Category Archives: Teaching with Technology

Teaching with Clickers: The Pedagogy Behind the Technology

Yesterday Penn State faculty from the Behrend, Berks, and University Park campuses got together (via videoconference) to chat with Brian Young, Instructional Desinger at Educational Technology Services. Brian has lots of experience in working with Penn State faculty to implement iClickers in their courses. Here are some notes on the conversation.

Q: What are the pedagogical applications of clickers? What different ways can instructors use clickers beyond sporadic multiple choice questions?
A: Clickers are one way of helping us focus on what important things we want students to learn. Clickers actually change the way we teach; with clickers, we spend more class time asking questions and helping students identify what is important, rather than simply “downloading” information to students via lecture. Some examples of ways Penn State faculty are currently using clickers: 
-Clickers can be used to test core concepts.
-One interesting application we discussed is asking students to generate questions for periodic reading quizzes. There are many more: http://blogs.tlt.psu.edu/projects/clickers/2011/02/ 
-Reading quizzes can also be used to stimulate discussion.
-Students can answer a clicker question with more than one answer and discuss with one another why they chose the answer they did.

Q: What’s new about the new clicker system PSU is using?
A: Check it out: http://clc.its.psu.edu/Classrooms/resources/clickers
Also, see iclicker.com for “how-to” webinars

Q: What’s a reasonable time to wait for responses from students? What about students with disabilities?
A: Expect to spend more time waiting for students to send their votes in. So be prepared that you can’t put in as much content as you used to. Using the “count down” timer may work better than “count up,” but still harder questions take a bit more time. Time spent on peer discussion can really eat up a 50-minute class session. One instructor at the Behrend Campus uses discussion or peer interaction, and he has found that he is reducing the width of the coverage but going deeper in the content covered. Some other strategies include:
-Consider ways in which students can “pre-think” about the material outside of class. Then, when they come to class, they are simply voting.
-Keep in mind it takes students about 4 times longer to solve problems than it does the instructor.
-If you’re doing a quick question or poll, it’s best to tell students they have a certain (short) amount of time to respond. If they only have 30 seconds, let them know beforehand so they can plan accordingly.
-In some cases, online quizzes on ANGEL are better than clickers, especially when students need extra time to take a quiz.
 
Q: Are clickers only used for “mega-huge” courses?
A: There are cases at Penn State where clickers are used in seminar classes of 10 people. They are actually a great way of making sure all students get to participate in the discussion (not just the really talkative students!)

Q: I’m thinking about using clickers in my course(s). How do I get students to buy into using them (or heck, even just buy them)?
A: One instructor found in the first two weeks not all students registered their clicker online, and some didn’t buy the device. For the instructor, that means constantly reminding them, updating the roster, etc. A few freebie or low point value questions (such as “I have read the syllabus and understand the expectations of the course. A. True; B. False”) may help push students completing the process. There will be students who forget the clicker at home. One instructor’s approach is to give them two chances to turn in a paper with answers as substitute. But each paper response can only get maximum 70% of the grade the student would get via clicker. Nobody has exceeded the two chances yet in a class of 140 students.
 
Q: Can I use clickers to just take attendance?
A: You can, but students really resent this. One suggestion is to have graded clicker activities that are worth only a few points. That way missed clicker opportunities are not interpreted as punishment for not attending class.

Q: So students don’t like it when instructors use clickers to take attendance. What are students’ overall impressions of clickers?
A: In a Penn State survey with 1000 students responding, a majority said that clickers made them accountable for learning the material in their classes. Some thought it was good to held more accountable, and some did not!

Q: How do I start developing good clicker questions?
A: Identify places in the material where students get stuck. Looking over past exams can give clues as to what these “bottlenecks” are. So can looking over comments on student work, and conversations with colleagues. If you are a very experienced instructor, you probably have a really good sense of where students typically get stuck.

Evaluating Technology for Teaching and Learning

A few of us at the Institute continue to discuss ways we can help faculty evaluate new technologies that have the potential to impact teaching and learning.  Typically, the focus is completely on the student, and how he or she will benefit from a specific technology.  While I feel this is appropriate, we also need to consider the faculty side of the equation, and what it means for a faculty member to learn, evaluate, integrate and assess a technology’s use in a course setting.

A recent article in Onward State dealt with the use of Yammer, specifically focused on leveraging Yammer to support coursework.  As a faculty member, how do I evaluate the potential of Yammer for my course?  One method is to ask around.  The Schreyer Institute, ETS, and other units on campus typically have some experience experimenting with these services.  I could also look for examples or case studies online.  But the main thing I want to do is create an account myself and experiment with the service.

Here’s where things get tricky, especially when experimenting with social media.  Specifically, the tricky part is the ‘social’ aspect of these services.  In order to really see the value, you need to have a group of people commit to trying Yammer.  Until you reach a critical mass to test with, it’s very difficult to uncover all the potential benefits of a social service.  For instance, we’re experimenting with a social bookmarking service called Diigo.  Until we had 5-6 people contributing, it’s very difficult to judge what the service can really offer.

If you want to experiment with technologies for teaching and learning, you might want to try and start an informal community within your College or Department willing to experiment with you.  Pick a technology, and have the group commit 3-4 weeks to using it, then reconvene and discuss the possible application of the technology to coursework.  Feel free to contact the institute if you would like to discuss the idea further, or want to connect with like-minded individuals to test various technologies for teaching and learning.   

Technology adoption on campus

The Chronicle just released their “Academic Almanac” for 2011.  This is always an interesting read as it aggregates a LOT of different data from various data sources and attempts to package it in a short, categorized format.  Due to my background in instructional technology, I tend to gravitate towards the technology section first to look for any interesting trends.  Obviously, mobility and mobile devices are playing an increasingly large role at many universities.  Here at Penn State, we just rolled out a mobile-friendly version of our primary website.  But with the rapid adoption of technology, we sometimes forget about good pedagogy. 

The Chronicle’s Technology entry in this year’s Almanac addresses some of these shortcomings, discussing several failed implementations of iPads and other mobile technology platforms at large, R1 institutions.  The author points out:

“The trick, colleges are learning, is to find the sweet spot where the technology and the type of instruction meet.”

When it comes to the iPad, one major affordance of the device is the multi-touch interface.  This lends itself to specific things from a pedagogy perspective.  Examining 3D models, for instance.  Interactive simulations and games.  Possibly examining high-resolution artwork for an art history course.  Some of these things work, and work well, on a device that involves navigating and interacting with fingers.  On the other hand, using these devices for text-heavy practices, such as note-taking or grading papers, might not be appropriate.  I do know people that use the iPad for text-heavy activities, but typically they use a stylus or external keyboard. 

As we approach the new semester, and Penn State explores technologies such as a new clicker system and a lecture capture pilot program, we need to think critically about pedagogy and how it transfers to some of these devices and systems that give us new affordances in the classroom.  Feel free to contact the institute (site@psu.edu) if you want to talk more about the possible ideas for leveraging technology in your class, or various technologies available to all Penn State instructors.  We’re working closely with Education Technology Services to better understand all the technology ecosystems at the University, and we can help you align technology and pedagogy.

Students’ Thoughts on Faculty Use of Technology

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran a few videos, asking students to recall some of the best, and worst, instances of faculty incorporating technology into classes.  I was somewhat surprised at how basic some of the answers were.  A couple students specifically talked about video, where an instructor simply made himself available to Skype in the evening.  One student noted even if he didn’t require assistance on an assignment, it was comforting to know the instructor was only a few mouse clicks away.  Another example that was slightly more high-tech involved a TA sending out a variety of multimedia via iTunes in association with a Rock and Roll history course. 

In terms of the worst experiences, most students centered their discussion around the use of Power Point.  The two main themes were:

  • Instructors too dependent on Power Point
  • Instructors providing very DENSE slides, making it difficult for the students to take notes and keep up with the content being covered.

In addition to dense slides, students seemed very frustrated when these slides were not distributed electronically after lectures.  Students also urged faculty to always have a plan B, so if technology fails the content is still covered adequately. With so much discussion about Power Point, I want to point out that the Institute runs several sessions that focus on best practices for Power Point.  Various research-based models are discussed, such as the assertion-evidence model.  Check out our events page if you’re interested in the workshop.

Faculty Blogging @ PSU

I’m a big fan of Chris Long’s work in the College of Liberal Arts, both in his passion for undergraduate education and his willingness to try new approaches in his teaching.  A couple years back he started using blogs in his philosophy course.  After several different types of approaches (each student has a blog vs. a single course blog, etc), I think he’s really found the right approach that works for both him and his students. 

One thing I’m asked about a great deal when talking about technology integration, whether for resident or online courses, is the ability to create a sense of community within a course.  In the video below, Chris talks specifically about how the blog connects his students and instills a sense of community in ways he did not foresee when first experimenting with blogging.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep1DdwW4Lvg


Khan Academy and Flipping the Classroom

I’m part of a working group examining lecture capture from a pedagogical standpoint, primarily thinking about things like how lecture capture will impact face-to-face, blended and online learning at PSU, best practices, implementation and adoption issues and so on.  As our group passes around resources, someone posted a TED Talk by Salman Khan.

Khan is the creator of Khan Academy, something that started out as a tutoring service for his cousins and has now turned into a non-profit organization serving up 2,200 videos to over a million students each monthVisitors to the site view approximately 150,000 videos a day.

I highly recommend watching the 20-minute video, as it explains the design loop in great detail and how instructors across the world are now helping in the design of instructor dashboards, where you can track, in precise detail, what your students are doing with the video content, what they are watching the most (‘focus points’) and what they are struggling with in terms of the Khan-developed assessments.

A phrase that comes up a lot in our working group here at PSU is “Flipping the Classroom”, an idea I really like but am skeptical because it is little more than a nuanced way to explain active learning.  The definition, from Connected Principals:

Flip your instruction so that students watch and listen to your lectures… for homework, and then use your precious class-time for what previously, often, was done in homework: tackling difficult problems, working in groups, researching, collaborating, crafting and creating. Classrooms become laboratories or studios, and yet content delivery is preserved.


The idea here, from a pedagogical perspective, is right on the money.  But doing this is not a trivial effort for faculty.  Aside from all the detailed work that needs to go in to watching the videos and building the classroom activities, this is simply a massive, 180-degree shift for many faculty.  Change is hard, especially when it’s not incremental. One of the things we hope to do in the Schreyer Institute is work with a few faculty once PSU has a lecture capture system in place, and experiment with this concept of flipping the classroom on a smaller scale, for instance one week out of a semester. 

Is this something you would be interested in trying with one of your courses?

Using Diigo

I started using a service called Diigo along with PSU colleagues, mostly from Teaching and Learning with Technology.  Diigo is basically a social bookmarking system, similar to Delicious, but it also allows things like highlighted quotes, commentary, discussion and sticky notes. 

diigo.jpg

For a free tool, it seems very effective…if you can get a relatively active number of users (somewhere around 5 I think will do the trick).  That seems to be the difficult aspect of testing and evaluating these types of technologies for work; they all require active users to get any accurate evaluation of the technology.  Whenever I get invited to test out something new like Diigo, I typically give it two weeks of active participation, then evaluate the usefulness of the tool.  I admit that most tools don’t ‘stick’ after those two weeks, but Diigo lasted over a month and still going strong.

I started a Diigo group for the Institute where a few of us are sharing articles and resources that align with our mission.  If you want to join the group and check out some resources, or if you just want to check out Diigo, go ahead and join our group.   I’m very interested to see what someone new to Diigo thinks of the service.

Rhetoric and Civic Life (LA101H): A Teaching & Learning Exemplar

I recently heard about some of the outcomes of one of our Schreyer Institute Teaching Support Grants (TSG).  Veena Raman (Communication Arts & Sciences) and Debra Hawhee (English, Rhetoric) received a grant to conduct an assessment of the innovative interdisciplinary course that integrates elements of Effective Speech (CAS 100) and Rhetoric and Composition (ENGL 15/30) to “develop students skills in composing and delivering purposeful and effective messages, orally, verbally, and digitally” (cf. proposal).  The purpose of the TSG project was to assess the effectiveness of the course material and engagement strategies.

Based on feedback gathered from students, instructors, and the Faculty Senate, the College of the Liberal Arts is now pursuing two linked courses for first-year students, which they propose be required for aspiring Paterno.Fellows and Schreyer Honors Scholars.

The Faculty Advisory Committee of the Schreyer Honors College got just a taste of the course content and activities, but it is impressive.  A couple of things stood out for me, including that this project serves as a great example of:
1) cross-disciplinarity–the project deliberately crosses boundaries that do not support the desired student learning and skills development
2) good pedagogy–by regularly reviewing and tweaking instructional practices to benefit students and instructors. 
3) integration of technology–the course requires students to explore rhetorical writing and thinking using a variety of technological media including blogs, formal writing, videos, podcasts, and speeches.
4) humanities assessment–the project has explicit objectives and the assessments are solidly founded within the ethos of the humanities.  Good examples of assessment practices in the humanities are relatively rare, primarily because Student Learning Outcomes Assessment is new to these disciplines.  Models from disciplines with longer histories with SLOs (engineering, health professions) do not tend to translate well to the humanities.  This project will no doubt help other faculty move from the possible to the actual in humanities learning assessment. 

Kudos to Veena and Debra and to SITE for supporting their efforts.  And I cannot help but note the fluency with which both of these professors use the language of assessment–this is a remarkable accomplishment in just a few years time. We look forward to hearing more in future!