Classroom response systems
Classroom response systems are usually made up of student devices (clickers) which allow students to register their answers and a teacher device which tracks the entries and stores the data to a program.
In the Judson article, "Learning from Past and Present: Electronic Response Systems in College Lecture Halls", there was discussion of the idea that these technological devices show great gains in student motivation and that their effect on student achievement relies heavily not on the devices themselves, but on the pedagogy behind them. Knowing this, I am even more excited about the prospect of trying them out in my own classroom. I strive to reach higher levels of questioning and to promote discussion in my room. Sometimes, discussions flop due to a lack of motivation, bad questions, and many other things. Increased motivation, no matter what causes it, cannot be bad in a Social Studies classroom. In addition, during middle school years, there is a favorable balance of cooperation and competition. Grouping facilitates the cooperation while clickers for each group allow for a dose healthy competition.
Although the improvement of questioning and cooperative grouping is a tall order, I am also very interested in the use of clickers to show students how to interpret data. I think it is valuable to have the students see what data suggests and have them analyze it themselves. It also falls right in line with Centennial's philosophy of curriculum integration. For example, in a multiple choice review, it would be interesting to give the students the data on what the class knows and have them design the study session they would find most beneficial. I have already written a lesson plan for a grant for a classroom response system where the clickers were used to evaluate class preference for sources in a research project on Russia. Students (in groups), armed with a variety of resources, search for answers to multiple choice questions and then register the type of source used to find the information. The data on both the questions and the resources used would be shared with the students at the end as a springboard for a discussion on the characteristics of each type of source and how it is best used.
Posted at 04:20PM May 31, 2006 by svfelder in General | Comments[0]