Clicker Survey Results for Spring 2009

As the semester has drawn to a close, I again asked students to repond to an Online Survey on their experience with “Clickers.”

Question #1: How has the professor’s use of the clicker ENHANCED your understanding of the course material?

• The professor and the clicker are both great! It is very useful. It made me read Dressler’s Understanding Criminal Law which otherwise I would not have done.
• I have found the questions have helped me to apply the theory of case law.
• I have found particularly helpful the questions my classmates have posed to Prof.
• The poll feature after the question is submitted is very helpful in figuring out the ideas and understanding of our classmates.
• It helped apply the principles to fact situations.
• I think it makes for pretty good discussion
• It has given the class, in my opinion, a good opportunity to put what we have learned to use & provided the professor the chance to offer feedback where we may have some confusion.

Question #2:  Can you suggest any improvements in the use of this technology during class?

• Having more time for discussion of the results would be good.
• The quizzes are very helpful. I would suggest that we have more time to spend in discussing answers and methods to use to properly address issues contained in the quizzes.
• It would have been fun to take more class polls with the clicker system or to use it throughout class for questions just so we could see if we were all on the same page. The system could prove to be pretty useful and valuable if it was utilized more.
• Maybe there can be questions posed throughout the lecture that are designed to test how well the students as a whole are grasping the material.
• Since it has been brought to the professor’s attention he has been requiring that all students hand in written answers (the alternative for using the clicker if a student forgets theirs or just wants to write in an answer) before discussion of the answers begins.  However  until this change was made  students would wait until the answer came up on the screen to hand in theirs  taking advantage of the system and leaving those students who took the time to prepare answers of their own  without that same benefit. 
• Make the “little blue man” more random and/or remove the ability to call on the same student twice in one class. I saw it twice that the same student had to go in the same class. In fact one person got “picked” twice in a row.

In-Class Polling Tool From CALI

With CALI Instapoll, professors ask a question in class and CALI Instapoll (www.cali.org/instapoll) lets them create a poll online.

Here are the directions:

1. Click on the ‘Create a Poll’ button
2. If you do not want students to be able to change their answers, uncheck the box next to “Students may change their answer.”
3. Announce the Poll number to the students.  (The Poll# appears both in the upper right hand corner of the screen and below the virtual clicker.)
4. Verbally provide the question and answer choices to the students and ask the students to answer on their virtual clickers.
5. Results will appear on the professor’s screen in the form of a bar graph.
6. To clear the results in order to ask another question, click ‘Reset.’

Using “Clickers” to Stimulate Conversation

The other day, the crimlaw prof who uses CPS as an assessment tool came to me asking how to use it to poll students.

I told him that basically, it’s the same, – just do not upload the session to the gradebook or to CPSOnline and do not indicate the correct answer.

Here’s the response to whether students believe the current law on euthanasia should remain unchanged?

Then he asked the “Yes” voters to indicate how strongly they felt about their opinion (1 being  the highest):

Next he asked the “No” voters to indicate how strongly they felt about their opinion (1 being  the highest):

The professor continued to poll the students to see whether gender or age made a difference in whether the law on euthanasia should be changed.

This was an interesting way to use “clickers” in the classroom and it definitely kept the students engaged.

My Clicker Video

No Oscar for this attempt but it was fun:
Clickers in Albany Law School

More on Clickers

NPR’s All Tech Considered ran a story on clickers yesterday “In Search of Answers, Teachers Turn to Clickers:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101343866

New Book on “Clickers”

Jossey-Bass has just published a book  for teachers on how to make the best use of  “clickers:”   “Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments” by Derek Bruff, the assistant director of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching. You can read an interview with the author from Inside Higher Ed right here and you can watch a video demonstration of clickers here.

Criminal Law class 2-26-09

This is timely as we try to publicize our use of clickers at Albany Law School and encourage professors here to use them in their classes.

You may notice in the photo above the professor’s excitement that the students were tricked into thinking C was the correct answer.  The correct answer (in green) was B and last year when this question was  used, it was a student that proved to this professor that the answer was indeed B not C as the professor thought. Again this year, there was quite a lively exchange, thus CREATING,as the book’s title says, AN ACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT!”

The March Newsletter of Engaging Technologies will feature a blurb about my Clicker article  published in The Law Teacher (p13) and put a link to it in their blog as well as links to a blog post about my CALI conference presentation on clickers – http://blog.engaging-technologies.com/2009/02/cps-clickers-in-law-school-classroom.html

I also have video footage from several Criminal Law classes that I plan to edit and then create a Clicker promotional video . I want also invite faculty members to see for themselves the Clickers in action in this Criminal Law class.

Getting Ready for CALI Conference Presentation

Professor Moriarty and I are presenting with UTexas School of Law on “Using Clickers in the Law School” at the CALI Conference on June 19, 2008.

 

In preparation, I sent out an online survey to his students asking them how does the use of CPS enhance their learning of the course material (Criminal Law), 

Here are some of their responses:

• Preparing my answers for the clicker quizzes gave me practice for the final; it let me know what kinds of questions the professor will ask and the answers he is looking for. Also, the quizzes will be good study material for the final.
• It was interesting to see how others understood the material, also facilitated quizzes that do have learning enhancement value, which would be difficult to administer without the clicker.
• It forces you to keep up with review of the concepts we’ve covered and also gives us exposure to kinds of questions that may be asked on the exam. 
• I love having the immediate feedback on how I’m doing and whether I am thoroughly understanding the materials (based on the clicker quizzes)
• It makes you master the material more.
• It allowed for an instant response as to the answers for the daily quizzes.
• It was a good chance to see if we got the main concept of the topic just covered.
• The clicker quizzes were very useful to ensure that you had a clear grasp on the covered material. It was also helpful in allowing the teacher to quiz us on hypotheticals.
• The introduction of technological elements in a classroom setting has generally not been a positive aspect of my educational experiences.  Too often, instructors either were not fully apprised of the full functionality of the technology or were not properly trained in its use.
• I am pleased to say that the use of clickers in this class was a great experience and truly enhanced and broadened my understanding of the material.  Having the opportunity not only to think about various issues and problems presented by the material, but also to receive instantaneous feedback was a welcome addition to the law school experience thus far.
• It’s an inducement to be prepared, so I think it is a helpful tool in that way.
• The clicker quizzes helped me to understand when I correctly comprehended material.
• I found the clicker quizzes to be a HUGE help in learning and applying the course material.
• It made me read the information more carefully and take more care in my studies.
• The quiz solidified what we learned in class and through our readings. It really forced us apply what we just learned to questions and situations that might occur on the exam. Having the quiz be interactive like that made it interesting, and the instant feedback made if fun.

I also asked them how its use could be improved:

• Perhaps more interactive classes, rather than just one quiz periodically.
• Choose the setting so that the same people don’t get called on by the “blue man” every time (make it so it runs through everyone once, first). 
• Would be fun to have more opinion questions (i.e. not quizzes) so the professor could gage opinion on certain topics.
• It might be a good option for class participation during the Rape section because voting would be anonymous.
• Give people more time to answer before ending each question. A few times my clicker would still be sending when the professor clicked “end” and I never got my response in.
• Increasing the use of the clickers throughout a class hour would seem helpful.  For instance, the professor could pose a question to the class in a “spur of the moment” fashion to gauge the collective thoughts and opinions of the students.  I think using the clickers in this manner would add a new dimension to the Socratic dialogue that will allow students to anonymously voice their opinion in certain areas of the law while gaining knowledge about how their peers are analyzing and interpreting the law.
• would suggest increasing the level of difficulty for some of the questions (even if they were not counted toward the final grade).  When nearly everyone gets nearly every question right, you don’t get much sense of whether you are falling behind.  That’s not really a comment on the technology, however.
• If the clickers were used to poll the class, instead of just taking quizzes which count towards grades.  It would be interesting to see what the opinions of other students on some of the materials are, especially the materials on more personal subjects.

The Future of Legal Education

In the wisdom of a Chinese proverb: “Tell me, I will forget. Show me, I will remember. Involve me, I will understand.”

I have heard this quote before, but I was reminded of it, reading about Washington and Lee Law School’s new curriculum.  They are entirely re-inventing the third year to make it a year of “professional development through simulated and actual practice experiences.”

Other law schools are working on changes to their first year curriculum.  (3/21/08 Conference details)

How does technology in legal education fit into the Chinese proverb (“… Involve me, I will understand.” )?

• Students self-assess their skills (for interviewing techniques, negotatiating, trial practice, etc.)
  • MediaNotes software and CALI space will facilitate that
  • Podcasting and/or Digital webcam video will also make it easier
• Students participate in discussions and give their view on critical topics
  • Discussion forums in TWEN
  • Class blogs and/or wikis
• Students actively participate in class
  • CPS (clickers) make this possible
  • Faculty/Student web response pages are available
  • Customized polling in TWEN
  • Install poll through CALI
• Students practice difficult concepts using simulations and/or interactives
  • CALI lessons are great
  • other software similations
• Students use the technology they will use when they practice law
  • be familiar with case management software
  • be able to use PowerPoint during a trial
  • be able to display evidence using a Document Camera during a trial

“Nobody is in the room. The professor is just another open browser window, 1 of 10.”- CNET News.com

Read the complete article here.   Reaction from EdVentures in Technology Blog- click here.

Many professors may hear the above statement and want to ban laptops.  This would be treating the symptoms not the cause.  Professors today need to engage students while they are in the classroom.  There are many tools and technology is only one of them.

 

Look at the photo above.  The students are ALL paying attention to the professor even with their laptops in front of them and Internet access.  Why?  They are engaged. – perhaps by using a student response system such as CPS, customized TWEN poll, Cali InstaPoll, or others means to make students feel that they must pay attention and their particpation in class is valued and enhances their learning. 

Spring Semester Tech Happenings

• CPS is alive in Criminal Law again – a larger class, a bigger room but otherwise the same as last year.
                                            
• We are videoconferencing with George Washington Unversity School of Law the Government Ethics class each week to 4 students who are taking the class but are externing in DC.

   

• We have sent in our application to be a part of iTunes U.

• We will be demoing Adobe Connect this semester with the Legal Profession class in hopes of using it for distance learning in the fall.