Proposal Title

Promoting Active Learning in a Large-Enrollment Introductory Science Class: Interactive Lecture Demonstrations With Clickers

Session Type

Presentation

Room

PAB 106

Start Date

9-7-2013 11:45 AM

Keywords

physics, interactive lecture demonstrations, active learning

Primary Threads

Teaching and Learning Science

Abstract

In today’s climate of fiscal constrains many university science courses are left without a laboratory component. Lecture demonstrations remain virtually the only vehicle to bring experimentation into large introductory science courses. Unfortunately, just showing the demonstrations during the lectures has very little effect on students’ learning. In order to make a real difference, the lecture demonstrations need to be embedded into students’ activities. Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs)1 method is proven to be very effective in combating students misconceptions. ILDs employ “elicit/confront/resolve” cycle: the students make written predictions before they see a demonstration, and reconcile their ideas with the results of the demonstration once it is completed. However, a valid complain about ILDs is that the predictions need to be recorded and marked for credits. Fortunately, Peer Instruction (PI) pedagogy can be used to support ILDs procedure, where the pre-demo clicker questions are built to collect the predictions about the experiment, and post-demo questions are built to follow up on the results. Although it appears that “clicker ILDs” are not as effective as the ILDs with written predictions, using clicker questions related to the demonstration is an acceptable alternative to the standard ILD procedure, in particular, for large-enrollment classes. This is a work in progress, as sets of matching questions for popular class demos are being developed. Several examples will be provided.

1.D.R. Sokoloff, R.K.Thornton (2006). Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, Active Learning in Introductory Physics, Wiley.

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Jul 9th, 11:45 AM

Promoting Active Learning in a Large-Enrollment Introductory Science Class: Interactive Lecture Demonstrations With Clickers

PAB 106

In today’s climate of fiscal constrains many university science courses are left without a laboratory component. Lecture demonstrations remain virtually the only vehicle to bring experimentation into large introductory science courses. Unfortunately, just showing the demonstrations during the lectures has very little effect on students’ learning. In order to make a real difference, the lecture demonstrations need to be embedded into students’ activities. Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs)1 method is proven to be very effective in combating students misconceptions. ILDs employ “elicit/confront/resolve” cycle: the students make written predictions before they see a demonstration, and reconcile their ideas with the results of the demonstration once it is completed. However, a valid complain about ILDs is that the predictions need to be recorded and marked for credits. Fortunately, Peer Instruction (PI) pedagogy can be used to support ILDs procedure, where the pre-demo clicker questions are built to collect the predictions about the experiment, and post-demo questions are built to follow up on the results. Although it appears that “clicker ILDs” are not as effective as the ILDs with written predictions, using clicker questions related to the demonstration is an acceptable alternative to the standard ILD procedure, in particular, for large-enrollment classes. This is a work in progress, as sets of matching questions for popular class demos are being developed. Several examples will be provided.

1.D.R. Sokoloff, R.K.Thornton (2006). Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, Active Learning in Introductory Physics, Wiley.