Increasing student participation-student response systems
Student response systems (SRS) in the past were either the student raising her hand and/or verbally responding to a question. These are great ways for students to get involved in a class, but there are two big limitations. First, the instructor can only receive information from a limited number of students at once. If it is a multiple choice or true false question one can get a basic idea of the percent of students with the correct answer, but not a quantitative answer, unless one wants to spend a lot of time counting which obviously takes away from class time. If this is a short answer type of response or a question, the instructor can only hear from one student at a time unless the entire class is polled; this also takes away lots of time from class. The second downfall is that many students do not want to have their answers displayed for the entire class. This could be from fear of being wrong (or right too often!) shyness or just from general apathy.
I've been toying with the idea of electronic response systems commonly known as "clickers", but they are expensive (hearsay says about $30/student) especially when combined with the costs for a text and the online material I use. So, I did some searching and found http://www.socrative.com/. It's a website that provides instructor and student platforms linked by a room number. Instructors can make up oral or written questions (T/F, multiple choice or short answer) spur of the moment for students to answer and receive instantaneous results. Additionally, one can make up quizzes ahead of time that will be linked to the student's full name and graded automatically. Socrative also has a fun feature called the "exit ticket" where students answer whether they understood the material (multiple choice) and any specific topics they need more help on (short answer). One of my coworkers uses a similar feature on note cards in her A&P class. It's a great idea and this might be an easier way to go about it.
If I implement this there will definitely be challenges. (1) What percent of students have access to smartphones/iPods/laptops/tablets? (2) As another professor pointed out-will surfing the web become rampant and distracting? (3) How will I assess success? Questions 1 & 2 can't really be answered until the first day of class (1) and as the semester progresses (2). However, question three needs to be addressed beforehand. I'm teaching three lectures this semester, two I have taught before and one of those two that has two sections (general biology 1 (Bio101)). If I implement the SRS in Bio 101 then I can compare grades to past sections. This will be my first Bio 102 lecture at this college, so there would be less to compare, but I think it will engage the students more and I plan on using clicker case studies which would benefit from the SRS.
More to come on this. If anyone has comments on this specific SRS or any other one I would love to hear about it!
Links
Socrative
I've been toying with the idea of electronic response systems commonly known as "clickers", but they are expensive (hearsay says about $30/student) especially when combined with the costs for a text and the online material I use. So, I did some searching and found http://www.socrative.com/. It's a website that provides instructor and student platforms linked by a room number. Instructors can make up oral or written questions (T/F, multiple choice or short answer) spur of the moment for students to answer and receive instantaneous results. Additionally, one can make up quizzes ahead of time that will be linked to the student's full name and graded automatically. Socrative also has a fun feature called the "exit ticket" where students answer whether they understood the material (multiple choice) and any specific topics they need more help on (short answer). One of my coworkers uses a similar feature on note cards in her A&P class. It's a great idea and this might be an easier way to go about it.
If I implement this there will definitely be challenges. (1) What percent of students have access to smartphones/iPods/laptops/tablets? (2) As another professor pointed out-will surfing the web become rampant and distracting? (3) How will I assess success? Questions 1 & 2 can't really be answered until the first day of class (1) and as the semester progresses (2). However, question three needs to be addressed beforehand. I'm teaching three lectures this semester, two I have taught before and one of those two that has two sections (general biology 1 (Bio101)). If I implement the SRS in Bio 101 then I can compare grades to past sections. This will be my first Bio 102 lecture at this college, so there would be less to compare, but I think it will engage the students more and I plan on using clicker case studies which would benefit from the SRS.
More to come on this. If anyone has comments on this specific SRS or any other one I would love to hear about it!
Links
Socrative
Comments
Thanks for the offer! I think I am going to go with the iPod and other smartphone/web accessing technology. It seems to me the most sustainable model in terms of longevity and no new tech to buy! Thanks for the encouragement as well and info regarding most students having smartphones.