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Personal Response Technology Assisting Movement Through A Constructivist
Teaching Learning And Assessment Cycle
Dr. Thomas McCloughlin
Education Department
St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin, IRELAND.
Hindrances to improving performance and student involvement
• The level of participation (or lack) by the students in their lectures and seminars
• The degree of reliable and direct feedback from questions posed (quality & quantity)
• The nature of summative assessment in third level (how does this relate to the constructivist paradigm)
Personal Response Systems (PRSs) or Personal Response Devices
(PRDs) or just “clickers”:
• actively engage students during the entire class period (a lecturing style issue)
• determine their level of understanding of the material being presented (a formative assessment issue), and
• provide prompt feedback to student questions (lecturing style AND formative assessment issue)
Personal Response Devices (PRD)
• All students are given a PRD (‘clicker’)
• All students’ answers recorded and checked
• Feedback can be given immediately on screen
• Ease of use
This project…
• The project is being conducted within the constructivist paradigm in that the prior knowledge of a particular situation is sought from the learner in order to avail of this rich source of experience and to be built upon it if possible.
• This project is being conducted in two phases:
Two phases…
• First, was the use of clickers anonymously with preformed questions and the degree of participation, not linked to formal assessment or tracking;
• Second was the use of clickers anonymously with spontaneous questions and the degree of participation, not linked to formal assessment or tracking;
Constructivism• These issues require the educator to hold a
particular viewpoint on how to lecture and what lecturing actually is.
• This combination of issues concerning a) lecturing style, and views of what assessment b) is and c) for, is quite particular and suggestive of a constructivist approach.
• Thus, the author was motivated to use clickers to enhance constructivist instruction to a new level where rather than lecturing about constructivism, the students experienced constructivism first hand.
Constructivism• Typically in constructivism we try to determine
prior knowledge…intervene…and try to determine posterior knowledge
• Very often, prior knowledge is determined without ‘follow-through’
• In this project, the intervention is monitored using the clickers
• Thus clickers are a means of gaining ‘evidence’ for the teaching sequence: ‘prior-intervene-posterior’
Reporting student responses: knowledge building / construction Reporting student responses: knowledge building / construction (the students solve a problem before answering)(the students solve a problem before answering)
Reporting student responses: knowledge synthesisReporting student responses: knowledge synthesis(the students having solved a problem go on to build new (the students having solved a problem go on to build new
knowledge based on what has been done)knowledge based on what has been done)
Key references
• Zhu, E. (2007). Teaching with clickers. (No. 22).
Michigan: University of Michigan • Conoley, J., Moore, G., Croom, B., & Flowers, J.
(2006). A toy or a teaching tool? The use of audience-response systems in the classroom. Techniques: The Journal of the Association for Career and Technical Education, 81(7), 46-49.