At a Glance
Students use classroom response technology to complete lessons and give the instructor immediate information about the efficacy of a lesson.
The Health Occupations instructor at North Montco Technical Career Center uses instructional technology to improve students understanding of health related vocabulary. By incorporating the use of clickers as a student response technology, the instructor is able to gauge if students are learning the lessons content and medical terminology. The technology provides instant feedback that enables the instructor to revise teaching based on student feedback during the lesson.
The instructor has developed over 30 lessons that correspond to her PowerPoint slides and incorporate the use of this technology. In addition, the instructor created a worksheet to analyze student responses to inform her instruction. This data enabled her to review materials and portions of her lessons that were not understood by participants in the class. The instant feedback, or formative assessment, from the classroom response technology enables the instructor to revise instruction and provide just in-time remediation before moving to another topic.
Origin / Implementation
The student response clickers were purchased in the summer of 2013. The use of this technology was started as a result of the programs dual enrollment class with the local community college. The instructor felt that she needed better and more immediate feedback to ensure students were learning at the college level. The formative assessment data from the technology allows the instructor to revise instruction just in-time and to ensure student acquisition of the key terminology and vocabulary of the lesson. As the instructor developed lessons using the technology, she discovered her Level 1 students found the technology to be very valuable and asked for additional lessons to be developed in the same manner.
Results / Impact
The instructor started using the technology to address changes in the NOCTI. During the 2013-14 school year, the program changed CIP codes and the NOCTI exam from Nurse Assisting to Health Assisting. The instructor knew she needed to refocus her instruction to meet the new exams criteria and program of study competencies. The instructor revised her curriculum to include little chunks of information related to NOCTI tasks and duties and prepared lessons using the technology. This provided instant feedback and formative assessment data. Students polled during the interview with the instructor indicates that they felt the technology greatly improved their content knowledge. Since this was the first time students took the Health Assisting NOCTI it was difficult to measure the effectiveness of this instructional strategy. The instructor is willing to share her PowerPoint presentations and assessments; please contact her directly.
North Montco Technical Career Center
Teresa England-Lewis, Health Occupations Instructor