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.

thomas.mccloughlin@spd.dcu.ie

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: prior knowledgeReporting student responses: prior knowledge

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)

Dynamic model of assessment…

Output of a spontaneous

session

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.