Phase+5

**Data Summary**  // Bar Graph 1 // - Students were given a pre-assessment on the first day of the project implementation using the SMART response clickers. Students answered ten multiple choice format questions dealing with the significant topics that would be discussed the upcoming unit on Mitosis, Meiosis, and Cell Division. The results above in bar graph 1 show the grade each received on the pre assessment lesson. The professor posed as one student in the project to get an inside look at the students’ experiences with clicker use. Her results were not used to calculate the average on the pre-assessment. Each question was projected on a LCD screen and students had approximately 30 seconds to answer each question. The pre-assessment average was 40%.

 // Bar Graph 2 // -Students were given a post assessment on the final day of the unit composed of the same 10 questions that were during the pre-assessment. The teacher posed again as the same student during this assessment, and again her results were not used to calculate the average on this assessment. The average on the post assessment was 80.7%. Student scores improved by roughly 40% from the pre-assessment average.

** Survey Results ** - At the end of this project students were sent a survey via GoogleDocs to complete about their experience with using the clickers in class. They were given five questions and a scale to rank their experience from 1 to 5, 1 stating that they completely disagreed with statement, and a 5 stating that they completely agreed. Overall the results above show students enjoyed using the clickers, and felt they learned more because they used them.





** Data Interpretation ** Through use of the clickers the students excelled the expectations explained in the objectives of this assignment. For the first object, at least 80% of the participating students will improve their pre assessment grades bye 20% between pre and post assessment. The graphs show that most students increased their scores over 40% between taking the pre and post assessment. Only a one student did not increase his/her score to a passing grade by completion of the unit. From keeping in contact with the professor she informed me that students grades on weekly quizzes did increase, meeting the expectations of objective 2 at least 80% of the participating students will increase their weekly quiz grades, but she was unable to put these questions into the SMART response software as she had already made up the written quizzes prior to implementation of this project. The professor also informed me that when she did use the clickers she adjusted her teaching methods during classes when she used the clickers meeting goals set by objective 3, the instructor will be able to identify whether students are acquiring 80% of content by using the clickers. Finally, from the survey results objective 4, stating that students will develop a positive view of use of the clickers in classroom activities, show that students did enjoy using the clickers and gave high marks to their use in the areas of paying attention and making the class more enjoyable. Overall all four objectives set before implementation of SRS use were met, and technology use increased student performance. The pre and post assessment results in correlation with the survey results show that students performed better on assessments, and had a more positive experience in this unit with use of a SRS. One thing that stood out to me from the results is the huge jump students made in terms of performance between pre and post assessments. I expected to see an increase, but not one that was so significant. These results show that students learned more and were more engaged with classroom activities.

** Recommendations Part 1 ** If I were to perform this project again in another classroom, I would implement use of the SRS earlier on in the semester. This project took place following college spring break and span about 3 weeks after. I make this recommendation partly because of the amount of time it takes for both students and teacher to get used to using this technology regularly in the classroom. Secondly for the pre and post assessment questions I would modify them slightly between the twice assessments for the sake of students not just memorizing the questions and their corresponding answers. I would have also liked to gave the pre and post assessments to other classes without using the clickers to have a comparison of group performance.

** Recommendations Part 2 ** Through completing this project and seeing the performance of students increase, I am going to take this research and show other professors that I interact with daily, through training activities, what implementation of clickers can do for student performance. I’m hoping that word of mouth about the clickers will also be a way that I can implement use of this system into other classrooms. The college I work at is piloting a new SRS program and I hope that professors hear about it from coworkers that work on other campuses, and they in turn tell others about their experiences. Since I work in the training division of community college advertising and offering training opportunities is another way I hope to get people to adopt my innovation.

** Recommendations Part 3 ** In the future I would like to conduct this project across a variety of curriculums and compare results. Likewise I would like to see clicker implementation used in larger lecture based courses at the college and at the university level. I would like to look at the performance of specific sub groups, such as ESL or community college students verses university level students to see what results I would get. In future research opportunities I would span this project over several years to get sustainable data that proves my theories and thoughts about using SRSs in the higher education classroom.