This document summarizes a lecture on improving teaching methods through active engagement and classroom technology. The lecture discusses challenges with traditional teaching approaches and promotes techniques like classroom response systems and peer instruction. Research evidence suggests these methods improve student concentration, learning, and exam scores by encouraging participation and feedback. While technology alone does not guarantee better outcomes, integrating tools to support active learning has been shown to address areas often neglected in large lectures.

1. …
THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF TEACHING
PART I – ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT
DR. JEFF LOATS
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
SPS 4500 , SEPT 26THTH, 2013

2. INTRODUCTIONS…
2
Tell me…
• Who you are
• What kind of teaching you are doing
• Is teaching a part of your future plans?

3. WARM-UP: BORN VS. MADE
"I've had great teachers and awful teachers... the
whole spectrum.The ones that are great seem
to have a natural knack for it while others seem
to have been born clueless about how to teach.
I'm not sure there will ever be teaching methods
that will make a bad teacher into a good one."
What is your response?

4. WARM-UP: BORN VS. MADE
~22% → Agree that teaching quality is
essentially innate
~44% → Improvement is a matter of desire,
effort and time spent.
~22% → Mismatch of learning styles

5. ASIDE: LEARNING STYLES
“Not every student's learning style is going to match
every teacher's teaching style. It is possible that the
teachers you thought were bad just had a different
teaching style that didn't work for you.You should talk
to teachers that you think are bad and see if they can
try to incorporate your learning style into their class.”
References:
• “The Myth of Learning Styles”
by Cedar Riener and Daniel Willingham
• YouTube: Learning Styles Don’t Exist
• Scholarly review: “Learning styles: Concepts and
evidence”, Pashler et al, 2008

6. WARM-UP: BORN VS. MADE
“Some teachers are naturally better at interacting or
captivating a group of people but I believe that
teaching skills can be learned by anyone who is willing
to put in the effort. A teacher must be self aware and
willing to take feedback to improve. Classically "bad"
teachers are a product of a problem, perhaps they did
not receive teaching specific education but more
subject education.”
“I would agree. Some teachers are better than other.
However, the best way to learn is from each other.”

7. DWECK: FIXED VS. GROWTH MINDSET
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8. DWECK: FIXED VS. GROWTH MINDSET
8

9. DWECK: FIXED VS. GROWTH MINDSET
9

10. DWECK: FIXED VS. GROWTH MINDSET
10

11. 11
Can you think of areas in your own life where you
have a fixed or growth mindset?
A) I can’t think of an example of either
B) I can think of a fixed mindset example
C) I can think of a growth mindset example
D) I can think of an example of each

12. WARM-UP: LECTURE TIME
Out of an average 60 minutes of class time,
roughly how many minutes of class time are
spent on lecture-based delivery of content?

13. WARM-UP:TEACHING HERITAGE
“[…] Now that I am taking program specific
classes the style of teaching varies quite a bit. I
think their methods and attitudes come from
their experience in the field. I think they teach
this way because they are preparing us to be
practitioners.”
“I believe that traditional ways of teaching
continues, even though it may not be the most
effective, because educators fear that new
forms of teaching may be difficult to do and
might result in student failure.”

14. WARM-UP:TEACHING HERITAGE
“They do not all use an interactive approach, but
most have, which is quite nice. I would have to
think that they teach the way they do because
they know it works.Those who just lecture the
whole time might not be totally into it, despite
being professionals of their field, and that is why
they teach the way they do. A lot of people are
just dry.”

15. WARM-UP: BIGGEST “TAKE AWAY”
What was the biggest "take away" idea that you
got from the article?
~66% → Engagement is key and
Lecture performs poorly
~11% → Training can trump experience
~11% → Change is needed
~11% → No single technique is the “trick”
~11% → Creative classes already do this
~11% → Not all classes can use this

16. WARM-UP: BIGGEST “TAKE AWAY”
“Active leaning is nothing new; however, the
research in the article failed to test creative or
art classes.”
“The biggest idea that I got from this article is
that engaging students is not only important but
can be done by teachers without expertise in the
field. […]”
“Not one teaching style alone did the trick,
better outcomes occurred when "deliberate
practice" was utilized.”

17. WARM-UP: BIGGEST “TAKE AWAY”
“I feel that it is only a matter of time before we
drasticly change our teaching methods.We
know longer need to train young people to
complete tasks for factory work so we should
revamp our teaching styles. ”
“Of course I do not see how a more interactive
approach could work in all classes. A history
class might not have that option.”

18. 18
What kind of experience do you have with
clickers or another classroom response system in
an educational setting?
A) I’ve never used them in any way
B) I’ve used them as a learner
C) I’ve used them as a teaching tool
D) I’ve used as both a learner and a teacher

19. GUIDING PRINCIPLES
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Technology is not an educational panacea
Seek tools that offer new approaches
As always, let evidence guide our attention

20. PHYSICS EDUCATION REVOLUTION
Eric Mazur, Physicist at Harvard:
21

21. 22
“ALL SIMILARLY (IN)EFFECTIVE…”

22. 23
University of Washington
University of Colorado
University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign

23. TECHNOLOGIES VS.TECHNIQUES
25
Hands
Colored cards
Hardware “clickers”
Virtual response tools
Peer Instruction
Factual recall
Polling/survey
Poll-Teach-Poll
Thought Questions
Teach-Test-Retest

24. MAZUR’S PERSONAL REVOLUTION
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(added) Pre-class reading, enforced
(removed) Nearly all “watch me do this”
portions of class: sample problems,
derivations, etc.
(modified) Lecture broken up into small bites
(added) Depth over coverage
(added) ConceptTests with Peer Instruction

25. PEER INSTRUCTION
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Multiple choice questions
–Conceptual
–Hard
1. Students answer Individually
2. Discussion with peers
3. Students answer post-discussion
4. Class-wide discussion

26. Students have developed a robot dog
and a robot cat, both of which can
run at 8 mph and walk at 4 mph.
A the end of the term, there is a race!
The robot cat must run for half of its
racing time, then walk.
The robot dog must run for half the
racing distance, then walk.
Which one wins the race?
A) Robot cat B) Robot dog C) They tie
28

27. MAZUR AFTER 1YEAR
29

28. ELSEWHERE?
30

29. WHY CLICKERS?
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Alternatives:
–Hand raising
–Numbered/colored cards
Anonymity + secrecy honesty
Inclusive
Fast
Credit for learning

30. STILL CLICKERS?
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Hardware clickers are (basically) obsolete
Good options:
• PollEverywhere
• Top Hat
• LearningCatalytics

31. TECHNOLOGIES VS.TECHNIQUES
33
Clickers
Colored cards
Hands
Virtual response tools
Peer Instruction
Factual recall
Polling/survey
Poll-Teach-Poll
Thought Questions
Teach-Test-Retest

32. THE EVIDENCE STANDARD
34
Research results:
Quick/easy attendance in large class sizes.
Provides anonymity (Banks, 2006).
Every student participates (Banks, 2006).
Encourages active learning (Martyn, 2007).

33. THE EVIDENCE STANDARD
35
Research results:
Improved concentration (Hinde & Hunt, 2006)
Improved learning and retention
(Moreau, 2010).
Improved exam scores (Poirier & Feldman, 2007)
Efficient use of class time
(Anderson, et al. 2011).

34. STUDENT FEEDBACK ON CLICKERS
315 students in 7 classes over 4 terms (roughly ±6%)
Rated on 5 point scale (strongly disagree to agree)
The use of iClickers, and activities
that used them have…
Agreed or
Strongly Agreed
…helped me to stay more engaged
in class than I would otherwise be.
93%
…helped me to learn the material
better than I otherwise would
83%
…been worth the cost to buy them 78%

35. MY SUMMARY
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Classroom response systems can be integrated
into most teaching styles and disciplines to good
effect.
From an evidence-based perspective, classroom
response systems addresses often-neglected
areas.
As with all reforms, be prepared to find that
students know less than we might hope.

36. YOUR SUMMARY
38
For yourself… or to share next week
What was the biggest shift in your thinking
during this discussion?
What is the biggest question you feel needs
more attention from the discussion?
Contact Dr. Loats: Jeff.Loats@gmail.com
Today’s slides: www.slideshare.net/JeffLoats

37. CLICKER REFERENCES & RESOURCES
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Banks, D.A. (Ed.). (2006). Audience response systems in higher
education:Applications and cases. Hershey, PA: Information
Science Publishing.
Hinde, K., & Hunt,A. (2006). Using the personal response
system to enhance student learning: Some evidence from
teaching economics. In Banks, D.A. (Ed.),Audience Response
Systems in Higher Education:Applications and Cases. Hershey,
PA: Information Science Publishing.
Martyn, M. (2007). Clickers in the classroom: An active learning
approach. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 30(2), 71-74.
(http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0729.pdf)
Moreau, N.A. (2010). Do clickers open minds? Use of a
questioning strategy in developmental mathematics,CAPELLA
UNIVERSITY, 2010, 157 pages; 3389211
Poirier,C. R., & Feldman, R. S. (2007). Promoting active learning
using individual response technology in large introductory
psychology classes.Teaching of Psychology, 34(3), 194-196.
Mazur, E. 2004 ”Introduction to Peer Instruction” talk presented
at New Physics & Astronomy FacultyWorkshop, 2004, UMD.
Hake, R.R. 1998a. “Interactive-engagement vs traditional
methods:A six thousand-student survey of mechanics test data
for introductory physics courses,” Am. J. Phys. 66(1): 64-74;
(www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/ajpv3i.pdf)
Anderson, L., Healy,A., Kole, J., & Bourne, L. (2011). Conserving
time in the classroom: the clicker technique.The Quarterly
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64(8): 1457-1462.
ThoughtQuestions: A NewApproach to Using Clickers
CU Science Education Initiative & UBC Science Education
Initiative
(http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/files/CU-
SEI_Thought_Questions.pdf)
Clicker Resource Guide from the CU Science Education Initiative
& UBC Science Education Initiative
(http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/files/Clicker_guide_CWSEI
_CU-SEI_04-08.pdf)
Duncan, D. (2009).Tips for Successful “Clicker” Use. Retrieved
January 31, 2009.
(http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/files/Tips_for_Successful_C
licker_Use_Duncan.pdf)
WhyAre Clicker Questions HardToCreate?
Blog post by Ian Beatty, Science Education Researcher and
Professor of Physics at the University of NorthCarolina at
Greensboro
(http://ianbeatty.com/blog/archives/100)
Good resource list at Carleton College’s website:
http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/classresponse/index.html