We also highly recommend that whatever grading policy is used, a certain number (2-3) of
“free” days are allowed. These are days for which the student will get credit even if there are no
clicker responses recorded for them. This greatly reduces the time student and instructor need
to spend dealing with complaints/excuses about clicker not working, being forgotten, missing
class due to any number of catstrophic events beyond students control, etc. An alternative
that is similar in concept is to set a certain percentage of questions students need to answer,
such as 80 or 90%, and once above that threshold they receive “maximum clicker credit”. We
have also seen that when clickers count for more than 15% of the grade, the amount of time
spent dealing with student concerns about being sure they receive credit for clicker responses
can get annoying. Finally we recommend that at the beginning of the course you should very
clearly announce that use of another person’s clicker, or having someone use your clicker, is
considered cheating with the same policies applying as would be the case for turning in illicit
written work.
Common grading policy
Equal credit for correct and incorrect responses (e.g. 2 ptsper response or 2 ptstotal
per class)
Pros
- Promotes balanced peer discussion, ideas put forth evenly from both partners
- Promotes a safe environment for students to answer what they honestly think rather than answering what they think the instructor wants.
Cons
- Less incentive to pay attention, think through a question, and commit to an answer.
Common grading policy
More credit for correct responses, some credit for any response (e.g. 3 pts correct / 2pts incorrect)
Pros
- More incentive to pay attention and actively work out an answer if the question is graded.
Cons
- Students may feel pressured to get the right answer, less incentive to share own reasoning and answer honestly.
- Promotes unbalanced peer discussion, more knowledgeable students can dominate discussion.
- Promotes memorization of answers from previous Terms.
- Not appropriate for all types of questions.
Common grading policy
Mixed:
Many participation only questions, some graded questions. (e.g. 2 pts per class for participation + 1 pt on graded questions if correct)
Pros
- Promotes process and
reasoning of figuring out
answer.
- Allows flexibility to grade only questions that are summative assessments.
- Having some graded questions keep students’ attention.
Cons
- More set-up or post-analysis to identify which are graded and which are participation
only (is fairly easy with some clicker software, not with some others).
3. How many clicker questions should I give in a lecture?
Most instructors find that between four and six questions that involve serious discussion and
reflection in a 50-minute class period works well. These should be distributed throughout
the lecture rather than all clumped at beginning or end. In general, students’ attention often
starts waning after about 10 minutes of straight lecturing. If one is using other active learning techniques in a lecture period, the number of clicker questions will likely be lower. For a review before an exam, it can often be more effective to fill the lecture period with many clicker questions rather than using other types of review.