Let’s do this.
Clickers are used to gain student involvement in even the largest classrooms. At Stony Brook University, a lot of our instructors will assign points to the students whether they get the question right or not. Sometimes the same amount of points, sometimes not – and sometimes those grades make it to the grade book and sometimes, they only measure whether the students were responsive enough to merit attendance for the day.
So what does it mean if the results manager shows a 0 in the situation where the instructor gives points whether the students got the answers wrong or not? First, make sure that the instructor marked something as correct. If most students have a grade of some sort – but one or two students have zeros across the board, this isn’t likely the issue. You can double check that something was marked as correct, by going to the Turningpoint Manage tab selecting a session, and clicking Edit Session.
example of the edit session window
In the above picture you can see that answer 1 is marked correct and that both incorrect and correct answers would get a value of 1. So this doesn’t account for the 0 in the results manager or grade book.
The next thing that could be wrong, could be that the student unwittingly was in “Send Message” mode, rather than just in the regular polling mode. To find out if this is the case, go to Manage tab, then while having a session highlighted, click the Reports button.
where to find the Session Log report
Then for the type of report, choose “Session Log.” Here is where Turningpoint keeps messages that were sent to you when polls were open. You can see below, someone did in fact send “Hi.”
Session Log from Turningpoint
However, you can also see that two students were sending in what they thought were answers to the polls. If these students have zeros – you now know why.
Students could use laptops, ipod touches, or smart phones in class to respond to questions from the instructor. If you keep the “poll” or quiz open, you can also collect answers asynchronously for online/flipped learning. The answers are dumped to a spreadsheet, so you have all the data for assessment, attendance and participation.
poll seen from iphone
Skip to around 9 minutes in to hear Clayton Christensen’s keynote. It is definitely the story of those who pay no attention to history are doomed to repeat it, with great storytelling analogies involving the steel and automotive industries. I was particularly interested in the bit about how the only companies to survive the industry disruption were those who set up a silo operation whose task it was to take down and control the main companies interests. (edX anyone?)
Also some interesting points about the significance of our Alumni and how so few things we do for students contribute to their ultimate support of our brand. (And how those things that do matter are not given any consideration in any meaningful way.)
Around 2 hours 20 minutes in, is a talk by Karen Harpp which has a very interesting description of the engagement of alumni and the current students for a particular class on the development of the atomic bomb. This included face to face and video conference interaction with the alumni. She also discusses a nice project that went over the course of several weeks where students did roleplay on twitter.
how alumni participated during the course
In between the Keynote and the talk about the innovative course talk, was a panel of college presidents, which I found to be rather disingenuous. I couldn’t help but think that these people got their positions because of their ability to talk and represent themselves well, not necessarily because they were actually suited to be candidly talking about disruption happening in higher education.
I am a designated reviewer for the Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning for the track “Technology and Emerging Learning Environments.” I look forward to seeing what others are doing in the field.
a slide from the training I attended today.
Jennifer Adams is the principal license holder and chair of TEDxSBU
In case, like me, you missed the live event.
on location in SAC A setting up
These faculty are three of six finalists for the 2014 Indianapolis Prize, the world’s leading award for animal conservation.
Please join Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., MD, as he opens this historic, interactive Earthstock event. Don’t miss theopportunity to meet and tweet alongside three of the most important and heroic wildlife conservationists of our time at the#IndyAtSBU tweetup.
Mingling and refreshments afterward.
TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 2014
Noon to 1:30 pm
STUDENT ACTIVITIES CENTER BALLROOM A • STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Register in advance to attend in person (form)
To follow and join the conversation go to #IndyAtSBU via Twubs
About Stony Brook University’s Indianapolis Prize Finalists
RUSSELL A. MITTERMEIER, PhD,@RussMittermeier @ConservationOrg, is the president of Conservation International and an adjunct professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences. He has been nominated for his efforts to understand and educate others about the worldwide threats to biodiversity, his global efforts to conserve primates, and his work to create protected areas in some of the world’s highest priority hotspots.
CARL SAFINA, PhD,@carlsafina, @BlueOceanInst, is a research professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and a visiting professor and board member of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. Founder of Blue Ocean Institute and known as the “voice of ocean conservation,” he has been sounding the alarm for the preservation of marine animals and the oceans that house them.
PATRICIA WRIGHT, PhD,@patcwright, is the founding director of Centre ValBio and the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments and a professor of anthropology. She has been recognized for her tireless work with lemurs in Madagascar, including the development of Ranomafana National Park, the home of 12 lemur species, some of which are listed among the world’s most endangered animals.
Representing the Indianapolis Prize
ROBERT SHUMAKER, PhD, @IndplsPrize, is Vice President of Life Sciences at the Indianapolis Zoo, which administers the Indianapolis Prize. He is internationally recognized as a leading expert on orangutan behavior and cognition. He’s been a faculty member at George Mason University and Drake University. Dr. Shumaker started his career at the Smithsonian National Zoo and also served as the senior scientist at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa.
Oculus Rift
I’m looking into a tree. But — I could be watching a chemical reaction floating overhead finish a simple reaction. What would you do with this to teach more effectively?