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…

General chemistry is a foundational course that most STEM students are required to take at some point in their academic careers, as such, thousands of students find themselves in a chemistry classroom every year. Students come into the classroom not only from different academic backgrounds but also from a variety of social and emotional…

My thesis work is focused on conceptual and epistemic learning and characterizing the environments in which this learning takes place. Earlier studies conducted by the Stowe group explored how instructional practices, instructional emphasis, and assessment emphasis relate to student outcomes in general and organic chemistry courses. Student…

Technology advances have changed the way faculty teach and students learn. The classroom has evolved from students listening to their faculty lecture to convey their knowledge to students utilizing interactive electronic resources that can take students worldwide in milliseconds. Tools in the classroom have also allowed faculty to quiz students…

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact, and students' and teachers' perceptions, of using smartphones as clickers during formal lectures. This was an observational study based on a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews. Forty French dental students received conventional lectures, and 40 additionally used the Socrative®…

One of the most challenging aspects of teaching anatomy and physiology is using teaching tools that enhance active learning and keep students actively engaged during the lecture courses. This study explored the use of a student response system that was easy to use, cost-efficient, and re-usable for multiple anatomy and physiology courses. More…

We discuss an implementation of the research-based Pathways precalculus curriculum in a large-lecture format supported by recitations, clickers, and online homework. We describe our approach to adapting the implementation of Pathways precalculus from a small class to a large lecture instructional format. We report data on student learning and…

This paper explores the benefits and drawbacks of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) to engage undergraduate students in geography modules at Newcastle University. I consider the efficacy of "student response systems" (hereafter SRS, also known as audience response systems, clickers or personal response systems) in large lectures by…

In very large lecture classes, student engagement is always a challenge, and many instructors use electronic student response systems (SRS) to promote student engagement and active learning. The conventional wisdom in using student response systems is that the technology matters less than the pedagogy; it is the added value of the instructor that…

Studies on the effectiveness of clickers in undergraduate chemistry courses are mixed, and there is disagreement on how to effectively leverage clickers to improve student learning performance. To fill a gap in the research, we analyzed three different teaching strategies (two involving clickers) in a General Chemistry I course over a 13-year time…

Personal response systems, such as clickers, have been widely used to improve the effectiveness of teaching in various classroom settings. Although hand-held clicker response systems have been the subject of multiple prior studies, few studies have focused on the use of cell phone-based personal response system (CPPRS) specifically. This study…

Background: Over the past decade, the prevalence of anxiety has increased among college-aged students and college counseling centers have become increasingly concerned about the negative impact of anxiety on students. While college in general can be stressful, college science classrooms have the potential to be especially anxiety-inducing because…

The authors present the findings of a small-scale study of student opinions drawn from an anonymous and voluntary survey in an undergraduate science classroom. The survey questions focused on the use of basic tools in a college classroom. The tools included in the survey were PowerPoint, overhead projectors/chalkboards, personal response units,…

This study reports on an educational development initiative where peer instruction was used instead of traditional lectures in a calculus course for first-year engineering students. The aim of the study was to explore students' experiences of this method. Data were collected by means of an open-ended questionnaire on two occasions: early and late…

This case study trialled the introduction of a student-response system (Top Hat) in a third-year engineering Fluid Mechanics course (n = 44) to improve student engagement, motivation and cognition. It was recognised that for the potential benefits of student-response systems (SRSs) to be fully realised, more time must be allocated for student…