The introduction of a group project assignment can be met with a chorus of groans from your students. Group projects are often necessary for our classes. They’re also good preparation for your students’ futures in the workplace. Most students picture their future work life as highly independent but the truth is, most jobs rely on employees working in groups constantly. Here’s how you can use iClicker to manage group projects more effectively and help your students value the learning experience more. Sorting Into Groups Instructors often turn to group work when they want their students to gain experience collaborating with new people. However, when students self-select their partners, they generally pick the same students with whom they feel most familiar. Using iClicker to form groups can shake up a classroom and inspire new relationships in the classroom. Try an activity where you open a multiple-choice poll and click on the results before your students vote. Challenge your students to “balance the bars” Once the bars are balanced (and this can take a while!) ask all the students who voted A to gather in one spot, all the students who voted B to gather in another spot, and so on. This can break your class up in a new way and easily segue into a more dynamic group. iClicker is Ideal for Groups of Two Peer Instruction (PI) is a proven way to move students from passive observation to active learning. With this student-centered type of instruction, students learn by explaining core concepts to each other under the guidance of their instructor. Encourage students to Think, Pair, Share. First, challenge them to Think with an iClicker question. Instead of revealing the correct answer, ask students to Pair with another student who has a different answer. Challenge students to come to a consensus on the correct answer, then Share their results with the class. When you display the results the first time, instruct your students to find peers who picked a different answer. This enlivens your classrooms and encourages students to make connections with more of their classmates. Managing Polling Activities in Groups Often students work on problem sets or complex challenges in group settings. Unfortunately, some groups see finishing the exercises as the goal instead of exploring the materials deeply and coming to a consensus. On the other hand, some groups dawdle and fail to finish the work due to shyness or other factors. With iClicker, your students work on one question at a time, keeping the class in sync with each other. To keep answers from the same group together, use Short Answer as your response type and ask students to respond with their group name at the start of their response. This will easily group responses together while requiring every student to stay engaged in the group activity. Using Assignments for Group Work iClicker Assignments makes it easy to keep group work separate from the polling questions you’re already asking in your classes. With Assignments, groups of students are able to work through a set of iClicker questions on their devices at their own pace. Students can work through a lab activity, answer a set of discussion questions, or conduct a peer review of course writing and they can do it in groups, no matter where the group is located. iClicker Assignments work for groups in your physical classroom or with breakout groups online! ... View more

Adding iClicker questions to your lecture deck is an easy process but coming up with content can be challenging. As you work on writing iClicker polling questions, ask yourself the following questions: What higher-order thinking does this iClicker question require? Sometimes we want to know if students simply remember a concept, but we want to use iClicker questions to emphasize skills like analysis and application. Instead of asking a question that only requires a good memory (“What are the three parts of the brain?”), ask questions that require memory as well as higher-order thinking (“What part of Janice’s brain is most active when she reminisces about a walk across a balance beam?”) What wrong conclusions do my students often come to when faced with this kind of question? Identify the common wrong conclusions students come to and include them as tempting wrong answers in your multiple-choice questions. This gives you the opportunity to address misconceptions directly. It also increases the difficulty level of your questions. How many of my students are going to get this iClicker question wrong? A good polling question presents a real challenge to your students. No one likes when a game is too easy! This also creates an opportunity for a Think-Pair-Share activity. Ask your students an iClicker question but don’t reveal the correct answer. Instead, display the results and have students work in pairs to try and convince one another of the correct answer. Ask the same polling question again to see how their responses have shifted. This will give students a chance to learn by doing and you the chance to observe their thinking process. How does this connect to my quizzes and exams? Students find iClicker questions particularly valuable when they can clearly connect their iClicker questions to the questions they’re asked on more formal assessments. Retired assessments can be a great place to find fresh iClicker questions as well. ... View more

The return to campus is just moments away! We’ve collected our best tried-and-true tips for student onboarding that you’ll want to keep in mind as you welcome students back to the classroom. We’ve also created a deck of icebreaker activities that you can use to get to know your students while they get comfortable with iClicker. Check Out Our Ice-Breaker Deck 1. Message students early (and often!) We’ve created lots of resources that make it easy for you to communicate with your students about how to get ready to use iClicker in your course. These iClicker Cloud Student Registration Overview & Resources include syllabus language and first-day-of-class resources that you can use to set your students up for success. We even have guides for instructors who will be teaching virtually, so be sure to explore! 2. Explain your teaching rationale for using iClicker to your students. Students get more out of iClicker when they know why you’re requiring it in their class. Let students know that iClicker use leads to better classroom engagement, a significant rise in student confidence, and an increase in end-of-class grades. 3. Keep stakes low during your first polling sessions. Students are quick to catch on to how iClicker works on their laptops, tablets or phones. However, the enrollment of your class may shift in the first weeks of class, which can create grading headaches down the line. Students may also need to become familiar with joining the wifi in your classroom, causing them to miss a question or two. Here’s information you can pass along to your students to help them troubleshoot their connection. 4. Using Enhanced Grade Sync? Introducing Roster and Grade Sync! The new Roster and Grade Sync (RGS) is now available for Blackboard, Brightspace, or Canvas once it has been set up by your LMS administrator. With RGS, you can pull your roster into your iClicker Cloud course with no additional linking steps for students. Take a look at our support article on transitioning from iClicker's Enhanced Grade Sync to Roster & Grade Sync for more information. ... View more

1. Keep Polling Low-Stakes, High-Interest Polling should give a jolt of energy to your classes. Keeping polling a low-stakes part of students’ grades keeps polling a fun, game-like part of your class while reducing the incentive to cheat. When students find your polling questions compelling, they are more likely to attend class regularly and they are more likely to use iClicker as a study tool outside of class.*   *Jeff Bergin and Lisa Ferrara, (2019, April 1).How Student Attendance Can Improve Institutional Outcomes. EDUCAUSE Review,. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/blogs/sponsored/2019/4/how-student-attendance-can-improve-institutional-outcomes   2. Challenging Questions Should Follow Challenging Concepts Following tough concepts with easy polling questions seems like a harmless way to encourage students, but research shows the opposite to be true.* When an easy polling question follows a challenging concept, students assume they have mastered the concept when they get an easy question right. Besides, how do you like playing a game that’s too easy? Challenging questions keep students engaged and increase the “game” quality of your class, making for stickier, more impactful learning. *Amy M. Shapiro, Judith Sims-Knight, Grant V. O'Rielly, Paul Capaldo, Teal Pedlow, Leamarie Gordon, Kristina Monteiro, (2017). Clickers can promote fact retention but impede conceptual understanding: The effect of the interaction between clicker use and pedagogy on learning. Computers & Education, 111, 44–59. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131517300726   3. Include Tempting Wrong Answers What kind of misconceptions trip your students up again and again? Include common errors in your multiple choice response options so you can address those misconceptions head on.* When students pick the incorrect question en masse, you will have a highly engaged audience when you challenge directly what they thought they knew. *The Teaching Center at Washington University in St. Louis. Asking Questions to Improve Learning. Retrieved from https://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/resources/teaching-methods/participation/asking-questions-to-improve-learning   4. Incorporate Open-Ended Questions Multiple choice questions are the most popular type of polling question, but open-ended questions can have a place in your lesson plan as well. Consider having a short answer poll open during lecture, videos, student presentations, or any class time where students need to let you know their questions or concerns in a discreet way.* *Dan Levy, Josh Yardley, and Richard Zeckhauser. Working Paper. Getting an Honest Answer: Clickers in the Classroom HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series, RWP15-071. Retrieved from https://scholar.harvard.edu/danlevy/publications/getting-honest-answer-clickers-classroom   5. Anticipate Polling Surprises Your iClicker polling sessions have the power to revolutionize your learning sessions. Low-stakes feedback is as much for you the instructor as it is for your students.* Remember that iClicker Cloud allows you to ask questions on the fly, ask questions more than once, and compare polling results windows. You can ask one polling question multiple times in the same class, revealing to you how students’ understanding grows and changes. *Schwartz, K. (2014, January 6). The Importance of Low-Stakes Student Feedback. Retrieved from https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/33230/the-importance-of-low-stakes-student-feedback ... View more