Core Area 1a: An understanding of the constraints and benefits of different technologies

Guidelines

You should show how you have used or supported others to use technology appropriately, given the constraints and benefits it provides within your context. You should consider how you compared and contrasted the constraints and benefits of different technologies to meet the specific needs of users (students or staff).

Using technology to provide formative feedback

Background

When I first started teaching at Higher Education straight after my PhD, I was thrust straight into large cohort teaching having had no experience or training for delivering this type of teaching. The first year was a very steep learning curve. I was keen to find out whether or not students were understanding the content I was delivering. Additionally, one of my main goals was to become what Biggs and Tang (2007) refer to as a Level 3 teacher: a teacher who focuses on what the student does and how they construct their knowledge through various activities of the module. At that time, the Department of Psychology had invested in ‘clickers’ using Responseware software which allowed students to vote on Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) presented to them via PowerPoint. At the time, and on the advice of more experienced staff, I integrated these MCQs into my teaching as a way for students to practise MCQs in relation to the content (since the summative assessment was a MCQ exam) but also to help me identify where misunderstandings may have taken place and subsequently address them.

Using this platform seemed to work in terms of giving students practice with MCQs but I felt the platform was limiting the way I could provide effective feedback on deep learning. Additionally, using MCQs in this way was limiting the way students could self-assess and the degree to which I could understand the extent of their learning since they were simply selecting an answer from a choice of four rather than creating their own content. Linking back to my goal of becoming a teacher concerned with how students construct (and co-construct with their peers) their learning with the activities they do, I was keen to find ways in which students could use technology to create content. One of the key characteristics of whichever new platform I chose was that it should be easily accessible from a Smartphone because not all students owned laptops, and those who did did not always bring them along to lectures. Finding a new platform where students could create content would allow me to provide immediate formative feedback on deeper learning rather than surface learning.

A solution

At an institutional workshop, I learned about a platform, mentimeter.com, that enables students to use an internet connected device (e.g. Smartphone) to text in (among other things) open-ended anonymous responses to questions. At the same time, I also became aware that Responseware (the software used for the clickers) also had an additional function allowing users to text in content via Smartphones. A colleague who was a big user of Responseware showed me how it worked from both the presenter (i.e. teacher) and student view. A big difference between this and Menti was the aesthetics of the interface which clearly would affect user experience (see images below). Additionally, it was much more cumbersome to set up the questions in Responseware, although one benefit was that the questions could be integrated into PowerPoint slides for the session and the University had paid for an educational licence to use the platform (whereas with Mentimeter, I would have to either use the limited tools on the free account or buy an annual educational licence with my own University funds). Another platform I considered was Kahoot which has similar tools to Mentimeter, and also had similar issues with regard to cost. However, looking at the website of Kahoot, it did seem to be aimed at schools rather than Higher Education and I didn't want students to feel as though they were using a system that wasn't appropriate for their age group. Additionally, at the time, Mentimeter was slightly more cost effective and allowed me to download the responses of students (which is often useful if using their responses for other purposes), and allowed unlimited audience numbers (unlike Kahoot which with the cheapest paid package was still limited to 200 and our cohorts tend to be around 220). After an informal analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of these three platforms, I decided to use Mentimeter and paid for an account with my own University funds.

I began to use Mentimeter (and still do) in all my teaching but particularly in large cohort teaching (see image below which shows my homepage). This has opened up ways in which students can create content, enabling more flexibility in self-assessing. It also allows me to provide more useful immediate feedback on deep learning, addressing subtle misunderstandings that MCQs may not detect. In that sense, I am able to provide my students in large cohorts particularly with direct, immediate and useful formative feedback. A main positive of this platform is that the responses sent in via the Smartphones appear on the main screen as anonymous responses so students are unaware who has made the different contributions. Due to my background in Cyberpsychology, I knew this would lead to students being more willing to share their thoughts. According to Walther's Hyperpersonal Theory of Computer-Mediated Communication, the more anonymity a platform offers, the more likely users are to self-disclose because they feel less inhibited (Walther, 2007). Thus, having a platform that allowed this anonymity was a major benefit.

Student evaluations have shown that students find these methods valuable, seeing the opportunity to revise material and to get feedback straight away as useful for their learning. I was later to learn at a teaching conference that this provision to immediately revise content also fits with research on memory; giving learners the opportunity to test and recall their learning straight after the learning takes place leads to greater memory consolidation of that learning (e.g. Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). I intend to keep using this strategy to help students consolidate their understanding. It has also been invaluable to me as a teacher as it immediately highlights gaps in student knowledge that I need to address in my teaching. Additionally, it has been very useful when teaching went partially and then wholly online during the COVID-19 pandemic. I used Mentimeter regularly to ask students for their contributions rather than using the chat on Zoom or Collaborate because it gave them a higher level of anonymity which resulted in more students contributing to the questions I posed and more students asking questions.

Limitations and the future

Although students attitudes seem to reflect a positive experience of Mentimeter, I have noticed that not all students engage with the activities which could be problematic as they may not be using this tool as I intended (i.e. to check their own understanding). This is not just intriguing (and perhaps slightly frustrating) to me but could also affect their learning. There could be a few reasons for the non-engagement. First, students may not find Mentimeter accessible either because they do not own a Smartphone or the interface is not accessible to them (e.g. students need to use a screen reader). Although Mentimeter is set up to allow the use of screen readers, students may find using them in a lecture hall setting awkward or embarrassing. I therefore need to be mindful of those students who are not engaging with the activity due to inaccessibility and see if there are options I can use to make it more inclusive. One way I currently try to do this is to ask students to work in pairs and for one of the students to text in their answer. A second reason for students not engaging with Mentimeter is that students may be opting out of the activity either because they do not want to use their Smartphone in this way or because they simply do not want to do the activity. This might reflect a level of apathy which may be difficult to address. Nevertheless, students can still learn vicariously through the contributions of their fellow students and the feedback I provide on those contributions.

Although as an institution we collect student evaluations of the teaching of all staff and some of my own evaluations have reflected positive student attitudes towards using Mentimeter, I have not specifically asked students for their feedback on the use of this platform in teaching sessions. Via word of mouth from colleagues, it seems that the use of Mentimeter particularly during the time of the pandemic has been a very positive tool for students to use. However, I am conscious of the fact that I do not necessarily know what students do and do not find useful about the use of Mentimeter in teaching. Additionally, as mentioned above, I do not know why some students choose not to engage in its use. Moving forward then, I aim to ask students more direct questions about the use of Mentimeter to see if there are different tools that might be more suitable and/or different ways in which Mentimeter can be used to support student learning. This can be integrated into my analysis of the different tools available to ensure the choice of platform I use is the most appropriate. This will be particularly important as and when new tools get added to (or deleted from) Mentimeter, or other platforms are made available. For example, following the feedback from colleagues across the university after experiences in 2020-21, the University is currently looking at alternatives to Responseware that offer similar benefits to Mentimeter. If another platform becomes freely available through the University, I will need to again decide whether paying for my own Mentimeter account is the best option or whether the alternative can fulfil the needs of my teaching and the learning experience of my students. I can then share the feedback from students as well as my analysis of the different platforms with my colleagues (many of whom also use Mentimeter) through my role as Teaching Enhancement Champion (see 1c for more information)

Evidence

When deciding on which platform to use, I listed the different elements of each to inform my decision. This can be seen in the table here:

Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of Responseware, Mentimeter, and Kahoot