Active learning pedagogy has many documented benefits, and while several positive examples of its recent use in STEM classes have led to better performance, greater diversity, more equity, and improved retention of underrepresented student populations, more research in IS and IT classrooms is needed. Most active learning exercises are in a…

Purpose: This research investigates the use of real-time online polling to enhance university teaching and learning. Design/methodology/approach: Using a case study and employing action research, this work shows how polling can improve professional practice, learner engagement and teaching performance. Findings: Incorporating the right type of…

The goal of the present study was to examine whether college students' learning would be impacted by an innovative teaching strategy--the presentation of Secure Attachment Messaging (SAM) during lecture. Students (N = 205) were presented with SAM every other week as part of the regular PowerPoint slides. At the end of each class, they completed a…

This paper is meant to give some kind of manual instruction for the use of audience response systems for performing peer instruction in class. The different aspects one has to take into account when trying to implement this method are presented. In all of the sections, additional links and references are provided. The author reports on and…

We investigate a personal response system (PRS) pedagogy for lecture halls that encourages active engagement yet lowers barriers for implementation by eliminating the need to address student requests to make up questions because students must answer (not necessarily correctly) only more than half (greater than or equal 50%) of PRS questions to…

Lectures can be enriched by engaging students with active learning components. Classroom response systems (CRSs), which run on the mobile electronic devices of students, make the "clicker" principle more accessible, facilitate active engagement of students in the lecture hall, and are well-suited to promote formative assessment. Opposite…

In recent decades, research has stressed the prominence of mathematics classroom discussions in productive instructional practices in mathematics instruction. In this context, problem-solving activities have been a common focus of research. Research shows that teachers need to deal with prerequisites and challenges such as norms, design of tasks,…

This article engages with the unsettled question of whether student response systems increase engagement in the classroom. The reported study used a multi-classroom, multi-disciplinary pilot deployment of the app-based student engagement platform Nearpod to test whether greater use of the technology yields greater student engagement. The study…

Teacher educators' distinct and dual task of educating future teachers includes using digital tools to support students' ongoing learning while exemplifying appropriate teaching strategies where the use of digital tools, such as response systems (RSs), are commonly occurring. RSs have been used in higher education for a long time, and many studies…

Engaging a large cohort of students with teaching content is a difficult task for any educator working in higher education. When students are not receiving feedback about their participation efforts, this can lead to decreased engagement. Polling activities, such as hands up responses, can be used to address this but students cannot respond…

This action research aimed to enhance fluency thinking in the Year 9 Science and Technology course on Genetics by integrating bell ringer exams with inquiry-based learning. The study's objectives were to achieve an 80% pass rate in fluency thinking and to assess student satisfaction with this pedagogical approach. The sample comprised 20 Year 9…

"Active learning" strategies--peer instruction, simulations, hands-on activities, and the like--improve student performance and engagement. However, instructors often struggle to incorporate these techniques into their courses. Doing so can be especially difficult in large lecture courses, where the number of students makes activities…

A key goal of university bilingual science courses is to enrich undergraduates' bilingual scientific literacy (BSL). However, very little is known about how to foster BSL. This study aimed to provide research evidence to explore the possibility that BSL can be promoted by using bilingual written argumentation when Socrative® is treated as an…

To support student construction of knowledge during class meetings, there is a growing demand to incorporate active learning practices. However, 'active learning' can range from occasionally voting on a multiple-choice question, to spending all of class time on worksheets. Consequently, the outcomes of active learning course reforms vary widely.…

While active learning strategies have been promoted by researchers as practices to increase performance and retention, some practices have been shown to have unintended negative effects on students such as increasing anxiety. Students often report the debilitating effect of test-taking anxiety on their performance. This study investigated the use…