How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?
Today's post is by guest writer Skoorby Listening to the radio today, I heard a story about the use of “clickers” in a classroom at Cleveland State University. Listen here . So it appears that the clickers increase engagement and enable instructors to assess students, but do they help learning? I thought back to my experience in teaching. I always annoyed my classes at the beginning of term (and so had small class sizes) by telling students that I would be “cold calling” – i.e., calling on them without prior notice to answer substantive questions in class, and that their participation grades would be influenced by their responses. My rationale was that if you’re constantly trying to keep yourself ready to answer, you’re more likely to pay attention, but more importantly, you’re likely to think beyond the material to form your own view. From my exposure to cognitive psychology, I figured that cold calling would increase something called “depth of processing”, known to be an im...