Tips for Success
Completion requirements
Tips for Success
1.Have clear, specific goals for your class, and plan how clicker use could contribute to your goals.
2.You must explain to students why you are using clickers. If you don’t, they often assume your goal is to track them.
3.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.
4.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.
5.Practice before using with students.
6.Make clicker use a regular, serious part of your classroom.
7.Use a combination of simple and more complex questions. 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.
8.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. “No brain, no gain.”
9.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.
10.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.
11.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.
12.Explain the procedure that will take place when a student’s clicker doesn’t work.
13.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.
14.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.
Adapted from original: http://casa.colorado.edu/~dduncan/clickers
1.Have clear, specific goals for your class, and plan how clicker use could contribute to your goals.
2.You must explain to students why you are using clickers. If you don’t, they often assume your goal is to track them.
3.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.
4.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.
5.Practice before using with students.
6.Make clicker use a regular, serious part of your classroom.
7.Use a combination of simple and more complex questions. 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.
8.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. “No brain, no gain.”
9.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.
10.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.
11.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.
12.Explain the procedure that will take place when a student’s clicker doesn’t work.
13.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.
14.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.
Adapted from original: http://casa.colorado.edu/~dduncan/clickers
Last modified: Monday, July 30, 2012, 7:51 PM