Choice and Application of Keypads to Small Classes

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Choice and Application of Keypads to Small Classes

• Paul Williams
• Department of Physics
• Austin Community College
• Austin, Texas
• pwill_at_austincc.edu

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Outline

• Why use clickers in small classes
• Applications of clickers in small classes
• Choice of clickers for small classes

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What do I mean by small?My class environment

• Class limit 24 students
• Two 115 class meetings per week
• Followed immediately by two 115 lab meetings per
  week
• Same students for both lecture and lab
• Typical
• Community College
• High School
• Liberal Arts college

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Why use clickers in small classes?

• Reasons not to use Clickers
• Cost
• Development
• Cheaper Alternatives
• Additional Course Management

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No Cost Alternatives to Clickers

• Flash Cards
• Show of Hands
• Calling on individual students
• General questions given to class
• Pen and Paper

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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

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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)

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Improved Participation

• Prior to Clickers typically 75 of students would
  respond to questions with show of hands or flash
  cards

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Student Success Rates

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

Prior to Clickers With Clickers
PHYS 1401 FA04 .57 SP05 .73 PHYS 1401 FA05 .83 SP06 .67 SU06 1.0 FA06 .67
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Improvement of FCI scores with addition of
clickers

• FCI gains of Colleague at ACC Teaching 1st
  Semester Calc-based course

Traditional Chalk talk .20
Addition of PowerPoint .25
Addition of Clickers .42
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Additional Benefits of Clicker Use

• Data Collection
• Record Attendance
• Assign a Participation Grade
• Research Tool
• Tool to improve instructional practice

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My Application of Clickers

• Present
• Concept Tests
• Peer Instruction
• Interactive Lecture Demonstrations
• Assign Participation Grade
• Future
• TIPERs

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Sample ILD Task
0

• A massive cart, the truck, is pushed towards a
  light cart, the car, that initially isnt moving.
  How does the force exerted by the truck on the
  car compare to the force exerted on the car by
  the truck.

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Results from Spring, 2006
0

• N3L Subset of FMCE
• GP1 Mean Correct 9.5
• EP1 5.8 pre, 7.3 post

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Considerations in Adopting Clickersto Small
Classes

• Purchase Model
• Hardware
• Software Environment
• Planned Use

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Purchase Model
School Owned Student Purchase
Cost 1 time cost to school 2500 per class set No cost to student 10-30 cost per semester student No cost to school
Clicker Identification Managed by Instructor Managed by Student (typically via web)
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Hardware Considerations
IR RF
Needs Line of Sight to Receiver Yes No
Communication Serial Parallel
Features Few On device feedback, question queuing
Cost Lower Higher (but getting cheaper)
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Software Considerations

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

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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

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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 dont support student directed testing