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
Conference Schedule
| 7:30-8:30 AM | Registration and Continental Breakfast |
| 8:30-8:45 AM | Welcome |
| 8:45-9:45 AM | Morning Keynote Session Speaker: Dr. Tim Stelzer |
| 9:45-10:15 AM | Break |
| 10:15-11:30 AM | 1st Concurrent Session |
| 11:30-11:45 AM | Break |
| 11:45-1:15 PM | Lunch with Colleague Networking opportunity |
| 1:15-1:30 PM | Break |
| 1:30-2:45PM | 2nd Concurrent Session |
| 2:45-3:15 PM | Break |
| 3:15-4:15 PM | Afternoon Keynote Session Speaker: Dr. Doug Duncan |
| 4:15-4:30 PM | Door Prizes and Closing Comments (must be present to win) |
1st Concurrent Session (10:15-11:30 AM)
Health Science Track
“Students, Register Your Vote! Increasing Learner Engagement in the Classroom with iClickers”
Presenter: Deborah Fulmer, RN, MSN, CWOCN, and Pam Blesch
Institution: University of Arkansas Fort Smith
Objectives:
- Identify ways to utilize personal response systems in the health sciences classroom.
- Recognize the impact to nursing education as defined by the NLN’s Core Competencies of Nurse Educators through use of clicker technology in the classroom.
- Practice using the iClicker response system in a classroom setting.
“A Buffet of Break-Through Practices in the Use of Clickers in Higher Education and Beyond”
Presenter: Tom Stone, Senior eLearning Consultant
Institution: The Ohio State University, Office of the CIO, Technology Enhanced Learning and Research
Objectives:
- Differentiate between approaches that simply increase interaction and those that engage students.
- Explore practices that have proven most effective at making a measurable impact on students' learning outcomes.
Business/Humanities Track
“Beyond Learning into Assessment: Use of Classroom Response Systems in Formal Testing”
Presenter: Dr. Terry Hancock, Associate Professor of Management
Institution: University of Louisville
Objective:
- Develop insight into opportunities, challenges, and possible methods of using CRS technology in place of traditional multiple-choice scantron & paper tests.
“Pseudo-Socratic Dialogues in the teaching of Economics: Does it Work? And How?”
Presenter: Dr. Neil Sheflin, Associate Professor of Economics
Institution: Rutgers University
Objectives:
- Examine the clicker-enabled the ‘pseudo-Socratic’ dialog (PSD) beingused in place of the traditional large economics lecture.
- Discuss statistical evidence on the effectiveness of the approach.
- Describe other instructional approaches involving clickers that have been explored.
Social Science Track
“How am I Doing? Anonymity, Contingent Teaching, and Discussion”
Presenter: Dr. Leonard Shedletsky, Professor
Institution: University of Southern Maine
Objective:
- Reflect on what anonymity, contingent teaching and discussion mean to them and to the students, and consequently what it is that they want to happen when they teach.
“Using Clickers to Expose Negative Stereotyping of African American Students in the College Classroom”
Presenter: Dr. Edna Ross, Professor of Psychology
Institution: University of Louisville
Objectives:
- The cognitive bases of prejudices and stereotyping.
- How the victims of negative stereotyping come to accept the demeaning characterizations and how these characterizations can negatively impact academic performance.
- How negative stereotyping can actually translate into physical harm for its victims.
- What educators can do to counteract negative stereotyping.
STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Track
“A Peer-Learning Approach to Conceptual Understanding With iClicker in the Mathematics Course”
Presenter: Dr. Lee Gibson, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Institution: University of Louisville
Objectives:
- Help students understand the value of their previous knowledge of mathematics, and often the questions are formatted to make a connection between that knowledge and their real-world experience.
“Personal Response Systems in Statistics: Using clickers to foster active learning and address student understanding of statistical inference”
Presenter: Drs. Jennifer Kaplan and Mark Urban-Lurain
Institution: Michigan State University
Objectives:
- Session participants will complete three simulation activities that can be used in an introductory undergraduate statistics.
2nd Concurrent Session (1:30-2:45PM)
Health Science Track
“Expanding the Use of Classroom Response Systems (CRS): CRS Integration with In-Class Group Activities in Large Classrooms”
Presenter: Dr. Leilani Arthurs, Research Associate and Science Teaching Fellow
Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder
Objectives:
- Participants will identify a potential concept of inquiry in their class(es) upon which to develop a CRS-facilitated in-class group activity and articulate the desired learning goals associated with that concept.
- Participants will generate a draft of an in-class activity based on a sequence of questions/problems that allow students to construct their own knowledge.
- Participants will design a lecture context in which to frame the CRS-facilitated in-class group activity.
“It Takes Two to Tango: Cliché-Riddled Strategies to Get Students to “Buy In” to Clicker Use”
Presenter: Dr. Craig McLauchlan, Assistant Professor
Institution: Illinois State University
Objectives:
- Convince instructors that student “buy in” is an important part of effective clicker use.
- Provide examples of methods employed to effectively encourage said buy in.
Business/Humanities Track
“Communication and Gender: Using the I-Clicker to Generate Critical Thinking”
Presenter: Dr. Mary Ashlock, Assistant Professor of Communications
Institution: University of Louisville
Objectives:
- To demonstrate how the I-Clicker fosters critical thinking skills and openness in sensitive communication topics.
- To demonstrate how college students incorporate the I-Clicker in research reports.
“A Taxonomy of Clicker Questions and Activities: Reflecting on Current and Future Uses of Classroom Response Systems”
Presenter: Dr. Derek Bruff, Assistant Director
Institution: Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching
Objectives:
- Participants with experience teaching with clickers will reflect on that experience at a “meta” level by categorizing their uses of classroom response systems according to a taxonomy of clicker questions and activities. These participants will also brainstorm potential uses of classroom response systems that expand their classroom practice, using the taxonomy to direct them to uses they may not have previously considered.
- Participants without experience teaching with clickers will brainstorm potential uses of classroom response systems in their courses, using a taxonomy of clicker questions and activities to focus their efforts on uses that are intentionally relevant to their teaching goals and methods.
Social Science Track
“Using Clickers to ‘Build a Boy’”
Presenter: Drs. Steffen Wilson and Dan Florell, Department of Psychology
Institution: Eastern Kentucky University
Objectives:
- To demonstrate the use of Clickers as a consensus building tool, as a peer learning tool, and as a method of formative assessment of course information.
- To demonstrate the use of Clickers within a critical thinking activity.
- Gather feedback from participants regarding methods of improving upon use of Clickers within our classroom, and to discuss how a similar use of Clickers might be applied to the classrooms of session participants.
“Incorporating Clickers into the Re-Design of a Large Enrollment Psychology Course”
Presenter: Dr. John Broida, Associate Professor of Psychology
Institution: University of Southern Maine
Objectives:
- What instructional method(s) will you use to engage the participants to create an interactive/”hands-on” environment during your session?
- What is the research basis/”best practices” pedagogy that supports the way in which you have chosen to use the classroom response system (CRS)? (Please plan to present some of this during your session. A bibliography of recent publications on classroom response systems is available on the proposal application website.)
- How will you assist participants in the application of the information gained in this session to their own teaching/learning setting?
- What additional audio-visual requirements will you have for your presentation, if any? (All participants will have an i-clicker, and each presentation room will be set up with a computer, proxima projector, and i-clicker software. Presenters in large rooms will be provided with a lavalier microphone.)
STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Track
“Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA) with a Classroom Response System”
Presenter: Drs. Ian Beatty, William Gerace, William Leonard, and Allan Feldman
Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Objectives:
- To inform participants about TEFA.
- To increase participants' knowledge and appreciation of the wide range of instructional possibilities CRSs afford.
- To have them experience several novel question types and ways of using a CRS that they can adopt in their own instruction.
“Clickers in the Classroom: Beyond Think-Pair-Share
Presenter: Drs. Alexander Rudolph, Nina Abramzon, and Ertan Salik, Department of Physics
Institution: California State Polytechnic University
Objectives:
- Examine the importance of choosing appropriate clicker questions.
- Identify the advantages and disadvantages of clickers relative to flash cards.
- Discuss how to benefit from data collected during any clicker session to improve future courses.
“iClickers and a Tablet PC: Changing the Pedagogy of Mathematics Courses”
Presenter: Dr. Chris Lee, Associate Professor of Mathematics
Institution: Roanoke College
Objectives:
- Participants will be able to utilize a method of incorporating classroom response units in a way that does more than simply encourage classroom participation.
- Participants will be able to distinguish key criterion to be used in the selection of a classroom response unit technology and realize the importance of institution support in the adoption of any system.
- Participants will be able to utilize a tablet PC to seamlessly integrate classroom response units.
Presenter Biographies
Debbie Fulmer is a native Arkansan who completed a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing in 1976 and a Master of Science degree in nursing in 1996 from the University of Central Arkansas. Upon relocating to Fort Smith, AR in 1989, she began teaching as adjunct clinical faculty in the then Westark College Nursing Program. She served as adjunct faculty in both the Associate Degree Nursing program and the Licensed Practical Nursing Program until 1995 at which time she began teaching full time in the Associate Degree Nursing Program. She is currently the Team Leader for Nursing Technology III, which is the medical/surgical semester. She actively participates in several committees within the College of Health Sciences and on UA Fort Smith Committees including Faculty Senate. She is also a long time advisor for the UA Fort Smith Student Nurses Association. Fulmer enjoys teaching nursing students and is frequently found recruiting students for one of the nursing programs in the College of Health Sciences.
Pam Blesch is originally from Indiana who completed a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing in 1976 from Indiana State University and a Master of Science degree in nursing administration in 1996 from Indiana University. Upon relocating to Fort Smith, AR in 1996, she worked in Surgical Services for St. Edward Mercy Medical Center. In 2000, she began teaching part-time for the Western Arkansas Technical Center at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith. In January 2008, she joined the Associate Degree faculty and currently teaches Care of the Adult Surgical Client and Maternal/Child. She actively participates in several committees within the College of Health Sciences and on UA Fort Smith Committees including Faculty Senate. Ms. Blesch enjoys teaching nursing students and hopes to make a difference in the lives of her students.
Tom Stone is a senior eLearning consultant with Ohio State University's Office of the CIO within their Technology Enhanced Learning & Research (TELR) team. Stone was co-chair of the CIO's Classroom Response Systems Committee that chose a standard clicker to support and identified ways that faculty would need to be supported in their implementation. He has worked with dozens of faculty at OSU who use clickers -- ranging from a class of 30 to 300 to 720 students (all in the same room at the same time) and works with faculty from various disciplines as they explore ways to use them most effectively.
Terry Hancock is Associate Professor of Management at the University of Louisville, former department chair and director of the MBA program, a patented, registered professional mechanical engineer with advanced degrees in both business and engineering currently teaching Project Management and Operations Management.
I'm an Associate Professor of Economics at Rutgers New Brunswick. My research and consulting have been in applied macroeconomics, financial sector modeling, econometrics and quantitative and computer areas. I've worked as a consultant to NASA, the Administrative Office of the Courts, Merrill Lynch, NERA, Millman Robinson, the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund and other organizations. I've done studies on the Economics of Trade Unions, the development of Inflation Cycles for the Center for International Business Cycle Research, cost-benefit analyses of NASA remote satellite sensing systems, telecommunications demand modeling, financial sector modeling of large-scale econometric models of the United States, Economic Loss Analysis for the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, and the development of statistical sentencing guidelines for the Administrative Office of the Courts of New Jersey. I've recently become interested in instructional technology. I am active in the Rutgers SAS Honors Program, and I advise the Economics Honor Society (ODE). I have taught Intro and Intermediate Micro and Macroeconomics, Econometrics, Statistics, Computer and Quantitative Applications, Money and Banking and Graduate (MBA) Macroeconomics. Most recently, I have been teaching very large sections of Intro Macro and Money and Banking with heavy use of technology including clickers, CMS (Blackboard and Sakai), Wikis, discussion boards, on line simulations and statistical applications and forecasting.
Leonard Shedletsky is Professor of Communication at The University of Southern Maine. He is the author of Meaning and Mind: An Intrapersonal Approach to Human Communication (1989), Human Communication on the Internet (2004, with Joan Aitken), co-editor of Intrapersonal Communication Processes (1995), as well as numerous articles and chapters. He has been teaching since 1974. He teaches a range of courses in communication, with cognition, discourse and meaning as underlying themes. His resume is available at:http://www.usm.maine.edu/com/resume.html
Dr. Edna Ross has a PhD in experimental psychology and has worked in both the business and educational sectors. Dr. Ross has received numerous awards during her tenure at UL including the Delphi Faculty Favorite Award, A&S Distinguished Teaching Award, Faculty of the Year, Athletic Department's Favorite Faculty Award, and the REACH Ambassador Faculty Award. She currently serves as Chair, Director, and Advisor on a variety of educational committees and boards.
Dr. Lee Gibson is an assistant professor in the department of mathematics. As a fourth generation educator from south-eastern Kentucky, Dr. Gibson greatly desires to help the next generation of Kentuckians have a successful collegiate experience. He began working on projects like the one featured here during his doctoral work at Cornell University.
Jennifer J. Kaplan is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics and Probability and Division of Science and Mathematics Education at Michigan State University. Her research interests are in statistics education and quantitative literacy at the undergraduate level. She is involved in several projects designed to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the general introduction to statistics courses as well as a campus wide project designed to assess the level of quantitative literacy of the undergraduate students at Michigan State University. Dr. Kaplan teaches introduction to statistics courses in a large lecture format and is developing a statistics course for pre-service elementary school teacher. Prior to her appointment at MSU, Dr. Kaplan completed her Ph.D. in the department of mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin.
Mark Urban-Lurain is the Director of Instructional Technology Research & Development in the Division of Science and Mathematics Education at Michigan State University. In that position he is responsible for providing vision, direction, planning and implementation regarding the use of technology in instruction of mathematics and science. His research interests are in theories of cognition, how these theories inform the design of instruction, how we might best design instructional technology within those frameworks and how the research and development of instructional technologies can inform our theories of cognition. Dr. Urban-Lurain is also interested in the role of technology in educational improvement and reform. Prior to joining the DSME, he was in the Department of Computer Science where he was part of a team that developed several introductory computer science courses for non-computer science students. The most recent course is Computing Concepts and Competencies, offered as CSE 101 at MSU.
Leilani Arthurs earned degrees from the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Hawaii at Hilo, and the University of Notre Dame (2007). While she earned her Ph.D. in environmental aqueous geochemistry at the University of Notre Dame, she also pursued pedagogical training from the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning. She has taught courses on Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, Physical Geology at the University of Hawaii, and Environmental Justice at the University of Notre Dame. She has also worked in an after-school math program for elementary students in Richmond, CA, and has more
Craig C. McLauchlan is an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry department at Illinois State University. He received his A.B. from Harvard and his Ph.D. from Northwestern. McLauchlan has taught courses at the all levels in the chemistry department at ISU and he has lectured to over one thousand students and also mentored over a dozen students in his research laboratory. McLauchlan has received several teaching awards, including the Illinois State 2005-2006 University Teaching Initiative Award. Classroom response systems are an integral part of McLauchlan’s current NSF-CAREER Award project.
Mary Z. Ashlock is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Louisville. She has spent 13 years as a Management Consultant with Cornelius and Associates working with Fortune 500 Companies. Her areas of interest include motivation in the workplace, presentation skills, and emotional intelligence. Mary Ashlock lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband, Will and two children.
Derek Bruff is an assistant director at the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching and a senior lecturer in the Vanderbilt Department of Mathematics. Through individual consultations, workshops, orientations, and other programming, he helps faculty and teaching assistants develop and refine their teaching skills, deepen their understanding of the teaching and learning process, and take a more scholarly approach to their teaching. In his own mathematics teaching, he emphasizes conceptual understanding of computational techniques, uses technology to increase student engagement during class, and investigates how students in his particular teaching context best learn. His research interests include effective uses of classroom response systems ("clickers"), the role of pre-class reading assignments in mathematics courses, the role of teaching in the academic hiring process, and, in his home discipline of mathematics, adapting traditional wavelet methods to nonuniform settings. Prior to his current position at Vanderbilt, Derek was a faculty preceptor in the Harvard University Department of Mathematics, teaching several courses and coordinating multi-section calculus courses. Derek earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Vanderbilt University in 2003.
Steffen Wilson is a Developmental Psychologist, and she is faculty in the Psychology Department at Eastern Kentucky University. Her current research interests include factors affecting college student sense of belonging at the university, and the role of online learning in college student perceptions of the university.
Dan Florell is a School Psychologist, and he is faculty in the Psychology Department at Eastern Kentucky University. His current research interests include cyberbullying and cyberstalking.
Dr. Broida received his BA from the University of Colorado in psychology, his MA from Western Illinois University in psychology, and his Ph. D. from the State University of New York at Albany in behavioral endocrinology. Having become interested in the effective and efficient use of technology in the classroom, Dr. Broida is a redesign scholar at the National Center for Academic Transformation in addition to being an associate professor at the University of Southern Maine. He has been instrumental in assisting colleagues within his department and in other departments at USM in rethinking why and how they use technology. He is actively involved in assisting people in various departments at other institutions as they attempt to incorporate technology into their courses and in working with several publishing companies to develop web-based materials that facilitate student learning and retention.
Prof. Beatty earned a Ph.D. in Physics Education Research in 2000, the first PER doctoral degree awarded by the UMass Physics Department. He became a postdoctoral research associate and, in 2006, a research faculty member in the UMass Scientific Reasoning Research Institute. Since 2000 he has participated in several research projects and supported the institute's general operations and technical infrastructure.Prof. Beatty's areas of expertise and interest include physics, educational research, and information technology. He is particularly interested in the intersection between pedagogy and technology. He has developed computer software, web sites, and dynamic web applications to support both instruction and research. He currently manages Teacher Learning of Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment, a five-year, US$2.5M project funded by the US National Science Foundation to study teacher learning and professional development related to formative assessment and “classroom communication systems.”Since 1992, Beatty has collaborated with Prof. Gerace on international outreach work to South Africa, Argentina, Cyprus, Uganda, Scotland, Singapore, and Switzerland, presenting or co-presenting talks, workshops, and classes, and consulting on research projects. He has been a visiting lecturer at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina and the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. Prof. Beatty likes travel, ethnic food, photography, wilderness sports, and finding new ways to think about things.
Prof. Gerace started his career as a theoretical nuclear physicist. He earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University in Nuclear Theory in 1967, and published 39 refereed articles on the subject. During the 1970s and 80s, physics education research gradually replaced nuclear theory as the focus of his research activities, and he launched the UMass Physics Education Research Group. The group has been continuously funded by research grants since 1976, and has graduated several students with M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics Education Research.Prof. Gerace was also a founding member of the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute (SRRI), an interdisciplinary think tank within the UMass College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. SRRI is dedicated to the learning and teaching of science and mathematics, conducting both research and outreach activities. The institute brings together researchers from the sciences, mathematics, psychology, and education, as well as distinguished foreign visitors. Gerace has served as SRRI's Director since 1991.Since 1992, Prof. Gerace has worked with educational researchers, teachers, and students in South Africa, Argentina, Cyprus, Uganda, Scotland, Singapore, and Switzerland. During this time he has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Fulbright Senior Specialist, and a Fulbright Conference Speaker, and he has served as a visiting lecturer at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina and the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. Prof. Gerace likes travel, cooking ethnic food, pets, and - above all - teaching and advising.
Information to come.
For the past twenty years, Allan 's research has focused on science teacher learning and action research. Recently he has begun to study the ways in which people learn to become science researchers in apprenticeship situations. He has been PI and co-PI of numerous NSF projects, many of which have been in collaboration with colleagues in the sciences and engineering. In addition to his research activities, he teaches and advises preservice teachers and doctoral students. He is the director of the Pioneer Valley STEM Network, which is a collaboration of colleges, school districts, museums and other non-profit groups, and industry. He is also the Associate Director of the UMass STEM Education Institute. He taught middle and high school science and math for 17 years before obtaining his doctorate at Stanford University.
Dr. Alexander Rudolph is Associate Professor of Physics at California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly Pomona). He received his bachelor's degree from Haverford College in 1982, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 1988. Before joining the faculty at Cal Poly Pomona, he worked as a faculty research associate at the University of Maryland, a National Research Council Fellow at NASA/Ames Research Center, and was on the faculty of Harvey Mudd College from 1994-2001. He also spent a year teaching high school science and math.Since joining the faculty at Cal Poly Pomona, Dr. Rudolph has led efforts to implement interactive learning techniques in physics and astronomy classrooms, and is leading the effort to expand such techniques across campus. He is also involved in research into the effectiveness of interactive techniques in general education astronomy classes. He is part of a national study of over 4000 students at 32 colleges and universities around the country with the goal of determining how interactive techniques affect students learning of concepts in astronomy.
Nina Abramzon is an Assistant Professor of Physics at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona since 2003. She received her B.S. in physics from Bar-Ilan University, Israel in 1994 and her Ph.D. in physics from the City University of New York in 1999. Dr. Abramzon was a post-doctoral fellow at JILA, University of Colorado (2000-2001), and at the Stevens Institute of Technology (2001-2003). Her research interests focus on atmospheric-pressure plasma applications to biological systems and plasma spectroscopy, and Physics education.
Dr. Salik is an Assistant Professor of Physics at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona), Physics Department, where he teaches physics and optics classes. His current research interests include optical sensors including fiber sensors, fiber lasers, optics and physics education. Dr. Salik is also affiliated with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he was postdoctoral scholar before joining the Physics Department at Cal Poly Pomona. Dr. Salik holds M.A and Ph. D. degrees in Physics from the University of Southern California (2001), and B.S. degree in Physics from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey.
I am Associate Professor of Mathematics at Roanoke College in Salem VA, and have been with the faculty there for 14 years. The path to this current position started with an upbringing that included parents who taught at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. Continuing in their tradition, I then completed a B.A. degree at St. Olaf before traveling south to complete as M.S. and PhD. at Clemson University. The love of the liberal arts learning environment (and an acquired affinity for warmer climates) brought me to Roanoke College, a school with approximately 1900 students in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. My research has always been in applied fields of Mathematics, beginning with graph theory, moving on to neural-networks, and ultimately to swarm optimization algorithms. I have to admit that over the last few years though my strongest interests have been in pedagogical issues involved in the teaching of Mathematics. Currently a great deal of my time outside of the classroom is spent investigating and developing methods for successful implementation of technology in the classroom, specifically involving classroom response units and tablet-PCs.
