Candy Land: Engaging Students in Class

Social media, cell phones, Candy Crush, the crossword in the student newspaper, and worries about the exam in the next class are among the many distractors competing for students’ attention in class. Teaching in this potentially distraction-filled environment can pose significant challenges for instructors. Use of active learning techniques such as in-class activities, problem solving exercises, discussions, and questioning draw students’ attention to the task at hand and help keep them engaged. Effective use of humor and fun are important tools in this endeavor. Numerous studies cite the importance of building positive rapport as a critical factor in promoting student learning. This study investigates the effectiveness of using candy in engineering classrooms and recommends methods of developing positive rapport using candy. Some faculty may be concerned about the use of candy in college classrooms as unprofessional or as a trick to curry student favor. Accordingly, students from four universities, both public and private, and from different geographical regions within the United States were asked for input about the use of candy in engineering courses. Results indicate that students feel that candy is an appropriate tool in college education and a majority agreed that candy use is not distracting or unprofessional. Similarly, students considered candy as a means for motivating them to pay attention and participate. The authors provide recommendations on how to incorporate use of candy in the classroom and list common pitfalls to avoid. This study demonstrates that, if used correctly, candy can aid student learning in college engineering classrooms. No Sugarcoating: An Introduction to using candy in the classroom Is ‘having fun’ relevant to learning engineering? Can use of humor or candy help promote fun? Will students perceive use of candy as unprofessional or distracting? Will students take a class or professor less seriously if candy is used? Will colleagues frown upon use of candy in the classroom? These important questions, sometimes expressed as concerns by faculty, provided the motivation for this study. Each of the authors has made an intentional choice to use candy in support of student learning. However, each of us has also asked and been asked the questions presented above. Frequently, concerns are expressed by junior faculty who may not have been exposed to the concept of ‘having fun’ in a college classroom or who may be concerned about students’ perceptions of their role as leader in the classroom. Some faculty have expressed concern that students may consider use of candy or humor as unprofessional or inappropriate in engineering classrooms. Appropriate use of candy, as with any tool in the classroom, can help engage students, especially when coupled with appropriate use of humor. Numerous sources in engineering education literature describe the importance of engaging students as active participants to improve contextual understanding and retention of material 2, 3, 4, 5, . Instructional strategies that focus on the learner enhance student learning, increase interest in engineering, and can even help retain engineering students by building connections with peers and with instructors 3, . Lowman’s “Two Dimensional Model of Effective College Teaching” 7 presents the importance of interpersonal rapport in maintaining an environment conducive to student learning. Lowman describes college classrooms as “complex arenas in which a variety of emotional reactions can influence how much is learned and how the participants feel about it.” 7 Student motivation is likely increased in a classroom perceived by students to be a supportive learning environment, as established by the nature and content of communications among students and with the instructor. Bain describes “outstanding teachers” as professors who “achieved remarkable success in helping their students learn in ways that made a sustained, substantial, and positive influence on how those students think, act, and feel.” Trust and openness in a classroom can enable students to ask or answer questions without fear of reproach or embarrassment. Such an environment can be created in a classroom where students are acknowledged or rewarded for catching an error on the board, providing a particularly insightful answer, leaving the comfort zone of their seat to help with a demonstration or to post their answer on the board, or focusing on the task at hand in a group learning exercise. Fun, games, demonstrations, recognition, and rewards can be used effectively to connect with students as individuals, in addition to engaging the class as a whole . In addition to serving as rewards, candy-based demonstrations can be added to the pantheon of food-based teaching aids used in engineering classrooms 13 and at the K-12 level 15, . Foodbased demonstrations allow students to connect their learning to materials with which they are already familiar. These demonstrations have the added advantages of being readily available and relatively inexpensive. Freeman and Wash identify humor as one of ten “brain-based” strategies to increase effectiveness of teaching and learning in the college environment. “College professors should be able to bring humor to the classroom, laugh at their mistakes, and teach students that life is a joy, both inside and outside of the classroom. It is important not only to love the subject area, but also to remember it is being taught to real people with emotions and worries. Lightening the load with a bit of humor could mean all the difference for a student’s success in the course.” Appropriate use of humor in the classroom can be used to reduce stress, liven up a classroom by varying the class structure, and even help develop a sense of community among students who are familiar with the line of humor. In this paper, we present ways in which candy, sometimes combined with engineering “humor,” can be used in support of student learning. Students were surveyed on their perception of candy use in the classroom. The survey and results obtained from 96 students at four universities are presented and indicate support for, and appreciation of, candy use in engineering courses. Chewing on the Idea: Methods The survey was designed to quantify the effect of candy use on student attitude and engagement during class and to elicit student perspectives regarding the appropriateness of using candy in the college classroom. Students were asked to respond to four statements using a Likert scale ranging from “Strongly Agree”, to “Agree”, “Neutral”, “Disagree”, and “Strongly Disagree”. The statements assessed student views from both a positive perspective and a negative perspective to validate responses. The four statements were: 1. Candy is distracting. 2. Candy helps motivate students to pay attention and participate 3. Candy is appropriate for a college classroom 4. It is unprofessional to use candy in an engineering classroom. The survey included demographic information to determine the university and course level in which candy was used. Ninety-six students at four universities, the Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT), the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD), the University of the Pacific (UOP), and York College of Pennsylvania (YCP), located in different geographic regions across the United States completed the survey. Two private, UOP and YCP, and two public universities, OIT and UMD, were included and students’ academic standing ranged from sophomore through senior years, as shown in Table 1. Table 1: Summary of student survey respondent characteristics. University Public or Private Geographical Area in US Course Grade Level Course Type Number of Respondents U1 – UMD Public Midwest Senior Elective 22 U1 – UMD Public Midwest Junior Required 28 U2 – YCP Private Eastern Sophomore Required 27 U3 – UOP Private West Coast Junior Required 14 U4 – OIT Public Northwest Senior Required 5 Short and sweet: Assessment results and discussion Survey results were compiled numerically by assigning values to the Likert scale as follows: Strongly Agree = 5, Agree = 4, Neutral = 3, Disagree = 2, and Strongly Disagree = 1. Analysis of responses of all 96 students, shown in Figure 1, indicates that students overwhelmingly responded positively to the use of candy in the classroom. In fact, no student agreed or strongly agreed that candy is distracting and only one student responded that it is unprofessional to use candy in the classroom. Mean values of student responses for both statements were at or close to 1.5, as shown in Figure 1. As shown in Figure 1, students agreed that use of candy was appropriate in the college classroom, as indicated by a mean score of 4.2. Only two students disagreed with this statement. Interestingly, these same two students disagreed that candy was unprofessional in the classroom, one agreed that it helped motivate students, and the other student’s response was “neutral” regarding the effect of candy on motivation. The largest variation in student responses was observed in regards to the question about whether candy helps motivate students to pay attention and participate. The mean response was 3.5, indicating a slightly positive view. The distribution of responses is shown in Figure 2. Although the majority of students agreed with, or were neutral about, the question of candy as a motivating factor, eight students disagreed and four strongly disagreed. The four students who strongly disagreed were all from university “U1,” UMD in the Midwest. This led to a question as to whether responses varied by school type, location or course grade level. The average of student responses for each question by surveyed class is shown in Figure 3. As seen in Figure 3, there do not appear to be any clear trends in responses based on grade level, school type or class type. Students at university “U4,” OIT did express the lowest support for candy in the classroom