Clickers in the Chem classroom

Professional Day Comments

Here are some comments on Professional Day, which was held on September 2nd, entitled “Spotlight on Innovation,” and featured BCC Faculty and Staff presenting the results of research projects:

What were the strengths of the program?
1. Learning about the changes that impact all of us. (i.e. student e-mail). The dual-session/same topic
2. Networking with peers
3. Enjoyed new technologies
4. Using in-house speakers.
5. Clickers
6. The presentations on Clickers and Reverse Design.
7. I liked gathering everyone in K111. The presentation on the LMS possibilities was interesting.
8. Tom Carey was very entertaining, and I am always impressed by Lois’ enthusiasm and creativity in the classroom.
9. I appreciated the “in-house” presentations, and the lack of gimmicky group work. The presentations were practical and relevant.
10. Trio information was good

Clickers Pilot Project

Clickers are here! One set of classroom clickers is being used in Chem 150 by Prof. Tom Carey under a Title III Student Success Research Grant this semester. So far, students are receptive and Tom is appreciating the insight into student understanding

Peer Instruction Study

From Inside Higher Ed, a new study published in Science shows that students can learn new conceptual strategies from each other. Click the link to read the article:

peerinstruction1

Clickers demonstration, 12/04/08

Representative Marilyn Hertling came to BCC last Thursday to demonstrate the Turning Technologies Student Response System (clickers) product. Four faculty were present, including Tom Carey, who will include a clickers pilot in his Chem course this Spring under a Title III student success research grant.

Marilyn demonstrated the many powerful features of Clickers, including polling, quizzing, attendance, review, team games, and other features. The CTL will acquire a demo set of the Clickers for Tom’s class for the Spring. Based on the results of that pilot, a further discussion of Clickers use at BCC will ensue.

“From Questions to Concepts” Brown Bag

This video (shown in the CTL on April 23) from the Derek Bok School of Education at Harvard, presented a case study of a physics class using Active Learning. One method used that seemed quite effective was to have the students read the text chapters before class. Students were required to respond through an online program to two content questions (thus ensuring they did read the chapter), and then answer the question: what was the hardest point in the material, or what didn’t you understand? The professor reviewed the student responses before class, and then figured out the most commonly misunderstood points. He then based the class around those difficult points. In class, he used “clickers” to have students choose one of four answers he presented to a given physics problem. He states the best question is one where the class is divided between two of the four responses; in other words, when 50% think A and 50% think B is the right response. He then has the students pair up and convince his/her partner of their answer. Then has has the students revote on their answers. At that point, in most cases, the majority of students will choose the right answer. If they don’t, then he know he has to explain more or in a different way.

This is really a compelling method that is presented in this class. Plan to show this again in the Fall!