First week of school: a prime time to introduce students to clickers
In the early 90s when it seemed I was taking educational classes, workshops and seminars as fast as they were offered (motivated by the salary schedule that rewarded such efforts with a modest increase in pay), the focus was on things like “Cooperative Learning”, “Learning Styles”, “Multiple Intelligences” and, in math, “Problem Solving”.
One summer, I developed a “First week of school” action plan using many of the lesson ideas offered in these classes. I probably used it, with minor adjustments for about 5 years and found it to be especially helpful in developing positive relationships with students and developing a strong community for learning.
Here are a few of ways the response pads could be used to accomplish the same goal:
1. Introducing yourself: create a 10 question Q & A about yourself (with images of your family, home, vacation, favorite things, pets, hobbies) allowing the students to guess. Add humorous alternatives, if possible! (Thanks to Mr. Kellogg at Lowell Scott Middle School in Meridian for reminding me of this idea!)
Q: When Mrs. Jones was a teenager, she worked at ____________.
a. McDonald’s
b. Disneyland
c. getting a tan at Newport Beach
Answer: B with C as a close 2nd!
2. Introduce the students. Allow the students to create a list of 2 truths and a lie. Using Verbal mode, use 5 or 6 student submissions per day to help students get to know each other.
Q: Choose Kyle’s lie.
a. Kyle has vacationed in Paris.
b. Kyle has a V shaped scar on his knee from skateboarding.
c. Kyle still has his 1000 Pokemon card collection in his closet.
Allow the students to guess A, B or C. I would imagine the results would depend on how well the students already know each other and how thoughtful the choices are.
3. More academic ideas include:
a. Do a learning styles inventory.
b. Do some diagnostic questions for attitudes about your subject matter or current knowledge level.
c. Develop teams, learning groups or peer editing circles around some common survey questions.
Any other ideas?
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:49 am
I use my clickers to survey kids about their technology access at home: do they have a home computer, internet access, is it high speed or dialup, and what kinds of software have they already used before (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, video editing, etc.).
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:28 am
[…] Ideas for introducing clickers to your students during the 1st week of school […]
August 27th, 2007 at 7:16 am
[…] The First Week of School: Introducing Clickers August 27th, 2007 — Cathy Amy Jones, our eInstruction colleague in Idaho, maintains a great website (www.blueclickers.com) and a great blog called The Clicker Chronicles. She recently blogged about introducing clickers in the classroom. If you’re new to using clickers in the classroom or even are an experienced clicker user with a new set of students coming in, be sure and check out her great ideas! Posted in Engaging Technologies, CPS, Education, Technology. […]
August 27th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Amy,
Excellent idea on introducing clickers, I especially like the Truth or Lies game, I’d never used that. I alwasy encourage teachers to do an “All About Me” activity like you suggested or even use it in many different forms. Use the clickers as a true formative assessment device by intermittently checking for understanding about classroom rules or recess rules, while you’re actually going over them.
Questions like:
How do we line up?
When is the best time to reach Mr. Frank?
Do I accept late work?
Many of these can be very important procedures in your class that every teacher has to go over and bore students to death, but maybe your classroom rules are a little spiced up.
How about greeeting them at the door the 2nd day (Harry Wong) and having a short 3-4 question follow up to the previous days rules all set up on a timed assessment where the students have 30-40 seconds to review each question while you are taking care of administrative duties.
Using CPS as an “anticipatory set” or setting the tone for the class can be a very powerful tool.