Book and Media Review pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Review of Clickers in Action: Active Learning in Organic Chemistry Matthew J. Nee* Department of Chemistry, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky 42101, United States Clickers in Action: Active Learning in Organic Chemistry, by Suzanne M.Ruder. W. W. Norton & Co.: New York, 2013. 147 pp. ISBN: 9780393935677 (paperback). $31.
W
hile 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. Chapters 1−5 summarize background, practical aspects, and the design of clicker-centered courses for the uninitiated. A survey of literature, best practices, and other resources is provided, with mention of the ongoing controversy over the genuine effectiveness of clickers in the classroom. While some authors have found that clickers are able to make a statistically significant difference to student exam performance, many studies have found that they provide at best no benefit, in which case, the clickers are an unnecessary financial burden on © 2013 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Cover image provided by W. W. Norton & Co. and reproduced with permission.
the students. Ruder addresses this in the way that many seasoned educators do regarding not-quite-canonical techniques: it is all about how you use them. To support this claim, she goes into great detail about active learning, which can, of course, be done without clickers. Indeed, many of the student comments listed are those received by anyone who dedicates a portion of their class time to allow students to solve problems on their own or in groups. The advantages of clickers truly shine in trying to translate this approach into a larger classroom, where students can anonymously provide feedback (including their confidence in their abilities) without the fear of embarrassment or judgment from their peers or their instructor. Among the most useful lists in the first section of the book is a summary of what must be considered in determining the right classroom response system. Those who may be pioneering the use of such a system for their department or school will find the author’s experience invaluable in that sense, whether teaching general chemistry, organic chemistry, psychology, or any other course. The book also explains a number of more creative ways to use clickers to allow more flexible answers, using numerical inputs to break free of the strict multiple-choice approaches with which we are all familiar, and may find restricting. Even in organic chemistry, the use of numerical answers (even for nonnumerical questions) is very powerful, and is well explained here. Active learning’s more disruptive cousin, process-oriented, guided-inquiry learning (POGIL), is given its own chapter. The aim in this context is to use clickers to facilitate POGIL approaches even in large classrooms, although the primary advantage appears to be as a pacing device to ensure that students are able to stay on track during each class period. Published: November 15, 2013 1581
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed400772r | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 1581−1582
Journal of Chemical Education
Book and Media Review
The remaining 120 pages of the book are completely dedicated to example problems, sorted by topic, and in approximately the order that a typical full-year organic chemistry sequence might cover them. Unlike Asirvatham’s general chemistry version, there does not appear to be an electronic accompaniment, which may prove unfortunate in the general adoptability of the specific examples provided here. Regardless, for each question, the most correct answer is provided, and it is indexed by topical keywords and level of difficulty. A set of student responses from the author’s classes at Virginia Commonwealth University is provided. The most useful item for each question, however, is the set of notes underneath each question. It is clear that each question has been selected carefully to generate discussion (a critical component to successful active learning), and this thought process will certainly prove invaluable to nearly every reader, even those who prefer to write their own questions. Overall, this book is a concise and reasonably priced starter kit for those looking to extend clicker use into the organic chemistry classroom, and will also provide insight to those outside of that particular field.
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
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REFERENCES
(1) Asirvatham, M. R. Clickers in Action: Increasing Student Participation in General Chemistry; W. W. Norton & Co.: New York, 2009.
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed400772r | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 1581−1582
