More from my round-up of articles on clickers in the health professions.  A short, but interesting post today.  Your comments are invited…

Reference: Zurmehly, J., & Leadingham, C. (2008). Exploring student response systems in nursing education. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 26(5), 265-270.

Notes: This short article is another introduction to teaching with clickers, although I found it a little too prescriptive for my tastes.  There’s nothing here you won’t find in other articles with one very interesting exception:

To date, there has been no evidence of hacking or compromise to the SRS systems that were evaluated.  As a safeguard against tampering, a computer printout of responses can be generated and saved, to be used as a record for future references and to check for any attempted manipulation of grades.

Wow!  I’ve never heard this worry before.  Have you had to worry about students hacking into their clicker grades?

Image: “Me on Computer” by Flickr user Brian Lane Winfield Moore / Creative Commons licensed

I’ve often said that those teaching in the social sciences have the most options for using clickers.  Both content and opinion questions are typically on-topic in a social science course, giving these instructors the ability to use clickers in just about any way imaginable.  Case in point: The video below by Russell James, who teaches in the housing and consumer economics program at the University of Georgia.

James covers a lot of ground in this video.  He shares examples of several types of clicker questions he uses, including student perspective questions (sometimes used to connect student opinions with results from national opinion polls), experiment questions (in which students participate in experiments designed to illustrate certain economic behaviors), and prediction questions (in which students predict the outcomes of research experiments from the literature).  James moves very quickly in this video, so be ready to pause it in order to read his sample questions.

James mentions other uses of clickers, too, such as taking a minute at the end of each class to ask students the kinds of rating questions that typically appear on end-of-semester course evaluations.  He says this is the “number one” use of clickers that has transformed his teaching, since it generates regular data on his teaching effectiveness.  James mentions a use I would call a monitoring question–asking students to click in when they’ve finished a particular task.  He notes that this lets him know when it’s time to move on after an activity and that the count of students who have finished displayed on-screen sends a message to students who aren’t keeping up with their peers.

James also describes a game he calls “clicker wars.”  In this game, often used to review for exams, he divides his students into groups, perhaps based on gender or class year.  Each group is then divided into teams of two or three students each, and each team is given a single clicker.  James then poses questions to his students, and each team must come to consensus on its answer.  If a team misses a question, they’re out of the game as a team, but can still help other teams in their group.  The winning team gets some kind of prize at the end of the game, and the winning group gets a prize, too, although a lesser one.  James says this gives students a lot of incentive to stay engaged in the game throughout.

James also suggests a few ways to handle students who cheat with clickers by bringing their absent friends’ clickers to class, making it appear that those friends are present.  Most of James’ suggestions I’ve mentioned here on the blog before, but he had a novel one, too.  He suggests taking a digital photo of the class as a deterrent.  If a student’s clicker says that student was present but the student isn’t in the photo, that becomes an honor code violation.  James says that telling students you’re doing this will prevent some cheating.

Thanks to Russell James for sharing his creative ideas for teaching with clickers!

I received an email today from a colleague asking me if I knew of any “clever, low-hassle” methods for catching a student cheating with clickers.  In a large class (say, 100-300 students), one student might bring his friend’s clicker to class and respond to your clicker questions using both clickers, making it appear as if the absent student is present.  This is an issue if you use clickers to take attendance.  It’s a bigger issue if you use clickers for graded quizzes.

My colleague was asking the question in the context of a team-based learning (TBL) course in which students take quizzes first on their own, then in teams.  Their individual and team quiz grades are averaged (using some weighting) to contribute a good portion of their overall course grade.  In this context, clicker cheaters are a big problem.

Here’s what I wrote to my colleague.  I invite your thoughts and “clever, low-hassle” ideas on catching clicker cheaters in the comments below!

Some clicker systems have a “pick a random student” feature that selects one student at random from those that just voted on a question. If your system has this feature, then you can use it every now and then to “cold call” a student. (“Okay, the system has picked Jason Smith. Jason, what was your answer to this question and why did you select it?”) If the system picks a student who isn’t in the room, then you’ve caught a cheater. And the threat alone of being caught this way might do the trick.

This method assumes that Jason’s friend Nick doesn’t answer your cold call, pretending to be Jason. However, that’s a much more egregious instance of cheating than simply bringing Jason’s clicker to class and voting for him.

Of course, if your clicker system doesn’t have the “pick a random student” feature, then you’ll have to take another approach. I usually answer this question by saying that this is a classroom management issue, not a technological issue. When you’re not able to spot clicker cheaters yourself, you might enlist TAs to sit around the room and spot them. You can also make clear to students that this kind of cheating isn’t allowed. A warning might reduce this kind of cheating, but probably won’t eliminate it. Some schools have included statements about clicker cheating in their honor codes, which helps, since that usually means the punishment for getting caught is greater, which deters cheating.

I often recommend that instructors worried about cheating use low-stakes clicker questions so that even if some cheating happens, it won’t give students a significant advantage. Grading on effort, not accuracy of answers, is one way to do this, as is making the clicker quiz grades a relatively small component of students’ overall class grades.

In a TBL context, however, the individual student quizzes are relatively high stakes, right? One of the components of TBL is that students earn some of their points on individual quizzes and some on team quizzes. If the individual quizzes don’t count for much, the pedagogy doesn’t work the same.

Here’s an idea that might work. What if you asked the following clicker question: “What’s the last digit of your social security number?” Assuming you have a record of each student’s social security number, you could check the clicker responses to your records. If Nick brought Jason’s clicker to class and if Nick doesn’t know Jason’s social security number (a safe assumption), then there’s a 90% chance he’ll answer this question incorrectly. That will flag Jason as a cheater. It won’t flag Nick as a cheater, but perhaps you can get Jason to turn on his conspirator. That works on Law & Order all the time.

What do you think? Might this work? And if social security numbers wouldn’t work in your context, perhaps there’s some other student ID number you could use.

So, readers, what do you think of this idea?  Do you have other ideas for catching clicker cheaters?

Another question that came up at today’s TLT Group seminar on teaching with clickers was the question of how to prevent and/or deal with students who cheat using clickers.  By cheating, I mean that in classes where clicker questions are counted as part of students’ grades (perhaps as quiz grades based on the accuracy of student responses or simply participation grades based on effort), Student A can skip class by giving his clicker to Student B, who responds to clicker questions during class using her own clicker as well as Student A’s clicker.  This gives Student A credit for clicker questions even though he has skipped class.  What to do about this situation?

I mentioned that short of biometric scanning, there isn’t a good technological solution to this problem, that it’s more of a classroom management issue.  In small classes, instructors can usually spot a student “double clicking,” and in larger classes, TAs might be enlisted to do the same.  Also, instructors can make clicker questions fairly low stakes (maybe 5-10% of the course grade) so that (a) there’s less incentive to cheat and (b) if a few cheaters get away with it, they don’t gain too much benefit from it.

I spend a couple of pages in my book talking about this issue, since I’m asked this question just about every time I speak about clickers.  However, the group from the University of Nevada-Reno at the seminar today had what I think is a great solution, and it’s a technological one!  They use the “pick a student” feature that their classroom response system provides to randomly select students who respond to clicker questions during class.  (These students are presumably asked the share reasons for their responses with the entire class.  The Reno group didn’t specify.)  If a student is selected but isn’t in the room, he or she gets in “big trouble.”

This sounds like a useful approach to the cheating issue.  I’m glad the Reno group shared it today!  I’ve talked with a few instructors who regularly use the “pick a student at random” feature and find it extremely useful for increasing student participation in class without making students feel that their instructors are picking on them.  So that’s two good reasons to try out the “pick a student at random” feature if your system makes it available to you.

How have you approached the cheating issue?  How about the “pick a student” feature?  Do you find it useful?

On the final day of the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, I attended a session titled “Growing and Sustaining Student Response Systems at Large Campuses: Three Stories” presented by Christopher Higgins of the University of Maryland, Nancy O’Laughlin of the University of Delaware, and Michael Arenth of the University of Pittsburgh.  The presenters’ slides are available, and Inside Higher Ed ran a story on the session, too.

University of Maryland

There were three classroom response systems in use at the University of Maryland as of a few years ago, so the IT office got together with Undergraduate Studies and the Center for Teaching Excellence to form a review committee that recommended the adoption of the TurningPoint system.  Key factors included keeping student data on campus (because of FERPA), cost to students, integration with PowerPoint and Maryland’s course management system, and reporting options.

They now have over 12,000 clickers in the system with at least 75 faculty members using clickers, mostly with courses in business and the natural sciences.  (Some departments purchased their own sets, so IT isn’t sure how many faculty are using clickers in these departments.)  I haven’t spoken with many business faculty about how they use clickers, although the business and management section of my bibliography is one of the larger ones.  I might try to track down a couple of Maryland business faculty to find out how they are using clickers.

Challenges included registering student clickers, which required two different registration systems for a while.  Also, the software isn’t as robust on Macs, which poses a problem for some faculty.  They also went from 10 classrooms with receivers and software to 150 in a single semester which was challenging!  TurningPoint’s receivers also needed upgrading last academic year, which posed some logistical problems.

Currently, the IT office handles technical support for faculty using clickers, while the Center for Teaching Excellence handles training and promotion.  The two units seem to work well together, offering joint training sessions that have gone over well.  IT finds it necessary to have a staff member devoted almost entirely to clicker support at the start of a semester.

Christopher Higgins is particularly excited about TurningPoint’s new ResponseWare Web system, which enables any Web-enabled device (laptop, iPhone, etc.) to function as a clicker.  He likes the fact that the system leverages existing hardware that can also perform other functions, as well as the fact that the Web system is cheaper–$20 per student per year or $40 per student for four years.  Christopher found that many students took advantage of an Apple promotion this fall to purchase iPod Touches and iPhones along with their Mac laptops so a lot of students at Maryland have devices that can run the new TurningPoint system.

University of Delaware

The adoption committee at Delaware included not only faculty members and IT staff, but staff from the assessment offices and, I think, students, as well.  (I may have misheard that last point.)  They standardized on Interwrite PRS and spent the summer of 2006 training faculty and installing receivers and software in all classrooms with at least 75 seats.  (They now have receivers and software in all classrooms with at least 35 seats, which is most of the classrooms on campus.)  By the fall semester about 3,600 students and 40 faculty were using clickers.  More faculty started using clickers in the fall of 2007, but this year there are relatively few faculty new to clickers since most faculty have heard about them and decided whether or not to use them.

Clickers are popular in courses in the natural sciences, as well as psychology, political sciences, and nursing.  Many first-year undergraduate courses use clickers, which means that faculty teaching “downstream” courses are now more likely to use clickers, as well, since most of their students already own the devices.

Clickers are used in non-academic settings on campus, too.  Residential Life uses them to collect information on student experiences and opinions in the dorms.  The library and the office of assessment use them, as well.

Challenges to the support of classroom response systems on campus included a move to a new unique student identifier.  The Interwrite PRS system allows students to enter and store their unique identifiers on their clickers, but it took some work to have all the students request a new unique identifier on the Delaware Web site.  Other challenges included handling new versions of the software and a move from one course management system (WebCT) to another (Sakai).

One process Nancy mentioned that I particularly liked is that when faculty request clickers for their courses from the bookstore, there’s a checkbox on the form that asks them if they are new to using clickers.  Faculty who check this box are then sent resources by Nancy’s office and added to Nancy’s mailing list.  This helps faculty connect to useful pedagogical and technical resources and helps Nancy know who’s using clickers on campus.

Nancy also mentioned that she’s found it helpful to give faculty members their own receivers so they can practice as much as they need to outside of the classroom.  She finds that students know when their teachers aren’t comfortable with a technology, so time for practice is important.

Another point Nancy made was that the code of student conduct at Delaware has been amended to mention clickers.  Students are to respond for themselves, not on behalf of other students.  She indicated that faculty appreciate having this clause in the code since it means there’s a process they can follow if they suspect students of cheating by bringing other students’ clickers to class.

University of Pittsburgh

Things at Pittsburgh have been a little more chaotic.  A review committee consisting of IT staff, facilities staff, and registrar staff decided in 2003 not to adopt a single system on campus.  As a result there are now a few systems in use on campus now.  There’s now some move toward standardizing on eInstruction, but there doesn’t seem to be a central decision-making office that enforces that decision so faculty are still free to use other systems.

Clickers are popular in biological sciences, physics, nursing, and pharmacy.  Also, the School of Social Work uses them frequently in their gambling addiction counselor program.  I wouldn’t mind talking to some of those faculty to find out how they use clickers in that setting.

Michael Arenth named a few challenges they’ve faced at Pittsburgh, including managing faculty expectations (particularly for faculty who get excited by clickers but don’t plan on the time necessary to learn the systems), cheating (students who bring other students’ clickers to class to cheat on attendance grades), and set-up between classes since until recently, they haven’t been installing systems in classrooms.

I believe Michael said that Pittsburgh has still been using infrared clicker technologies until fairly recently switching to radio frequency.  (Most people I’ve talked to made the switch a couple of years ago.)  He noted that the IT group on campus had to approve the use of radio frequencies for this purpose.  I hadn’t heard of this kind of approval before, so I found this point interesting.

Common Issues

All three campuses have surveyed faculty and students about clickers, and they used some common questions to enable comparisons among the three campuses.  They found that faculty frequently use clickers to measure student comprehension, measure student opinion, obtain anonymous responses, monitor attendance, and facilitate quizzes.  The presenters spoke only briefly about these results, and it was unclear to me the extent to which faculty use comprehension or opinion questions to generate small-group or classwide discussion or to practice “agile teaching” by responding to the results of clicker questions during class.  I was, however, happy to see that clickers were used more for formative assessment (measuring comprehension and opinions) than summative assessment (quizzes and tests) since I think that’s where clickers really shine.

An audience member at the presentation asked about the student response to clickers.  The panel indicated that students like the interactivity that classroom response systems provide.  They confirmed what I’ve now heard from multiple sources, that students want to see some value added to their learning experience as a result of the clickers.  If a faculty member just asks a question and quickly moves on, there’s no interactivity and little impact on student learning.  Students don’t respond well to this.

Finally, I spoke with Danny Sohier of Université Laval in Québec after the session.  His school is using clickers to conduct end-of-semester course evaluations during class.  They found that online course evaluations resulted in low response rates, a problem I’ve heard about from many institutions.  They now use clickers to collect student responses to multiple-choice evaluation questions during class in some courses, inviting students to respond to open-ended questions online outside of class.  Danny indicated that this arrangement is working pretty well.  I might follow up with him to learn more about this process.

That’s it for my notes on this session.  I was glad to see a clicker session on the agenda at EDUCAUSE.  I was a little surprised at the number of audience members who asked questions at the end of the session and at the nature of those questions.  It seems there are a lot of institutions that are still just starting to work on adoption and support issues.  That indicates to me that use of classroom response systems will continue to grow over the next few years.