Last week I braved the cold and wet weather and travelled to Bath University for a one-day conference on Engaging students through the use of in Class technologies.
The keynote speech was delivered virtually (wasn’t sure how well this approach would work but it was great) by Derek Bruff, Assistant Director at the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching
Bruff shared his ideas and thoughts for using Classroom Response Systems aka, Audience Response systems aka Clickers all terms used to refer to a variety of systems that students can use to respond in the classroom. He then went on to talk about other backroom channels that can be used to engage students.
There has been a lot of discussion and scepticism about how effective Audience Response Systems (ARS) can be in the classroom especially since alot of lecturers don’t believe multiple choice questions can effectively be used to allow for deep learning. Derek’s discussion addresses this issue focussing on the kind of questions that can be asked to ensure that deep learning is occurring.
Critical thinking questions: design questions with several reasonable answers and some obviously bad ones. Because several answers are close to being correct then once responses have been made and students have viewed the graph representing what answers most students chose then it creates an environment for students to argue out/discuss why they think one answer is better than the other. One way of phrasing the questions would be ‘Choose the most significant……’The choices presented would all be significant but students would need to argue why they think one of the options is most significant. Derek in his presentation goes on to argue that students come to school either as Absolutists - everything is black and white while others are relativists - they think everything is a matter of opinion. He argues that designing critical thinking questions allows for students to move to a more evaluative mode or form of thinking.
Student perspective questions: These questions allow the teacher and students to learn about each other. They are probably the kind of questions that most students would not want to put their hands up and answer. Allowing students to use the ARS to respond and see what their peers think; they may find that other students have the same views and they therefore feel more comfortable arguing or discussing their thoughts e.g. What if….? What would you do….? What do you think….? kind of questions.
Time for telling questions: These questions allow the teacher to create a condition for students to want to listen, learn, and understand an explanation. One way of doing this is asking questions that challenge common misconceptions.
Backchannel talk in the classroom
Backchannel talk refers to discussions that go on the classroom using technologies such as twitter and Google moderator, which allow students to engage in discussions and ask questions. They provide similar functionality to the ARS but with the ARS the Lecturer is asking the questions. Using Backchannel allows students to ask the questions.
Google moderator was introduced to us in an activity embedded within Derek’s presentation. It required us to ask Derek questions. We got together in groups; discussed what questions we had; then posted these on Google moderator. We were then able to see what questions had been posted by other groups and vote on them. Derek was then able to answer the top most voted for questions. http://tinyurl.com/estictkeynote
Another example of use of Backchannel (twitter in this case) can be found on this you tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8
Student Motivation
To close the key note Derek spoke of three different factors that play a big role in motivating students.
Autonomy: students want to feel like they have control over their learning: ARS and backroom channel allow students to express themselves and ask questions that matter to them. They give students a voice
Competency: students want to feel like they are learning something. Ask easy questions they do not feel like they have learned if they are too hard, they may give up. Lectures need to ask questions that are in the Zone of Proximal Development (a balance between hard and easy.)
Connecting and sharing: students want to feel like they are part of a community and want to learn from each other and share ideas.
Derek’s full presentation can be found via the following links Part 1, Part 2.
A summary of all presentations made by a host of other speakers can be found via the following link https://wiki.bath.ac.uk/display/estaffdev/ESTICT+at+Bath A key one that stood out was that done by Dr Andrew Dent ‘Engineering adventures through Audience Response Systems’ I would recommend viewing this presentation. He uses PowerPoint and ARS kits to provide a non-liner presentation based on feedback from students. An approach that will definitely keep students engaged. http://coursecast.bath.ac.uk/Panopto/Pages/Viewer/Default.aspx?id=20b06c3a-c314-434d-9531-ef954061fa22
A summary of some of the afternoon sessions and the other different technologies that were showcased and are available via the document here https://wiki.bath.ac.uk/download/attachments/51089603/Technology+Fair+Brochure.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1290504521000
Final thoughts
It was definitely worthwhile meeting with peers from other institutions who are keen to help lecturers develop and explore different ways of using Classroom technologies. I am keen to explore the approaches presented by Derek Bruff and especially the use of backroom channels to take things outside of the classroom so watch this space to see how this goes.
