22 Journal of College Science Teaching Using Clickers for Deliberate Practice in Five Large Science Courses By Linda C. Hodges, Eric C. Anderson, Tara S. Carpenter, Lili Cui, Elizabeth A. Feeser, and Tifany Malinky Gierasch Clickers are often used as an active learning tool in face-to-face classes to enhance student engagement and assess student learning. In this article we share the variety of ways that we use clicker questions to promote deliberate practice in large science courses. Deliberate practice is the use of specifcally structured exercises that develop the skills and habits of mind essential to improve performance. We use clickers across fve different courses in biology, chemistry, and physics at a midsize public research university to develop students’ abilities in scientifc reasoning and problem solving. We gathered students’ views of our practices using the Classroom Response System Perceptions (CRiSP) Questionnaire. Even given the differences in our approaches, the majority of the 1,614 students who responded reported that our clicker questions enhanced their motivation, attention, engagement, and participation in class. Students recognized that we used clickers to provide practice and feedback, addressing their learning needs in real time. Students were less positive about clicker questions making class more enjoyable, and a third of students reported answering without really understanding. These responses may refect that clickers require students to test themselves before the exam—a critical, though sometimes discomfting, step to learning. A popular tool to facilitate active learning is a class- room response system, of- ten referred to as a clicker. With this tool, students respond to instructors’ questions by clicking on their answer using a remote device (clicker) that communicates with the classroom computer. An anony- mous, quantitative compilation of responses can be displayed that provides feedback to both instruc- tors and students (reviewed in Bruff, 2009; Caldwell, 2007). Recent meta- analyses have synthesized results from numerous studies on the ef- fects of clicker questions on student learning (Castillo-Manzano, Castro- Nuño, López-Valpuesta, Sanz-Díaz, & Yñiguez, 2016; Chien, Chang, & Chang, 2016; Hunsu, Adesope, & Bayley, 2016). At a minimum, engaging students in answering clicker questions in class promotes their sense of self-effcacy (Hunsu et al., 2016), that is, the belief in their ability to do a certain task. Clicker questions also may aid conceptual learning (Chien et al., 2016; Hunsu et al., 2016), especially when used in peer-aided learning approaches (Liu et al., 2016). It is important to note that clickers used in other ways also enhance learning compared with lec- ture or verbal question–answer for- mats alone, presumably by providing students with immediate feedback in a nonintimidating way (Chien et al., 2016). MacArthur (2013) advocated for studies that focused on understand- ing how instructors use clickers as a way to stimulate their more wide- spread adoption. Few studies have compared clicker use across science disciplines at an institution (an ex- ception is Goacher, Moore, Sanchez, Schupp, & Tong, 2015). In this article, we share cross-disciplinary perspectives on ways to use clickers to provide students with deliberate practice in large science classes, fo- cusing on how we integrate them into class, plan questions, and provide feedback. We also share students’ perceptions of clickers used in this way gathered using a validated sur- vey, the Classroom Response System Perceptions (CRiSP) Questionnaire (Richardson, Dunn, McDonald, & Oprescu, 2015). Clickers for deliberate practice Deliberate practice is a distinct ap- proach to learning complex skills, such as those required in musical or athletic performance, and has been shown to be one key factor in the development of expertise (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Rӧmer, 1993). Science education researchers pro- pose the use of deliberate practice to develop expertise in science as well (Wieman, & Gilbert, 2015). Elements of deliberate practice (Er- icsson et al., 1993) include the fol- lowing: • cultivating motivation for the task, • building on prior knowledge to push to the next level, • receiving immediate informative feedback, and • repeating the key learning task.