Dr. Thomas McCloughlin Education Department St. Patrick ’ s College, Drumcondra, Dublin, IRELAND.

1. 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

2. 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)

3. 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)

4. 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

5. 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:

6. 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;

7. 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.

8. 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’

9. Reporting student responses: prior knowledge

10. Reporting student responses: knowledge building / construction (the students solve a problem before answering)

11. Reporting student responses: knowledge synthesis(the students having solved a problem go on to build new knowledge based on what has been done)

12. Dynamic model of assessment…

13. Output of a spontaneous session

14. 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.