8 - Using Clickers in a Statistics Classroom

Summary

This paper provides three lesson plans to demonstrate how clickers were used in an introductory statistical methods course. One of the lessons was used in the lecture setting, one was part of an exam review session, and the third shows an example of how clickers were used in a smaller lab setting. In each case advice relevant to implementing the lesson will be provided.

Background about the Course

Statistics 350 is a 4-credit course taught every semester (14 week term) at the University of Michigan. Most students are undergraduates taking this course to fulfill a requirement for their major or to fulfill a quantitative reasoning requirement that is necessary for graduation from the University. Course topics include descriptive statistics (numerical and graphical summaries), probability and sampling distributions. Extensive attention is also given to inference procedures, including confidence intervals and hypothesis testing for proportions (one- and two-sample), means (onesample, paired, independent, and one-way analysis of variance), simple linear regression, and chi-square analyses.

Students attend three hours of lecture and one 1.5 hour computer lab each week. There are six lecture sections that range in size from 60 students to over 400 students. The schedule of lectures also varies: There are sections offered each week as three one-hour sessions, two ninety-minute sessions, and one three-hour session. During any given week, however, the same basic material is covered in all lecture sections.