Clickers: opportunities and
challenges
Trish Murray, Anthony Rossiter
& G. Panoutsos
Introduction
At the beginning of this academic year, all first year
Engineering students were given their own “clicker”.
These are handsets for electronic voting that support
students responding immediately to questions posed by
staff in the classroom.
Questions can be used most simply to quiz/check specific
understanding but they can also be used in more
innovative ways as well.
In this session we will explore:
• Key stages in the “clicker” project.
• How staff are teaching with clickers.
• Whether clickers change teaching.
• What students think about clickers.
Questions
This session is intended to be interactive, to
give participants the opportunity to both
contribute and ask questions.
Please feel free to ‘interrupt’ at any point.
It is not important if we do not complete all
the slides. Hard copies are available for
those who would find this useful.
Which faculty are you in?
1. Engineering
2. Arts & Humanities
3. Medicine, Dentistry &
Health
4. Science
5. Social Science
6. International Faculty
City College
Thessaloniki
7. Not at UoS
35%
30%
20%
10%
5%
0%
1
2
0%
3
4
5
6
7
Are you?
1. Student
2. Staff
100%
0%
1
2
Have you experience of using clickers?
60%
1. Student: no
2. Student: yes
3. Staff: yes
4. Staff: no
40%
0%
1
0%
2
3
4
The experience of the
Faculty of Engineering
The “Top-down” perspective
Motivation
• Better teaching > better learning
• Opportunity to give feedback > enhance
NSS scores
• Raised student expectation in light of 9k/yr
– Attendance monitoring
(1) Convincing people with money
• Demos of good practise use (of clickers) to
strategic groups: (FLTC & FEB)
• Reporting of positive experiences by staff
• Need for students to have individual
clickers in order to make usage easy
• FLTC recommended purchase
• Implementation plan in place and staffed
(2) Convincing staff to adopt
• Benefit to student learning
• Easy to use: creating slides
– Works with PPT, easy to create slides
– Software can be installed on any machine
• Easy to use: implementation
– Software on the Common Desktop
• Departmental demos of good practice
• Tailored training, “Help” documentation,
circulation of software
(3) Implementation
•
•
•
•
•
Purchasing/procurement/delays
Took advice from Medicine
CICS: the managed desktop, faculty need
Departmental admin help
Individualising the clickers
– Registration details (for L1 students)
• Getting them to departments > students
• Training staff
Issues: Staff
• Cannot get to all students for beginning of
term because of individualising with
registration details.
• Not really about creating interactive slides
but changing the way you teach i.e. time
• Initial training focussed on use with PPT;
MAC users left out.
• Use is currently patchy
Issues: Students
• No choice in being given a clicker
• Asked to pay £30 to replace if lost
• Expectations!
– When lost, is time intensive to replace (given
individualising). How often will clickers be
replaced (termly)?
• Expectations!
– Raised in being given a clicker and then not
met if staff not using them
Your opinion…
Would you like to see more widespread use
of clickers in teaching?
100%
1. Yes
2. No
0%
1
2
Rank obstacles to uptake in your own
department/area (biggest obstacle first).
1. Student reluctance
2. Teaching Staff
reluctance
3. Management
reluctance
4. Cost
5. Operational
support
26%
24%
23%
16%
11%
1
2
3
4
5
The Staff Perspective…
Staff perspectives: Logistics
• Getting clickers to students took about 30min
(once given to us by faculty).
• A large number of students seem to be bringing
them to lectures – perhaps encouraged by
regular staff usage.
• Having to carry the receiver is somewhat
irritating as I keep leaving it in the lecture theatre
and then having to go back for it.
• You need to get software put on your computer
to prepare questions.
Lecture preparation
It takes an extra 15-30 minute to prepare a lecture as the
question slides need to be carefully thought through, and
written. Of course this could be traded off with alternative
forms of giving students feedback and the ability to reuse in future years.
Sometimes pre-prepared slides for future lectures need to
be modified, so I tend to do this on the day or the day
before.
I don’t include question slides in handouts (to avoid
students seeing in advance), so students need to copy
by hand if they want a record. However, this does mean
having duplicate sets of powerpoint slides.
Efficacy
• As seen by student feedback next, for the most part the
questions have been effective in getting student
interaction and engagement during lectures.
• They have also provided good feedback to the lecturer
on issues where students are confused, or indeed most
students are competent.
• There is a limit to the potential uses, for example
questions with simple yes or no answers.
• I have not tried more advanced usages, partially due to
time pressures and hence stuck with the tried and
trusted slide of choose 1 from n options.
• Quite good for an end of term formative exam to test
understanding of class as a whole.
EXAMPLES OF USAGE IN
LECTURES
What is the Laplace transform for
Demonstrates a common
misunderstanding.
2e
4 t
 4e
2 t
40%
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
38%
2/(s-4) + 4/(s-2)
4/(s+2) + 2/(s+4)
4/(s-4) + 2/(s-2)
4/(s+4) + 2/(s+2)
Don’t know
9%
9%
4%
1
2
3
22
4
5
What is the Laplace transform for
e
4 t
sin 5t
Demonstrates something
most students cannot do.
71%
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
(s-4)/[(s-4)2+52)]
(s+4)/[(s+4)2+52)]
1/(s+4) + 5/[s2+52]
(s+5)/[(s+5)2+42)]
Don’t know
16%
8%
3%
1
3%
2
3
23
4
5
What is the Laplace transform for
2t
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1/s2
2/s2
2/s3
1/s3
4/s3
2
45%
45%
Demonstrates a
simple error.
10%
0%
1
0%
2
3
24
4
5
f(t) has a Laplace transform
f (t )  2e
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
G1
G2
G3
G4
G5
G6
Most of class
can do this.
4t
4
2
G1 
; G2 
;
s2
s4
2
4
G3 
; G4 
;
s4
s2
G5  2( s  4); G 6  2( s  4);
68%
11%
8%
5%
8%
0%
1
2
3
4
5
6
Advanced use:
Feedback/Curriculum Design
• Students to provide feedback via clickers
• Frequency: after each thematic section is over
(3-4 lectures)
• Lecturer responds to feedback directly by:
– Providing extra material/guidance/feedback (MOLE)
– Adjusting future lectures/content to suit students’
learning needs
• i.e. repeat examples, highlight topics/key areas etc.
• Achievements:
– Quickly/efficiently assess performance/understanding
– ‘Tailor’ course delivery to a particular cohort
Advanced use:
Feedback/Curriculum Design
• Implementation:
– ACS125 (Y1 Engineering, 70 students)
– Workload
• 5mins before each feedback session
– To create feedback slide
• 5mins during the lecture
– To allow usage of clickers – discuss with students
• 15mins after each feedback session
– To analyse results and post response on MOLE
» If needed: amend/add key points in future lectures
Advanced use:
Feedback/Curriculum Design
Advanced use:
Feedback/Curriculum Design
• Questions don’t have to be just about the
understanding of technical content
• The students’ opinion can also be sought
on:
– Do they need more feedback on their
performance?
– Do they need more time to study current
content? Revision tutorial?
– What type of engineering systems do they
want to investigate as part of this module?
Advanced use:
Feedback/Curriculum Design
Advanced use:
Feedback/Curriculum Design
I would like the last case study of the module to be on:
Student perspectives
After about 8 weeks of term, the cohort in
ACS124 were questionned about their
experience of using clickers.
The questions were done in a lecture, using
clickers, and thus took only 5 min and
required no post-processing.
SUMMARY:
•Clickers are effective. I like using them and
recommend continued use in later years, but
•University should provide them.
Using clickers in lectures is a good idea
and helps my learning
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
53%
26%
16%
1
2
3
3%
2%
4
5
I find it useful to see how other students in
the class have answered
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
40%
42%
11%
6%
0%
1
2
3
4
5
It forces me to engage with a question
before seeing the answer.
(e.g. Without clickers I might just wait for the lecturer to
show the answer and not try properly.)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
41%
27%
19%
10%
3%
1
2
3
4
5
Gives me immediate FEEDBACK on my
progress
46%
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
33%
15%
1
2
3
3%
2%
4
5
It is useful to help me see when I am
making a common error, or have
misunderstood a key point.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
50%
22%
15%
7%
1
2
3
4
5%
5
Does the requirement to return these at the
end of the year (or pay to replace) mean
you treat the clickers with more respect?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
27%
28%
23%
14%
8%
1
2
3
4
5
I would recommend all students
purchase their own clicker if the
faculty did not provide them.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
54%
26%
18%
0%
1
3%
2
3
4
5
I believe clickers are worth the £30
each (and other costs for receivers
etc.) the faculty has paid. Please keep
doing this.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
26%
24%
19%
17%
14%
1
2
3
4
5
I would like to see the use of clickers
carried on into my second year?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
48%
27%
16%
6%
2%
1
2
3
4
5
The University is obliged by the government to do
attendance monitoring of students. In a lecture, this is
currently done by a signing in sheet. The clickers
could perform the same function much more quickly
and with less disruption. Would you like to see the
clickers used for attendance monitoring?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
31%
22%
21%
18%
8%
1
2
3
4
5