Robert B. Hermanson II
Instructor
Inegrative Physiology
University of Colorado at Boulder
354 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0354
303-492-8078
Robert.Hermanson@Colorado.EDU
Abstract
In the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Human Physiology Lab course, I find that students often have trouble integrating concepts presented in the preparatory lecture into the experimental protocol and are unable to predict outcomes of laboratory experiments.
Student response systems (SRS), such as iClickers, have shown to enhance learning in large lecture sections, as they encourage student interaction and active engagement. I want to assess whether iClickers can also help bridge the gap between prep lecture content and experimental procedure in laboratory sections.
In the 2009 Spring Semester, I will coordinate 16 sections of Human Physiology Labs. Although graduate teaching assistants (TAs) will lead these classes, I will provide standardized PowerPoint presentations in order to ensure consistency between TAs and across all sections. Each week, I will insert iClicker questions into the presentations given to half of the 16 sections, with the other half receiving iClicker questions the following week. End points of the study will be based on weekly post-lab assessments, testing concepts that are not directly addressed in the iClicker questions, and will be statistically analyzed.
I would like to use iClickers to promote interaction during the introductory prep lectures and then assess the students’ higher-order learning, such as application, analysis and synthesis.