9 - Engaging Statistics Students with Classroom Response Systems

Summary

Introduction

In this paper, I describe my use of a classroom response system to engage students in the probability and statistics course I teach for undergraduate engineering students. The system makes it possible for me to expect each of my students to think about and answer the questions I pose to them in class, leading to greater participation and engagement. The system also provides me with immediate feedback on all of my students' learning, allowingme to tailor my class sessions to the learning needs of my students. Furthermore, I have found that asking multiple-choice questions of my students in this way helps them develop conceptual understanding of important ideas in statistics. Conceptual understanding is the primary learning goal in this course, and it is one that can be difficult to achieve with students who are often focused on procedures and computations. Thus, clickers help me to create an active, responsive learning environment during class in which students are engaged with important course content.

Course Overview

The one-semester probability and statistics course in which I use a classroom response system is designed to introduce undergraduate engineering students to fundamental concepts and procedures frequently used in engineering applications. The course typically enrolls between forty and sixty students, most of whom are juniors or seniors. Although many of them have taken a probability or statistics course in high school, few of them bring any great interest in probability or statistics to the course.