Pedagogical Model

The most complete description and defense of the TEFA pedagogy has been published in our recent paper Technology-enhanced formative assessment: A research-based pedagogy for teaching science with classroom response technology. Below is an extraordinarily brief summary.

TEFA is designed around four pedagogical "pillars":

1. question-driven instruction (QDI),

2. dialogical discourse (DD),

3. formative assessment (FA), and

4. meta-level communication (MC).

TEFA structures classroom learning using a "question cycle".

1. present a question;

2. allow individual thinking or small-group work;

3. collect responses;

4. display a histogram of the responses;

5. elicit and discuss the reasoning behind each response;

6. continue discussing ideas, related situations, etc.; and

7. provide wrap-up or closure (summary, mini-lecture, segue to another question, etc.).

A "classroom response system" (CRS) facilitates interaction with students and supports the question cycle.

1. Students enter responses into radio-frequency "clickers";

2. a radio-frequency receiver communicates with clickers;

3. software aggregates the responses and presents a histogram of class-wide response choices; and

4. additional features support review, diagnosis, etc.