Ohio University

• 7 Things You Should Know About Clickers
  http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7002.pdf
  This PDF pamphlet from EduCause briefly covers topics such as "Who uses clickers?", "What makes it unique?", and "Where is it going?"
  
  
• Twelve tips for using a computerised interactive audience response system
  http://cidd.mansfield.ohio-state.edu/workshops/documentation/twelvetips.pdf
  This paper describes the use of a student response system to transform large group teaching sessions into active learning experiences.
  
  
• Learning Outcomes Related to the Use of Personal Response Systems in Large Science Courses
  http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/review/west-polling-technology
  This brief article confirms studies that demonstrate that student participation is key to positive learning outcomes.
  
  
• Transforming Student Learning with Classroom Communication Systems
  http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERB0403.pdf
  In this PDF document Ian Beatty from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Scientific Reasoning Research Institute and Physics Education Research Group (UMPERG) shares lessons learned through a decade of using clickers in the classroom. He discusses the benefits that clickers offer to higher education.
  
  
• Waking the Dead: Using interactive technology to engage passive listeners in the classroom
  http://www.mhhe.com/cps/docs/CPSWP_WakindDead082003.pdf
  This paper focuses on students perceptions of student response systems. The analysis reveals that student participation approaches 100% in class sessions where PRS are used due, in part, to anonymity, ease of use, and the ability to see how many others answered in the same way.
  
  
• Audience Response Systems in Higher Education: Applications and Cases
  Author: David A. Banks, ISBN: 1591409470
  Available at Alden Library
  This book discusses the importance of creating Audience Response Systems (ARS) to facilitate greater interaction with participants engaged in a variety of group activities, particularly education.

University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
http://www4.uwm.edu/ltc/srs/faculty/articles_research.cfm

Ohio State University
http://telr.osu.edu/clickers/teaching/index.htm

Iowa State University
http://www.celt.iastate.edu/TurningPoint/GettingStarted.html
http://www.celt.iastate.edu/TurningPoint/LearningMaterials.html
http://www.celt.iastate.edu/TurningPoint/
http://www.it.iastate.edu/classroom/clickers/

Purdue University
http://www.itap.purdue.edu/tlt/einstruction/

A Student Response System (SRS) consists of the following components:

1. A computer with TurningPoint software installed on it
2. A valid TurningPoint software license
3. A receiver dongel
4. Transmitters (clickers) for your students

Let us know if you would you like someone to show up for the first 30 minutes of your first few classes to make sure everything is working correctly and to help you get accustomed to using the SRS.

Start with just ONE course

1. Do not try to add a SRS to multiple courses at once. Try to convert one course fully.
2. Develop a set of good teaching questions for each unit of the course.
3. Integrate the student response questions into the very structure of the course, rather than as add-ons. That means you will need to align your in-class activities with your assessments. You may need to re-write your tests and exams.
4. If you give students SRS question-problems in class, but then turn around on the test and give them basic recall-questions of bold-face vocabulary words from the textbook, students will not care about what you do in class. Student learning is driven by the assessments you give them, and students value what is most likely to impact their grades. That's how they are going to spend their time.
5. Revising a course requires thoughtful preparation and is very time-consuming. The preparation time to revise a course is similar to the time it takes to develop a new course.
6. Search the internet to find questions that colleagues at other colleges have developed. Modify these for your own purpose. It takes some practice to write questions that work well.
7. Collaborate with colleagues. It is a good idea to have someone to bounce ideas off, to share the workload, or just to say, 'I tried this yesterday and it flopped...can you help me think of a better way of asking this?' You may choose to partner with someone teaching the same course during the same quarter and work together as a team.

Stay committed for the quarter

1. During the first several weeks of class, students may not feel comfortable using clickers. They may feel anxious about raising their hands and commenting.
2. Sometimes it's going to be a struggle. Students may ask, "Why do we do these questions in class? Why don't you just tell us what we need to know?" It takes time, but students must buy into the process. They have to see that it's going to work. That this is the way the course works, you come in here and this is what we do in class. Everyday.
3. Demonstrate to students that clicker-questions offer good preparation for work they will see in quizzes and tests, that in-class activities will help them get exam questions right, and that it is going to pay off in terms of how they are graded in the course. Then it becomes clearer WHY we're doing it this way.
4. Commit to a full term. The notion that "I will just try it once or twice to see if it's going to work for me" is bound to fail. It's hard to discover what you as an instructor can do with a class like this if you just try it once and then return to traditional lecturing. Both teachers and students will get used to it, although it may take until nearly the end of the term before you feel good about how it's working.