math, or
engineering
B. Teach college-level humanities or social
sciences
C. Teach another college-level subject
D. Am a Dean or Administrator
E. Am from the K-12 world
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Why Use Clickers?
1.
Rapid, accurate feedback to both you and your
students.
2.
Students learn less in lectures than we usually
assume. Clickers can assist you in changing classes
to make students more active and accountable for
their own learning.
3.
Some subjects are “touchy” and students hesitate to
give opinions orally or by raising hands. Clicker
responses are anonymous to students neighbors and
produce more honest responses.
4.
An amazing increase in student enthusiasm (if you
use clickers well).
5.
Other reasons (only if time…)
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Many potential uses….
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Measure what students know before you start to
teach them
Measure student attitudes
Find out if they’ve done assigned reading
Get students to confront common misconceptions
Test student understanding
Increase student’s learning and retention of
what you teach
Facilitate discussion
Transform the way you do any demonstrations
Increase class attendance
Improve student attitudes (!)
Begin with the ends in mind. (John Dewey, ~1920)
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
It’s NOT about the clicker.
It’s about what you have your
students do.
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
We’ve been teaching the same way for a long time…
2000 years ago
Today
How effective are we?
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
How well do students learn in lecture?
A cautionary tale….
• about a violin….
From Carl
Weiman’s*
“Physics of Everyday
Life” class.
*Nobel prize winner
AND good teacher
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
(b) Only 10% of students gave the correct
answer.
Fifteen minutes later in the same lecture!
That was an anecdote…
Now for data
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Over the last 20 years, the following methodology has been
developed to study teaching and learning…
• Hundreds of interviews with students
• Determine right and common wrong answers
(misconceptions) to important questions
• Construct a multiple-choice test where the wrong
answers are commonly believed misconceptions
• Give the test to thousands of students
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
In a traditional lecture class, students learn about 25%
of the concepts (that they don’t already know).
Force Concept Inventory
traditional lecture
<g> = post-pre
100-pre
R. Hake, ”…A six-thousand-student survey…” AJP 66, 64-74 (‘98).
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Traditional Model of Education
Individual
Instruction via
transmission
Content
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
• PowerPoint doesn’t fix this
• Fancy videos, applets shown in class,
demonstrations don’t fix this
• Lecturing as well as Carl Sagan or Jay
Leno doesn’t fix this
The problem is not the lecturer. The
problem is…
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Teaching by telling
is surprisingly ineffective
- if you want students to
master concepts.
Students minds must be active to learn.
What can you do?!
“Peer discussion” of conceptual questions
forces students to talk and reason during class.
Like this:
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Consider a tiny acorn,
and a giant oak tree.
A log from that
tree weighs 10,000x
as much as the acorn.
Where does MOST of
the mass come from?
A. Sunlight
B. Water
C. Dirt
D. Minerals in the soil
E. The air
Then peer discuss
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Photosynthesis
6 CO2 + 12 H2O → C6H12O6 + 6 O2 + 6 H2O
Carbon dioxide
water
glucose (sugar) oxygen
water
The correct answer is “The Air.”
Carbon dioxide from the air!
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Notice the excitement!
You discover something new to you,
…and benefit from peer discussion.
This is a very important use of clickers.
Sort of like at a professional meeting – during coffee or
cocktails. Students never see us in that setting!
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
What difference
does
interactive
engagement
Physics
learning at the
University
of Colorado
leads themake?
US!
Traditional lecture (popular professor)
Colored
cards
Clickers
Clickers + tutorials
red = traditional, blue = interactive engagement
<g> = post-pre
100-pre
Mazur – 10 years
F01 F99
F05
S05
F03
F04
F07 S04
© Copyright Steven Pollock 2007
The graph shows the fraction of everything taught students learn thoroughly during the semester.
Dr.for
Douglas
Duncan,
Univ. ofthe US.
Red and blue histogram bars are
52 classes
throughout
Colorado
Peer instruction reveals your students’ assumptions and
arguments, which often are not what you expect.
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
Fish is Fish…
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
An entirely different reason to use clickers…
to get honest answers to touchy questions
Questions that involve race, sex,
or politics are good for clickers.
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Clicker use means more work for students
than just taking notes.
It means they have to talk to the person next to them.
Who they may think is an idiot.
Without explanation students protest.
Real student quote: “I expected you to teach me, I didn’t
expect to have to learn!”
Teachers must explain why they are using
clickers, or students will not be happy!
-- and they should discuss what it means to learn
BVSD
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Keys to clicker success [the next 3 slides
are on a printed handout ]
1.You must must must explain why you are
using them!
2. Practice before using with students.
3. Have your own goals clearly in mind.
4. Discuss grading. Award credit for clicker
use. If student participation is a goal, give
partial credit for wrong answers. (e.g. 1
pt, 2 pt) Clickers = 10% of class grade is a
good number.
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Keys to clicker success (continued)
5. Start with a few clicker questions per
class and increase when comfortable
6.Questions must relate to the heart of your
course. Vary the complexity (“Bloom level”)
7.Clicker questions must relate to exam
questions.
8.Questions should encourage discussion.
30% - 70% correct before peer discussion is ideal.
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Keys to clicker failure
1. Fail to explain why you are using them.
2. Use them for attendance.
3. Don’t have students talk with each other.
4. Use only factual recall questions.
5. Don’t make use of the student response information.
6. Fail to discuss what learning means or the depth of
learning you expect.
7. Think of clickers as a testing device, rather than a
device to inform learning.
If you don’t really believe the data I’ve presented about
the need for student-centered learning….
Don’t Use Clickers.
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
As clicker users become more
experienced, they incorporate better
practices:
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
More experienced clicker users
engage more with students
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
L eaves S tage
A ns . S t. Q s
D is c . w/ S t.
2 New users (yellow) vs. 2 Experienced Instructors
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
More experienced users spend more
time discussing incorrect responses
Percent of questions where incorrect options were
discussed
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Trad
PER
PER
Professor
Dr. Douglas Duncan,
Univ. of
Colorado
Trad
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
How do students feel about clicker
use?
It depends on how you use them,
and how well you explain your
intent.
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
Students in classes that promote
discussion rate clickers as
more useful
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
These are quotes recorded by Angel
Hoekstra, who is writing a sociology Ph. D.
thesis on student clicker use.
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Astronomy student comments…
“I like clicker questions because it helps me understand key concepts and
it makes me read the chapters in the book. I think clickers are critical to
learning more information about the topic being taught.” (astronomy)
“It’s not that I like [clickers], as a matter of fact, I hate them; but I think
that they’re really useful.” Student did not specify why. (astronomy)
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Journalism student comments
“In this class, no, they do not help us learn class
material. It feels like she uses them just for
attendance purposes and then doesn’t really fully
go over them. It’s mostly just a waste of time… My
physics professor used them very well… let us
discuss them with our classmates, and then went
over the right answer, thoroughly explained [the
clicker question], and then told us why the other
options were wrong, that really helped.”
(journalism student)
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
From Journalism students…
 “A lot of people hate [clickers] because they say it is
the only reason that they go [to class,] but that is
bullshit. They just want to skip [class] without
losing ‘points.’ I like the interaction [clickers incite],
it helps me know what I need to study more. Most
kids that don’t like them, I feel, don’t have too
many ‘solid’ reasons [for] why.”
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Comparison of classes in which clicker use varied –
typical student comments
Journalism I Professor was relatively new to clickers when I observed last semester,
uses them primarily to take attendance
 Discussion was not used or encouraged: students answered all clicker
questions on their own
 On average, 1-3 clicker questions were used per class, often none.
 Professor invites a number of guest speakers who currently work “in
the field” to come and speak to the class: clickers were not used on
these days.
 Students were least favorable to the use of clickers in this class
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Stars and Planets (Astronomy) Lecture focuses on concepts from assigned reading, Professor


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emphasizes students take responsibility for their own learning, as
developing scientific thinkers.
Clicker questions punctuate every lecture
Professor uses various types of clicker questions to facilitate student
discussion and critical thinking about course concepts
Peer discussion is encouraged and common: more likely to occur when
the clicker question is challenging or prompts a student to evaluate
prior ideas (conceptual change model)
Students were highly favorable to the use of clickers in this class
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Explain why you are using clickers every week for
the first few weeks.
Continually explain that it's in student’s own best
interest to come up with an answer first before
talking to their neighbors.
Change classroom seating a few weeks into the
semester because by then students have
learned who the 'smart ones' are and often turn
to them.
No brain – No gain!
Even advanced students fool themselves….
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Are we sure that peer instruction produces genuine
learning? M. K. Smith et al. (U of Colorado, 2008)
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
Other useful references & student
comments
We find that most students problem solving strategies and abilities can
be improved by working in short term collaborative groups without
any other intervention. – Cooper et. al, Clemson Chemistry Dept.
Facility in solving quantitative problems is not an adequate criterion for
functional understanding. Questions that require qualitative reasoning
and verbal explanation are essential.
A coherent conceptual framework is not typically an outcome of
traditional instruction. Students need to participate in the process of
constructing qualitative models that can help them understand
relationships and differences among concepts.
Growth in reasoning ability does not usually result from traditional
instruction. Scientific reasoning skills must be expressly cultivated.
American Journal of Physics, Vol. 61, #4, copyright 1993, Lillian C.
McDermott, University of Washington
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
You can help your students become
more metacognitive.
Why not use some clicker questions
to do so?
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
If you ask me or your Teaching
Assistant a question, should we:
A. Tell you the answer 45
B. Give you hints so that you can figure out the
answer 54
Asked using clickers; % response in red (non major class of 150 students)
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
Which do you think results in more
long-lasting learning?
A. When my TA tells me the answer 21
B. When she give me hints so that I can figure
out the answer myself 78
Tell my laptop story…
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
Do you expect one day to have a job
that requires you to figure things out
on your own?
A. Yes 93
B. No 7
Tell my laptop story…
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
This kind of teaching means that you
will be more engaged!
It makes teaching more interesting,
especially if you have taught for
many years.
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of
Colorado
We’ve discussed some potential uses; there are
more….
–
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Measure what students know before you start to
teach them
Measure student attitudes
Find out if they’ve done assigned reading
Get students to confront common misconceptions
Test student understanding
Increase student’s learning and retention of
what you teach
Facilitate discussion
Transform the way you do any demonstrations
Increase class attendance
Improve student attitudes (!)
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado
• Addison Wesley New edition is coming
[email protected]
Dr. Douglas Duncan, Univ. of Colorado