Choice and Application of Keypads to Small Classes Paul Williams Department of Physics Austin Community College Austin, Texas pwill@austincc.edu

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

What do I mean by small? My class environment Class limit 24 students Two 1:15 class meetings per week Followed immediately by two 1:15 lab meetings per week Same students for both lecture and lab “Typical” Community College High School Liberal Arts college …

Why use clickers in small classes? Reasons not to use Clickers Cost Development Cheaper Alternatives Additional Course Management

No Cost Alternatives to Clickers Flash Cards Show of Hands Calling on individual students General questions given to class Pen and Paper

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

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)

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

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 FA05 .83 SP06 .67 SU06 1.0 FA06 .67

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

Additional Benefits of Clicker Use Data Collection Record Attendance Assign a Participation Grade Research Tool Tool to improve instructional practice

My Application of Clickers Present Concept Tests Peer Instruction Interactive Lecture Demonstrations Assign Participation Grade Future TIPERs

Sample ILD Task A massive cart, the truck, is pushed towards a light cart, the car, that initially isn’t moving. How does the force exerted by the truck on the car compare to the force exerted on the car by the truck.

Results from Spring, 2006 N3L Subset of FMCE GP1 Mean Correct 9.5 N3L Subset of FMCE GP1 Mean Correct 9.5 EP1 5.8 pre, 7.3 post

Considerations in Adopting Clickers to Small Classes Purchase Model Hardware Software Environment Planned Use

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)

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)

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

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

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 don’t support student directed testing