Promoting participation through clickers and small-team tasks: in-service teachers’ perceptions of large online classes

This study presents the opinions on clickers and small-group activities of 147 in-service teachers who took the “Metacognitive and cooperative approach” online module of the “Special specialization course for educational support activities for pupils with disabilities”, at the University of Verona, in 2020/21. The course included active teaching based on cooperative structures, frontal lessons and – to encourage engagement – ongoing feed-back sessions through Mentimeter, Google form and Zoom chat. A questionnaire was administered made up of 4 open questions and 30 items (Cronbach α = .917) on a 6-point Likert scale. 135 teachers responded (78.5% F). Good levels of satisfaction and interest are revealed; the clickers allow greater involvement than free in plenary discussion; the work in pairs/small groups is perceived as the most effective for learning. The thematic analysis confirms participants’ satisfaction with the collaborative activities and the role of feedback in facilitating greater engagement. The results reaffirm the importance of active methodologies and point to the usefulness of clickers and team-work to stimulate real-time discussion in big online university classes, promoting student-centred teaching/learning processes within detailed micro-planned lessons.