Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

Going all the way: Use of clickers for peer instruction

and just-in-time teaching

Ross Galloway School of Physics & Astronomy

University of Edinburgh

‘Clickers Reloaded’ 7th December 2011

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

Acknowledgements

The Physics 1A Course Team: Simon Bates & Richard Massey Workshop heads of class and Teaching Assistants Secretaries and technicians

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

Outline

•  Motivation •  What we did •  What happened •  What the students thought •  Some personal reflections

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

Motivation: the Traditional Classroom

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

Motivation: the Inverted Classroom

•  Move information transfer out of the classroom.

•  Devote in-class learning time to higher level activities.

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

Motivation: the Inverted Classroom

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

Week n + 1

Workshops

What we did: Physics 1A Course Structure

Week n - 1

Personal Reading

Online Reading

Quiz

Week n

Peer Instruction Lectures

“What I still don’t understand

is…”

Hand-in Assignment

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

What happened

•  Students (mostly) did the reading! •  Students (mostly) did the quiz! •  Students (mostly) came to lectures!

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

What happened

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

preprepostg

−

−=

%100 :gain Normalised

-0.10

0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80

0.90

1.00

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41

PI session

Norm

alis

ed g

ain

<g>

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

What happened: diagnostic test results Pre-test Scores

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29

Score

Freq

uenc

y

Pre-test n=161

Post-test Scores

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29

Score

Freq

uenc

y

Post-test n=161

52.0=g

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

What happened: diagnostic test results

0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0 20 40 60 80 100

Mean Post-test Score (%)

Nor

mal

ised

Gai

n <g

>

Other universities Physics 1A

Data taken from R.R. Hake, Am. J. Phys. 66(1), 1998

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

What the students thought

N = 90

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

What the students thought

Physics Education Research The University of Edinburgh

Some personal reflections

•  Can be scary at first •  But you soon get into the rhythm •  Forget about carefully planned timing •  Great classroom atmosphere •  Freedom from ‘coverage’ •  Focus on what matters