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Exploring Peer Instruction: Should Cohort Clicker Responses Appear During or After Polling?

Pearson

Exploring Peer Instruction: Should Cohort Clicker Responses Appear During or After Polling? Thumbnail


Authors

Pearson



Abstract

During problem-based learning sessions, undergraduate students were tasked with answering chemistry-related questions using
clicker-handset technology in which the last response made by each handset would override any previous vote. The benefits, if any, of showing cohort responses from clicker questions during versus after polling were explored. Preliminary work suggested that cohort responses shown live during polling created greater unprompted peer instruction, which was inferred from a noticeably louder level of classroom debate. To test if subtle polling changes can promote greater peer instruction, this study monitored cohort performance, clicker response times, and voting-behavior patterns throughout the polling process. Profiling individual and team-based clicker activity in this manner highlighted contrasting performance data. No significant differences were seen when clicker handsets were used individually by students; however, certain trends were seen in the team-based model, which depended on how cohort responses were displayed and were also influenced by question type, with multiple-choice questions (MCQs) performing differently from true-false style questions. The results highlight improved performance in the team-based clicker model with peer instruction taking place during MCQ polls in which cohort responses were displayed live during voting. These findings highlight a clicker strategy embedded with peer instruction that bypasses the need for the standard three-phase process of polling, discussing, and then repolling. Displaying polling responses live enables multiple polling and discussion opportunities to occur in a single interchangeable phase, thus providing a time-efficient voting and peer-instruction method that may attract more instructors to adopt clicker technology within their teaching.

Acceptance Date Jan 14, 2019
Publication Date Mar 27, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Journal of Chemical Education
Print ISSN 0021-9584
Publisher American Chemical Society
Pages 873-879
DOI https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00035
Keywords Analytical Chemistry, Aromatic Compounds, Collaborative/Cooperative Learning, First-Year Undergraduate/General, NMR Spectroscopy, Organic Chemistry, Problem Solving/Decision Making, Second-Year Undergraduate
Publisher URL https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00035

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