Blended Learning & Clickers@PolyU

More and more researchers and educators underscore the efficiency of knowledge transfer through active participation of students. Therefore, the increasing number and sizes of large classes, with fewer opportunities of in-class interactive activities, in higher education sector brings new challenges of effective learning. With an aim to engage students in a large class context, the current project propose the promotion of active learning through peer instruction, a pedagogy in which students discuss and learn from each other in a flipped classroom context, with the facilitation of student response system, an electronic device allowing students to answer questions and to get feedback instantly in class.

Peer instruction, pioneered by Prof. Eric Mazur and the Mazur Group at Harvard University, emphasizes the active participation in class through discussion on questions requiring understandings of underlying concepts in a small group setting. In large peer instruction classes, identifications of learning problems students encountered are able to attain via student response system. Clarifications of concepts are achieved through processes of asking questions and formulating answers.

The PolyU lead team has assembled more than 70 teachers from 5 faculties in over 30 subject areas across all levels of major and electives, and of various class sizes (i.e. 20 to 600 students).