Podcasts, Jumpstarting Discussion with Polling
Software, and JITT Quizzes in First Year Seminar
and the English Poetic
Tradition
Matthew Schneider
Podcasts
Problem
Jumpstarting and Sustaining Class
Discussion with Polling Software
Problem
Students in this FYS were born more than three decades after the Beatles
stopped making music together; and though the Beatles’ musical canon is
widely available, how can those who are relatively unfamiliar with the
band’s artistic evolution be quickly and efficiently introduced to their canon
of 217 songs?
Asking for unstructured student responses to open-ended, critical thinking
questions often leads to long, awkward silences; and the longer the silence,
the greater the intrepidity required to be the first to speak.
This problem is magnified by the purpose of First Year Seminar (FYS), which is
to initiate students into the intellectual culture of the university by examining
an issue, problem, concept, or hypothesis. FYS, in other words, are oriented
toward critical thinking skills development, not toward content coverage.
To devote substantial class time to listening to and discussing the Beatles’
canon runs counter to the pedagogical aims of FYS.
Use online polling tools to furnish visualizations of answers to questions,
responses to prompts, or opinions on a topic.
Still, some familiarity with the history and artistry of the Beatles is necessary to
evaluate the historical and critical hypotheses advanced in the course.
How can this familiarity be developed without taking up too much valuable
face-to-face time?
Solution
Example
To begin a discussion of the “bigger than Jesus” controversy, I ask for
students’ estimates on the state of religious belief in Britain and America
from the 1940s through the 1960s:
JITT—Just In Time Teaching
Problem
FYS endorses active learning, which requires students to talk, write about,
and apply concepts and ideas, not just memorize facts and then spit out
pre-packaged answers. Face-to-face instruction is most efficient and
effective when students have thought about course materials prior to class.
But how can students be incentivized to come to class prepared to think,
discuss, and learn?
Solution
In FYS, I use Just in Time Teaching to incentivize students to complete and
consider readings and other assignments before arriving in class. Every class
meeting is preceded by a required multiple-choice quiz designed to gauge
both the quantity and quality of student’s learning. Evaluation of the quality
of the student’s learning is accomplished through questions that require
them to choose not between right and wrong answers, but between
answers that are better and worse. For example, this question asks students
to choose the best prose paraphrase of a verse passage from a poem by
William Wordsworth:
Solution
Students listen to three podcasts, each of which includes commentary on
sample songs from the three periods of the Beatles’ career.
After the students have completed the quiz, and before class meets, I
use Blackboard’s “Item Analysis” feature to examine the student
response frequencies for selected questions of the quiz:
Students vote on the poll either by texting the appropriate code to 37607
or by pointing their web browsers to PollEv.com/funkyphd. The website
tallies the results and displays them in graphic form.
After listening to the podcast, students may earn extra course credit by
completing an online quiz:
PollEverwhere also supports open-ended responses, allowing students to
write on a virtual blackboard as thoughts or impressions occur to them:
Knowing that only 1/3 of the class selected what I identified as the best
answer enables me to query the students on why nearly 2/3 chose the
answer they did. Why did I think paraphrase three was best, and what
argument could be made for the position that paraphrase one is better?
Alternatively, the class could discuss why the second and fourth paraphrases
were not chosen—what do they lack? In either case, the quiz opens up
possibilities for fruitful means of enhancing students’ critical reasoning skills.
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