Is Interactivity A Two Way Thing? Opportunities For Expressing Understanding Using Clicker Apps and Live Annotations

Technologies such as audience response systems (clickers) have been adopted enthusiastically by teachers because they facilitate "active learning" where students participate in the learning process through involvement other... [ view full abstract ]

Technologies such as audience response systems (clickers) have been adopted enthusiastically by teachers because they facilitate "active learning" where students participate in the learning process through involvement other than passive listening [1]. This is most simply and very frequently implemented by collecting responses to multiple choice questions (MCQs), with the rationalisation that it allows the student and lecturer to measure understanding. Such an approach has been adopted using systems including Interwrite/eInstruction, Turning Point and Poll Everywhere for several years in our large class Biology and Biochemistry modules with positive satisfaction in annual student surveys and financial support from management. However, the "interactivity" of such implementations can be questioned because response choices are pre-programmed [2]. In fact, a major motivation for the use of clickers by Mazur and others was to promote student self-expression in peer instruction rather than to measure understanding [3]. The transition to smartphone app based response systems such as Turning Point and Poll Everywhere offers expanded opportunities for more expressive question and response types. Initial trials followed by questionaires suggest that students value the opportunity to express themselves in free text as part of an interaction. Conversely, tablet-based presentation control with free drawing of annotations on static slides by the lecturer led to students to characterise the teaching as "interactive" in focused questionnaires even though live slide annotation is not a form of active learning. Both free text input by students and free drawing by lecturers are primarily unidirectional, so the perception of interactivity may instead arise from both types of interaction being neither completely controlled nor random [4]. This suggests that teaching technologies can contribute to learning by creating spontaneous opportunities for expressing understanding.
1. Bruff D, "Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments", Wiley (2009)
2. Manovich L, "The Language of New Media", MIT Press (2001)
3. Crouch CH and Mazur E, "Peer Instruction: Ten Years of Experience and Results", Am. J. Phys. 69:970-977 (2001)
4. Smuts A, "What is Interactivity?", J Aesth Educ. 43:53-73 (2009)