Review of Clickers in Action: Active Learning in Organic Chemistry

摘要

While a great deal has been written about active learning approaches in the general chemistry sequence, reports of the same in organic chemistry courses have been slower to appear. Similarly, many departments have been faster to adopt the technologies into their lower-division coursework, but more hesitant to explore upper-division courses in this fashion, in part because of concerns about how best to use clickers in a course that is generally considered to be largely nonquantitative. Much like Margaret R. Asirvatham's similarly titled work did for general chemistry,~1 Ruder's svelte book is designed to motivate and encourage the use of classroom response systems (clickers) for use in organic chemistry courses. Like Asirvatham, Ruder begins with a relatively short summary of the motivations and recent literature regarding the use of this now-familiar technology. However, much has happened since the 2009 predecessor was published. The use of clickers is largely considered as a tool for use in active-learning techniques, rather than as a separate technology, which is reflected in Ruder's title and in the first few chapters. Many readers will recognize some of her suggestions about how best to use (or not use!) clickers from the behaviors and attitudes of their colleagues, or will identify with student comments or complaints from their own or others' courses. While a book on clickers naturally focuses on the positive feedback from students about how clickers help them stay engaged in class, think critically, and learn more deeply, this one offers a few words of good advice on activities to avoid. As the costs of tuition, fees, and course materials rises faster than average household income, students are disenchanted with instructors who use the clickers primarily as a means of taking attendance, or who use them exclusively for graded quizzes or even exams. While most systems on the market today have had the hardware bugs minimized for years, batteries and just plain forgetfulness on the part of students are unlikely to make any personal classroom technology perfect. If you choose to use a response system in your classroom, this text will help convince you that you must make it worth the cost to the student by carefully structuring the questions and critically analyzing the responses you receive to maximize student learning.