The Inaugural Conference on Classroom Response Systems: Innovations and Best Practices
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Conference Details | Description | Objectives | Tracks | Who Should Attend? | Keynote Presentations | Conference Schedule | Hotel/Airport Info | Shelby Map | Registration | Printable Information Sheet
Keynote Presentations
Addicted to Clicking with Students
Presenter: Tim Stelzer, Ph.D.
Bio: Professor Timothy Stelzer received his bachelor's degree in physics from St. John's University in 1988, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1993. After working as a senior research assistant in the Center for Particle Theory at Durham University (UK), he joined the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois as a postdoctoral research associate in 1995. Iin 1998, he was promoted to a visiting assistant research professor and to an assistant research professor in 2000.
A high-energy particle theorist, Professor Stelzer has concentrated on standard model physics at hadron colliders. He has written extensively on top-quark physics and radiation in top events. In addition, he has developed computational methods that have dramatically reduced the difficulty of performing complex cross section calculations. He is the primary author of MadGraph ®, a software program that automatically generates the Feynman diagrams and helicity amplitude code for tree-level standard model processes. Most recently, he has been working on a new program to predict how often rare new particles would be produced and also what signatures would distinguish these new particles from the large background of particles already known. He has developed a novel multi-channel approach that efficiently integrates any scattering amplitude to obtain the cross section of any desired process.
Professor Stelzer has also been heavily involved with the Physics Education Group at Illinois, where he has led the development and implementation of tools for assessing the effectiveness of educational innovations in our introductory courses and expanding the use of web technology in physics pedagogy. He was instrumental in the development of the I-clicker ™ and is a regular on the University's "Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students."
Objectives:
Participants will:
- Identify the fundamental educational principles which clickers help facilitate.
- Examine several different formats in which clickers have been utilized and develop a general understanding of key elements in the most successful implementations.
Abstract: Inspired by Eric Mazur's Peer Instruction, the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois started introducing clickers to their introductory physics courses nearly a decade ago. They quickly became addicted to the connectivity that clickers provide, transforming the traditional lecture monolog into an engaging dialog. Similar to classrooms across the country, students at UIUC overwhelming praised the introduction of the clickers citing their value in engaging students in the lecture and providing essential formative assessment. In this talk, Tim Stelzer, one of the inventors of i>clicker, will discuss his experience with and addiction to clickers, their best pedagogical application, and a look forward to the role they will play in transforming the classroom of the 21st century.
Clickers: A New Teaching Tool of Exceptional Promise
Presenter: Doug Duncan, Ph.D.
Bio: Dr. Doug Duncan, Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences of the University of Colorado and Director of Fiske Planetarium. Dr. Duncan is a national leader in presenting the excitement of scientific discoveries to the general public; he has appeared on BBC television and on the National Public Radio Program All Things Considered, and has lectured at the Smithsonian Institution. He is also the author of one of the first books about teaching with clickers. His book, “Clickers in the Astronomy Classroom” (published by Addison Wesley) is publishing in a second edition in late 2008 and shows evidence of its impact on student learning and attitudes. Dr. Duncan is a frequent speaker on the power of classroom response systems as a teaching tool.
To learn more be sure to visit Dr. Duncan's website.
Note: The PowerPoint supporting this participatory talk will be posted on Dr. Duncan’s home page, http://casa.colorado.edu/~dduncan .
Objectives:
Participants will:
- Recognize that there is a mismatch between the way we teach and the way people learn, and that this limits how much students understand from lectures.
- Identify data that demonstrates that even the best lecture does not result in as much learning as classes in which students’ minds are more active, such as those using clickers to foster peer instruction.
- Understand that clickers themselves are just a tool. They do not in and of themselves produce good results. Results depend on how clickers are used.
- Learn types of clicker use that produce gains in student learning and enthusiasm, and types of use that cause students to hate clickers and hate the professor using them.
Abstract: The use of wireless student response systems - “clickers” – is growing remarkably fast. The University of Colorado has gone from first introduction 6 years ago to 17,000 in use today. That is because clickers address two of the oldest and most fundamental challenges in teaching: how to engage students, and how to determine if they are learning what you are teaching. Clickers are relatively low cost and easy to use. RF (radio) clickers require no classroom wiring.
But the need to use clickers and peer instruction (student-student discussion) goes beyond the need to find out what students know. Peer instruction changes the way in which learning takes place, and it can significantly increase student learning, beyond what the best lecture can do.
My presentation will be in three parts:
- Motivate the need for peer instruction and clicker use.
- Demonstrate types of clicker use that lead to more learning and to student satisfaction. Review data that shows these uses produce greater learning than any pure lecture.
- Describe situations in which students (and faculty) came to hate clickers.
Since the circumstances that lead to items #2 and #3 are proving very repeatable, Participants should be able to immediately apply the information to their own teaching situation.
