Hi Larry,
Thanks for clarifying the key principle at play here. As someone with lots of clickers experience but very little TBL experience, I'll focus on the role that clickers play in relation to that principle of having teams accountable to each other.
You're correct in saying that the display of the frequency graph doesn't provide the accountability you're interested in creating. However, that's not the main role I see for the graph. I'll show the graph if I think that it will encourage students to contribute to the classwide discussion that follows the clicker question. So, for instance, if two or three answer choices are popular, students will see that the question is a tough one, worth digging into, which encourages participation.
If I don't think the graph will encourage participation, I won't show it. I worry that students won't want to speak up and represent minority opinions (because, as you note, it takes a lot of courage to do so), so if there's one response that's far more popular than the others, I won't show the graph. That way, students who have minority opinions won't *know* they have minority opinions and thus be more willing to speak up and represent them.
More generally, the display of results of a clicker question isn't the *end* of an activity, it's the midpoint. The graph can help frame and enhance the classwide discussion that follows. And it's during that classwide discussion that the accountability is created.
Best,
Derek
--
Derek Bruff, Ph.D.
Assistant Director, Center for Teaching
Senior Lecturer, Department of Mathematics
Vanderbilt University
www.vanderbilt.edu/cft/
www.derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/
twitter.com/derekbruff
-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Michaelsen [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 5:01 PM
Subject: Re: simultaneous reporting and clickers--Don't the principles
From my perspective, the underlying principle is that, whatever method you use, TEAMS MUST BE ACCOUNTABLE TO EACH OTHER. Thus, frequency graph is NOT an acceptable reporting alternative because individual team choices are anonymous. My most powerful learning experiences occur when only one (or 2) of a whole bunch of teams get(s) the best answer and is/are successful at convincing the others. In fact, I've even had one occasion in which no one was correct but, there was enough divergence of opinion to enable students to expose the weaknesses in each of the selected alternatives and discover the "correct" answer in the process. It takes a lot of courage to stand up for a minority position and, unless everyone knows who chose what, the vast majority of my students will remain anonymous if the reporting method allows them to do it.
Larry
-----
Larry K. Michaelsen
Professor of Management
University of Central Missouri
Dockery 400G
Warrensburg, MO 64093
[log in to unmask]
660/429-9873 voice <---NEW ATT cell phone
660/543-8465 fax
>>> Jennifer Imazeki <[log in to unmask]> 09/20/10 10:52 AM >>>
Thanks to everyone for your advice. I guess what I'm mainly trying to
figure out is whether the TBL emphasis on simultaneous reporting is
mostly because you want students to register a response before seeing
what everyone else answered (and pubic reporting is just a way of
ensuring students take ownership of their answer), or if there is also
some value in specifically having students see what everyone else
answered. I'm gathering from the responses from the list that public
reporting may not be so crucial. Thanks!
On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 7:49 AM, Bruff, Derek O
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Jennifer,
>
> I would take Bill Goffe's approach: Don't show students the graph of responses unless doing so will encourage more discussion. The worst case graph is where 60% or so of students select the same answer and the rest of the students are evenly distributed among the other answers. The resulting graph has one very tall bar and lots of little ones. When students see this graph, it's easy for them to assume that the popular answer is the correct one, even though 40% of the students aren't on board.
>
> I make it a practice to "mute" the projector screen (or switch it over to another computer if there's no "mute" button) before displaying the results graph. I take a look at the graph without showing it to the students. If I get a graph like the "worst case" I described above, I'll jump straight into the discussion without showing students the graph. On the other hand, if there are two or three answer choices that are popular, I *will* show students that graph. Seeing results like that tells students that the question is a tough one and worth discussing.
>
> If you want to identify individual answers (which is easier with 13 teams than 100 students), then your clicker system might have some kind of pop-up window you can trigger that lists individual responses. I'm not familiar enough with eInstruction to know if they have something like this. This approach is what I've started calling "warm calling." It's not quite cold calling since you know how the student or team you call upon has answered and since they've had some time to think about the question. I blogged about warm calling a few weeks ago:
>
> http://derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/?cat=107
>
> Best,
> Derek
>
> --
> Derek Bruff, Ph.D.
> Assistant Director, Center for Teaching
> Senior Lecturer, Department of Mathematics
> Vanderbilt University
> www.vanderbilt.edu/cft/
> www.derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/
> twitter.com/derekbruff
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jennifer Imazeki [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 3:49 PM
> Subject: simultaneous reporting and clickers
>
> Hi all,
>
> I use clickers to have teams submit their responses. After the
> responses are in, I show the chart of responses. One challenge I've
> had in a few cases is that when the large majority of teams select one
> of the responses, then the few teams who select something else seem
> quite reluctant to defend their choice. With the clickers, I can't
> actually see who answered what (only the number selecting each
> response) so I can't immediately call on the teams to explain their
> choice. One thing in John's email yesterday caught my eye - he
> mentioned having students hold up a colored card reflecting their
> answers as well as submitting responses with clickers. But for some of
> my questions, there are as many as 7 or 8 possible responses so I'd
> have to make a lot of cards (and I worry a bit that reducing to just
> four or five answer choices would make things too easy). My current
> solution is to randomly select a team and ask them to say which
> response they chose and explain why they thought that was the BEST
> answer - and mostly, the other teams will then chime in. But if
> anyone has other ideas, I'd appreciate hearing them...
>
> Jennifer
> ****************************
> Jennifer Imazeki
> Department of Economics
> San Diego State University
> homepage: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~jimazeki/
> Economics for Teachers blog: http://economicsforteachers.blogspot.com
>
|
