1. Choice and Application of Keypads to Small Classes
Paul Williams
Department of Physics
Austin Community College
Austin, Texas

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

3. 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 …

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

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

6. 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

7. Improved Attendance with Clicker Use
Prior to Clickers % of students normally attended class
Attendance data for algebra/trig first semester course (normalized to number of students taking final)

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

9. 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

10. 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

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

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

13. 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.

14. 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

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

16. 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)

17. Hardware ConsiderationsIR 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)

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

19. 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

20. 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