tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9096775046824978357.post7595556463680288007..comments2024-03-16T08:56:35.554-07:00Comments on Economics for Teachers: Musings about Teaching Economics: How I teach Principles: ClickersJennifer Imazekihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15217003898479507362noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9096775046824978357.post-16408664564084093492009-08-08T13:56:02.153-07:002009-08-08T13:56:02.153-07:00@Robert: The online quiz is definitely extra work ...@Robert: The online quiz is definitely extra work that, all else equal, I'd rather not bother with. But I like that it addresses two issues I hear from a lot of students - one, what they should do if they miss class (or forget their clicker, etc.) and two, where they can find extra practice problems for the exams. As for incentive differences, I actually never thought about it - telling them that I keep 25, instead of dropping X, arose from problems in previous semesters where students got all up in arms that I told them at the beginning of the term that I'd drop 7 and that ended up being 5 (because I had some technical issues that meant no scores at all for a couple days). I do think that if you tell them you'll drop X, then at least some students take that as a 'free pass' to miss X classes. <br /><br />@doc: I'd really like to get more involved with scholarship of teaching but I'm really not all that sure how to go about it. I may be getting in touch with you soon!Jennifer Imazekihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15217003898479507362noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9096775046824978357.post-9553413404145960352009-08-07T10:12:57.746-07:002009-08-07T10:12:57.746-07:00Incidentally, I would encourage you to consider th...Incidentally, I would encourage you to consider the )on-line) Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning as a possible publication outlet for what you are working on. (http://www.iupui.edu/~josotl/) (Disclosure: I'm on the editorial board of the journal.)Don Coffinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07198988872512792834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9096775046824978357.post-36644716542912954652009-08-07T08:16:43.502-07:002009-08-07T08:16:43.502-07:00I really enjoyed this post and look forward to rea...I really enjoyed this post and look forward to reading any additional thoughts. I have used clickers for 5 or 6 years now in a variety of lower and upper-level courses and find my students nearly uniformly enjoy using them (three cheers for eInstruction).<br /><br />Currently I am trying to employ the peer instruction method of teaching in my Principles classes. Peer instruction is many things, but part of it is for the instructor to pose a question in class and have students formulate an initial answer. Then students are allowed to turn to their neighbors and discuss their answers, and change their answer if they need to. Having clickers makes this process work smoothly.<br /><br />The way you use clickers and the problems you have encountered are all familar to me. I particularly cringed when you mentioned the problem of talking in a large section and using the out-of-class quiz option as a way to remove the unruly students. I had the exact same problem (however, a big course for me is 80 students) and reacted the same way (I think I commented about this on your blog last Fall.). I have the luxury of solving the problem by going back to teaching small sections (40 students).<br /><br />Your suggestion of asking an open-ended question and then following it up with a multiple choice question is a great one, and one that would be especially useful in the context of peer instruction.<br /><br />I use clickers to ask 3-4 questions each class that I do not grade. The only graded question is the daily quiz question that I ask at the very end of class (but I allow students to use their notes and consult on that question). As I have come to learn only very slowly, there are a few legitimate reasons why students might miss my class. To save myself the extra work of posting an on-line question for those students, I simply tell tham I give no make-ups for any reason, but I drop their lowest 7 quiz grades. (The @smalli() function in the newest version of Excel makes that very easy to do.) I wonder how the incentives change if you tell them you keep the top 25 scores as opposed to dropping the lowest X scores?Robert S Rycroftnoreply@blogger.com