Large lecture courses often suffer from low participation. Many students are uncomfortable asking questions verbally during class. Using personal response systems, e.g., i>clicker, to ask multiple-choice (MC) questions is one technique often used to increase engagement in such courses. However, using MC questions for formative assessment does not reveal the students’ reasoning. In this seminar, we will discuss how allowing anonymous, digital questions increases participation dramatically and how including justification along with a MC answer can uncover misconceptions. In the second half of the session, we will engage in discussion about available student data for your courses and other data you’d like to be able to collect. Then, we’ll consider what you might do with the data and how we can expand the community of instructors who are using student behavior data to inform their teaching.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will learn what measures of student behaviors in class are available.

2. Participants will learn what measures of student background are available and what IRB approvals are needed.

3. Participants will learn how these data can inform instructors and create opportunities for personalized feedback.