This week, I’ve been looking into SRS systems quite a bit – after a talk last week and the postings earlier in the week, I thought that it was only appropriate to finish the week with some closing thoughts on the system.
I think these “clickers” are great tools for getting students engaged with content, but the cost of this engagement is often financial and temporal. It costs time and money to get these systems into a class and use them there, to say nothing of preparing lectures to make effective use of these systems. It will also take time (if you are so inclined) to chase after the students in the class that are not doing as well a class if the system is logging responses by ID. A third cost might also be privacy as non US schools using these systems may have their data sent to US servers (depending on the system, some are completely stand alone) which may not sit well with some shools.
Some of the newer systems allow for two way communication, entery via “virtual pads” or even cell phones. If you are getting into this market now, I would reccommend going with one that is “stand alone” with only a one time fee, or better yet, one that is stand alone, but allows for entry with more than just the provided pads.
If you are thinking about trying these, or are using them now and are looking for some potential pointers, here is what I’ve gleaned from my sources over the last week:
- Don’t expect to get through a complete syllabus or keep up with a class that is not using the system – Clickerized classes move at a different pace and that pace is determined by the students (and must be if the system is to be of any use)
- Don’t expect to be able to make one set of notes and keep them forever – Because the students gain some control of the class, what they understand and need to review will change every term. Notes should be modular and dynamic to cover that, this also requires some “teaching on the spot”
- There are three major types of question – review, exploration and peer interaction – know when to use them and what to include in them, if you think about these with a contructivist (learners build on what they know, teachers should try to find out what that is before they dump onto the learner) mindset, you should be fine.
- Review questions should focus more on concepts and should try to avoid details at all costs. Like any learner, attention is drawn to details, but understanding is also lost there (why some people, myself included have issues with higher math – as we see the symbols as details and not concepts)
- Peer review questions are ones that give a mix of concept and detail and require students to confer with each other before submitting their answer. These can take time and create tangents in the class, use them only when you have the time, or be sure to build time for them.
- Exploration questions are those with enough detail (or other novelty) to draw students into the question and make them curious as to what the answer is
- If your topic doesn’t allow for single stage questions, break the problem down into stages and offer problem solving routes to explore how the students are thinking through the problem
- Questions that “trap” students are fine if you are trying to see where common mistakes are made
- There is a learning curve on the technology for some, but there is a greater learning curve when thinking about how to rework your lectures to include questions, lesson planning helps her
So how is all this a route to online learning (synchronous and asynchronous)? Well I think if an instructor can pull off a class with clickers, they can certainly move to the online realm where the workload is similar because the courses tend to have more interaction with the teachers (we hope, but we’ve all heard of or experienced really bad online instruction). These instructors will also have some experience with thinking on the spot and moderating discussions that often arise from questions.
Finally, here is a list of some of the many vendors out there:
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