Enhancing Student Engagement in a Blended Resident and Online Course Using Clickers and Embedded Questions

Abstract

This paper describes the use of Clickers (small, mobile phone like electronic devices) and embedded questions in streaming videos for the purpose of student engagement in a course that was taught with a blended delivery model in a live resident classroom and also delivered to distance education students online. In order to provide the ability for instructors to engage students in a rich interactive environment, a creative use of Clickers and embedded questions was developed for a course in Mechanical Engineering-ME 201: Introduction to Thermal Sciences at Penn State.Details of how Clicker devices and specially designed Clicker questions are used to receive feedback of students in a resident classroom are first presented, followed by details of using similar questions embedded in streaming videos for online delivery. The student feedback collection and its analysis for both resident and online courses is discussed. The study shows that such an approach makes creative use of the modern instructional technologies to enhance the teaching-learning process and improve the understanding of students.