Scott Titsworth

Describe the Project

COMS 101, Fundamentals of Human Communication, is a 400-student mass lecture class.  The student response system, commonly called “clickers,” were integrated into the class in the Spring of 2006 in an effort to make the lectures more interactive and to promote higher order thinking on the part of students.  The clickers are used each day in the class.  Although the questions are generally formatted with multiple-choice responses, the questions and answer options are often scenario-based where there may be “good,” and “better” answers.  Once students respond to the questions, a graph is automatically diaplayed showing a summary of the responses.  After cycling through one or more questions on a particular topic, students’ responses can be used for focusing or adapting the lecture. 

In addition to automatically processing and displaying students’ responses, the software used with the clickers also provides an electronic record of responses that can be used for attendance, points awarded for each question, or for extra credit depending on the policy of the instructor.  In COMS 101 students’ responses were used to award extra credit.

Learning Goals/Objectives

We introduced clickers for three primary reasons.  First, COMS 101 is suppose to focus on Human Communication, but ironically, gave the students very little voice.  Although certainly not an ideal solution, the clickers at least allows for some degree of interactivity since the lecture can be adapted to students answers to questions.  Second, the clickers were introduced to provide a greater degree of accountability.  For students the clickers made them accountable for both attendance and reading.  For me, the clickers made me responsible for thinking about thoughtful questions to use with the clickers and to then use those questions (and students’ responses) to adapt to the class.  Last, the introduction of the clickers provided a much more efficient way of grading and recording students’ daily work. The sheer process of processing nearly 400 grades is overwhelming.  The clicker software automated this process and dramatically reduced the out-of-class time necessary for grade entry.

Although the clickers met the formal goals set forth at the beginning of the project, it is worth noting that they far exceeded expectations.  Through the process of introducing the clickers we were able to think differently about how a “lecture” should be presented.  Transition from a proposition/statement driven lecture to a question driven lecture was, in and of itself, exciting.  Add to this the “wow” factor of having the interactive clickers and you can quickly see the potential for this technology. 

Audience

Undergraduate students in COMS 101 who mostly are Freshmen and Sophomores and are taking the class because of a Tier II or major program requirement.

Roles

As the instructor, my role was to re-shape lesson plans to be question driven.  I planned the clicker questions and then used the software (a plugin for PowerPoint) to create the clicker slides.  The time intensive part was coming up with good questions; the software makes creating the slides very easy.  Mike Roy and Andy Kranyikt from Academic Technology coordinated the distribution of clickers and assistance with configuring the software to record students’ answers.

Results

Assessment data showed that students’ exam scores and self-reported engagement in the class significantly increased when the clickers were introduced.  Moreover, students’ ratings of the clickers were very high, generally averaging approximately 4.5 on a 5 point scale.  From my perspective the clickers have improved the educational experience for students while at the same time dramatically reducing the workload for those of us teaching the class.

Problems/Advice

There were virtually no technical problems with the clickers or the software.  The most important aspect is planning thought provoking questions that can guide discussion.  Using good questions allows you to capitalize on the interactivity made possible with the clickers and also prevents them from “getting old.”